Podcasts about btus

In this short podcast episode, Bryan talks about EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio) and SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) and how to calculate EER in the field. EER and SEER are ratings that we often see on equipment (as are SEER2 and EER2) based on a ratio of an output to an input. Whereas coefficient of performance (COP) is a direct ratio of watts out to watts in, EER and SEER account for BTUs and watts. EER and SEER indicate the cooling capacity (in BTUs) we get from the watts we put in. The ratio changes based on field conditions, and EER2 and SEER2 have more realistic test conditions than EER and SEER (the static pressure for systems rated below 65,000 BTUs per hour was 0.1"wc for EER and SEER, and it is now 0.5"wc for EER2 and SEER2, which is much closer to average field conditions). To determine EER, you have to figure out BTU production and stack it against your wattage. You'll need to know your delta enthalpy (delta H), multiply it by the CFM, and then multiply the product of those by 4.5 to get your BTU output. A calculator on apps like measureQuick can help you find out your delta H, but you'll need a proper wet-bulb temperature before you can do that. You can determine CFM with a TrueFlow grid or manufacturer's blower charts. Finding watts can be a challenge with ECMs and inverter-driven systems; it's not as simple as volts x amps, and you will need a meter that can measure power factor and take readings from the condenser fan, compressor, and blower motor. That wattage becomes the number you divide into BTUs to get the EER. SEER is averaged over a season, HSPF is for heating instead of cooling, and you can convert the BTUs to watts (by multiplying by 3.41) and determine the ratio of watts out to watts in.   Have a question that you want us to answer on the podcast? Submit your questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/hvacschool. Purchase your tickets or learn more about the 6th Annual HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. Subscribe to our podcast on your iPhone or Android. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Check out our handy calculators here or on the HVAC School Mobile App for Apple and Android

David Simpkins, Director of Technology at Polygon, delves into the world of construction heating and moisture control solutions in a recent presentation from their North Andover office near Boston. Simpkins introduces three varied heat options that cater to the diverse demands of construction sites, ensuring an optimal climate for efficient operations. The Spectrum of Heaters Simpkins unveils a direct-fired 2.5 million BTU heater, suitable for applications that can manage 100% outside air. However, this powerful unit sacrifices recirculation for effective ventilation, resulting in higher energy costs and combustion products in the airstream. On the other hand, a 150 kW electric heater enables air recirculation either inside the space or adjacent to the building, trading a lesser half a million BTUs for cleaner ventilation. Two versions of the million BTU indirect-fired heaters introduce the option of mixed air – recirculating the inside air while simultaneously drawing in outside air. Energy Efficiency and Controlled Environments These indirect-fired units, functioning like a furnace that secludes the combustion products from the air, present a more energy-efficient option. Moreover, these heaters also provide the prospect of adding desiccant dehumidification, allowing independent control of temperature and humidity. Simpkins highlights how this feature is crucial for certain construction processes that require precise environmental conditions, like drywall drying and millwork installation. Match the Heater to the Project To close out, Simpkins ensures that Polygon's dedicated business development team is always eager to assist in selecting the best-suited equipment from their extensive range for any project. Experience the difference with Polygon's advanced construction heating solutions, effortlessly managing moisture and temperature in your construction environment for optimal results.

David Simpkins, Director of Technology at Polygon, delves into the world of construction heating and moisture control solutions in a recent presentation from their North Andover office near Boston. Simpkins introduces three varied heat options that cater to the diverse demands of construction sites, ensuring an optimal climate for efficient operations. The Spectrum of Heaters Simpkins unveils a direct-fired 2.5 million BTU heater, suitable for applications that can manage 100% outside air. However, this powerful unit sacrifices recirculation for effective ventilation, resulting in higher energy costs and combustion products in the airstream. On the other hand, a 150 kW electric heater enables air recirculation either inside the space or adjacent to the building, trading a lesser half a million BTUs for cleaner ventilation. Two versions of the million BTU indirect-fired heaters introduce the option of mixed air – recirculating the inside air while simultaneously drawing in outside air. Energy Efficiency and Controlled Environments These indirect-fired units, functioning like a furnace that secludes the combustion products from the air, present a more energy-efficient option. Moreover, these heaters also provide the prospect of adding desiccant dehumidification, allowing independent control of temperature and humidity. Simpkins highlights how this feature is crucial for certain construction processes that require precise environmental conditions, like drywall drying and millwork installation. Match the Heater to the Project To close out, Simpkins ensures that Polygon's dedicated business development team is always eager to assist in selecting the best-suited equipment from their extensive range for any project. Experience the difference with Polygon's advanced construction heating solutions, effortlessly managing moisture and temperature in your construction environment for optimal results.

As notícias de hoje incluem a Apple aparentemente encerrando a produção do Vision Pro, o Telegram começando o ano com recursos para NFTsde presente e novo sistema de verificação de contas, a placa de vídeo RTX 5090 da NVIDIA pode ter 24 GB de memória na sua versão para notebooks graças a uma nova tecnologia, a Tesla registrando a primeira queda nas vendas de carros elétricos desde 2012 e o site da Poco saindo do ar para dar início a reunificação da empresa com a Xiaomi. Boa noite e bem-vindos ao Hoje no TecMundo, o seu resumo diário de tecnologia!

In today's podcast, Bryan talks with legendary Hydronics author and trainer Dan Holohan about the history of steam heating and some practical applications of old ideas. Recently, Dan has been working on more novels, having published two of them over the past few months. Steam heating is a “lost art” nowadays; it has become increasingly uncommon and has been disappearing since the Vietnam War. Many people who understood steam heating either retired or died after the Vietnam War. Many elements of steam heating are difficult to understand or surprising. (For example, steam pressure has a surprising relationship with velocity: low-pressure steam moves through piping much more quickly than high-pressure steam.) So, Dan Holohan is on a mission to revive that knowledge and teach the newer generations about the lost art. There are many older steam heating systems still operating today, especially in the older large buildings in New York. Dan learned a lot about steam heating when working on these old systems and optimizing them. Most of the time, he optimized those systems by removing unnecessary accessories, not by adding components like steam traps. Many old boilers used coal as a heat source. Nowadays, many old boilers have been fitted with conversion oil burners with thermostats, but they are still piped for coal. Some systems now have multiple risers or massive vents on the main riser to prevent the thermostats from getting too hot too early and satisfying the thermostat too early. We call that master venting, which reduces pressure and allows steam to move very quickly and efficiently. Dan also discusses: The 2-PSI standard Transportation metaphors for BTUs in steam Harmful renovations for old boilers Replacement vs. restoration mindsets Gaps in steam boiler education Monopolizing the market if you HAVE the education Boiler piping and venting Two-pipe vs one-pipe steam   Find out more about Dan and hydronic heating at HeatingHelp.com. Have a question that you want us to answer on the podcast? Submit your questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/hvacschool.  Purchase your tickets or learn more about the 6th Annual HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. Subscribe to our podcast on your iPhone or Android.   Subscribe to our YouTube channel.  Check out our handy calculators here or on the HVAC School Mobile App for Apple and Android.

Listen to hear what's coming in hot for 2025! There are so many exciting trends that are popping up, and we are here for it! Have a look at the gorgeous wallpaper from Morris and Co that Kelly used for her client's kitchen. See it HERE. You can actually order this pattern from Home Depot! Farrow & Ball Caulk Green is a beautiful paint that looks fantastic with the Black Thorn wallpaper. See it HERE. Kelly's blog post on BTUs to help you understand the type of range hood you might need. Read it HERE. DTT defines scullery We are including affiliate links to Amazon and other retailers. If you make a purchase we may earn a small fee at no cost to you. CRUSHES: The Talking Gardens podcast from Gardens Illustrated magazine is Kelly's crush this week. Have a listen HERE. Anita's crush are the plaid Christmas chargers HERE Need help with your home? We'd love to help! We do personalized consults, and we'll offer advice specific to your room that typically includes room layout ideas, suggestions for what the room needs, and how to pull the room together. We'll also help you to decide what isn't working for you. We work with any budget, large or small. Find out more HERE Hang out with us between episodes at our blogs, IG and Kelly's YouTube channels. Links are below to all those places to catch up on the other 6 days of the week! Kelly's IG HERE Kelly's Youtube HERE Kelly's blog HERE Anita's IG HERE Anita's blog HERE Are you subscribed to the podcast? Don't need to search for us each Wednesday let us come right to your door ...er...device. Subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. Just hit the SUBSCRIBE button & we'll show up! If you have a moment we would so appreciate it if you left a review for DTT on iTunes. Just go HERE and click listen in apple podcasts. XX, Anita & Kelly DI - 10:21/30:20 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this short podcast, Bryan talks about evaporator coil placement based on a question submitted by a listener, John. Evap coil placement differs in furnace applications versus air handlers. When we use air conditioners with furnaces, we usually put evaporator coils on the positive side to protect the heat exchanger from rusting out during the summer (due to condensation and the chemical reactions that can occur with the metal heat exchanger). However, when it comes to air handlers, they're usually on the negative side. The coil is usually on the negative side of a fan coil or air handler because it keeps the blower motor cooler (though that doesn't make a huge difference in terms of performance).  The HVAC system will lose fewer BTUs to leakage when the coil is on the negative side, which is better for energy efficiency; those BTUs can reach the conditioned space rather than the closet, garage, or wherever it is stored. Pulling air over the evaporator coil on the negative side, however, could potentially lead to greater turbulence.  We run into challenges with evap coil placement on gas furnaces when we have dual fuel systems (a heat pump and furnace working together). You can't run gas heat over a heat pump coil due to the high head pressure, so a parallel setup would avoid the risks of high head pressure (downstream) or rusted-out heat exchangers (upstream).    Have a question that you want us to answer on the podcast? Submit your questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/hvacschool.  Purchase your tickets or learn more about the 6th Annual HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. Subscribe to our podcast on your iPhone or Android.   Subscribe to our YouTube channel.  Check out our handy calculators here or on the HVAC School Mobile App for Apple and Android.

In this short Q&A podcast, Bryan answers a listener-submitted question about apps for doing proper loads. Fred specifically asks about apps or charts that can help an HVAC contractor determine the insulation value of a home without assuming numbers or drilling into walls during load calculations. Load calculations account for all the ways that BTUs can enter or leave a home: conduction, convection, and radiation. Insulation prevents heat transfer via conduction, so it's important to the load calculation process. High-end HVAC design software like Wrightsoft and Kwik Model 3D will have these features built into them (based on the age and location of the home). ASHRAE's handbook also has tables and data with R-values and U-factors to help you out with Manual J load calculations. RED Calc is an app that allows you to calculate a wall's R-value with measurements, including surface and air temperatures indoors and outdoors. This RED Calc software is available through the U.S. Department of Energy, as is REScheck. The DOE insulation fact sheet is also quite valuable, as are The Engineering Toolbox and materials straight from the insulation manufacturers. The best way to get a comprehensive load calculation is to have a lot of tribal knowledge about how houses are built in your area, analyze energy bills, and combine tools like RED Calc with building performance tests.   RED Calc is available through the U.S. DOE at https://basc.pnnl.gov/redcalc. REScheck is available at https://www.energycodes.gov/rescheck.  ASHRAE's resources are available at https://ashrae.org/technical-resources.  Have a question that you want us to answer on the podcast? Submit your questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/hvacschool.  Purchase your tickets or learn more about the 6th Annual HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. Subscribe to our podcast on your iPhone or Android.   Subscribe to our YouTube channel.  Check out our handy calculators here or on the HVAC School Mobile App for Apple and Android.

In this short podcast episode, Bryan answers a listener-submitted question about an HVAC system that won't dehumidify. This question was submitted by a homeowner with a Carrier heat pump with an attic air handler that cools but won't dehumidify on the hottest days of summer. One of the past companies that serviced the system added charge, but the problem wasn't resolved. This case doesn't seem to be a sizing issue, as the insufficient dehumidification is happening on the hottest days. Normally, sizing issues happen during the edge seasons when temperatures aren't as high as in the summer, but the dew points are still high.  Bryan's first recommendation is to use measureQuick to evaluate the delivered capacity and determine the sensible heat ratio (SHR) by comparing sensible BTUs to latent BTUs. High SHRs are associated with less effective dehumidification and more effective sensible BTU removal. Then, we have to determine that airflow is properly dialed in. Typically, lower fan speeds are associated with better dehumidification; 350 CFM per ton is typical of humid climates. In the case of two-speed or variable-speed equipment, we should verify that it is staging up and down properly.  On the ventilation side, a duct leakage test is recommended. Proper use of exhaust ventilation, like bath fans and kitchen exhaust, is also critical. Structural leakage and MAD-AIR are also worth checking if a company can measure those, though those are premium services that are usually more expensive.   Have a question that you want us to answer on the podcast? Submit your questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/hvacschool.  Purchase your tickets or learn more about the 6th Annual HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. Subscribe to our podcast on your iPhone or Android.   Subscribe to our YouTube channel.  Check out our handy calculators here or on the HVAC School Mobile App for Apple and Android.

In this short Q&A podcast, Bryan answers a listener-submitted question about sizing heat pumps for heat load in heating mode, something that we haven't talked much about in the past due to the greater need for cooling in our market. In most cases across the country, a heat pump's heating loads will be greater than the cooling loads. There is a greater swing between the desired temperature and the actual temperature in heating mode than in cooling mode (in terms of sensible BTUs). We don't want to oversize for cooling because of its lower efficiency, comfort, and humidity control due to the shorter runtimes. (However, oversizing for cooling loads is far less of an issue in arid climates.) We don't want to oversize the heat pump to meet the heating load when we'll far exceed the cooling load. However, that's not much of a concern for the opposite scenario in which we oversize for heating to meet the cooling load. We can add auxiliary heat, such as electrical heat or natural gas in dual fuel setups, to help us meet the heating load; we don't have those same options in cooling. Variable-capacity systems can also be beneficial in scenarios where heating and cooling loads are massively different. Bryan is excited about future opportunities for standby cooling and heating capacity, such as in the case of a heat pump heat recovery chiller system with buffer tanks. In the meantime, we have to design for vastly different heating and cooling loads and may have to oversize for one or the other.   Have a question that you want us to answer on the podcast? Submit your questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/hvacschool.  Purchase your tickets or learn more about the 6th Annual HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. Subscribe to our podcast on your iPhone or Android.   Subscribe to our YouTube channel.  Check out our handy calculators here or on the HVAC School Mobile App for Apple and Android.

Dean talks about tankless water heater systems and the different BTUs (British Thermal Unit) that they come in. Dean advices a caller about fences around a garden that will provide a good amount of space. Dean discusses the city of Palos Verdes in California and its critical landslide crisis the city is experiencing. Also, on natural disasters and the threats that continue to hit the world every year and the importance of planning ahead.

O aumento dos preços da energia elétrica em diversos países tem feito cada vez mais pessoas se perguntarem o que fazer para reduzir os gastos e conseguir pagar as contas no final do mês. Existem coisas básicas como desligar a luz toda vez que você sai de um cômodo. Mas pouca gente pensa em onde colocar a geladeira ou qual o eletrodoméstico que mais consome energia em toda a residência. Ar condicionado e chuveiro elétrico: vilões do consumo brasileiro. Nos países de clima frio, o consumo de energia é maior no inverno, devido à necessidade de aquecimento das casas. Já no Brasil, o maior consumo de energia acontece no verão. E o motivo é um só: o ar condicionado, usado durante a temporada de calor pelas famílias. Um ar-condicionado tipo split de 12.000 BTUs de potência — um dos modelos mais comuns nas casas —, que fica ligado 8 horas por dia, durante os 30 dias de um mês, representa um consumo mensal médio de energia de 194 kWh. Para se ter uma ideia, isso é mais de duas vezes o consumo médio de um chuveiro elétrico ligado 30 minutos por dia — e o chuveiro é o segundo equipamento doméstico que mais pesa na conta de luz. Seguem algumas dicas de como economizar com o ar condicionado: (a) 23ºC é o ideal; (b) portas, janelas e cortinas fechadas; (c) aparelho no alto; (d) potência certa; (e) seja amigo da função sleep. [...] Para o chuveiro elétrico, as dicas para economizar energia são as seguintes: coloque o chuveiro no modo verão; reduza o tempo de banho; feche o chuveiro para procedimentos mais demorados como fazer a barba, ou hidratar os cabelos com máscara capilar nunca reutilize uma resistência queimada; mantenha as saídas de água do chuveiro limpas. [...] É muito importante comprar eletrodomésticos com alto nível de eficiência energética. No Brasil, a recomendação é dar preferência aos eletrodomésticos classificados como classe A pelo selo Procel do Inmetro (Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Qualidade e Tecnologia). E fazer o melhor uso de cada um dos equipamentos é fundamental para economizar eletricidade em casa. [...] Evite o 'consumo fantasma'. Você é daqueles que desliga a televisão com o controle remoto? A luz le vermelha brilhante te entrega. Pouco a pouco, dia a dia, minuto a minuto, a eletricidade está sendo desperdiçada. Um simples gesto como desconectar o eletrodoméstico da tomada ou conectar o cabo a um filtro de linha com um botão liga/desliga pode levar a uma economia considerável de energia elétrica no final do ano. [...] Troque as lâmpadas. A lâmpadas tradicionais consomem uma quantidade excessiva de eletricidade, por isso precisam ser substituídas por outras mais eficientes. A grande questão é: quanto se pode economizar? Neste ponto, você pode estar se perguntando quanto pode economizar seguindo estas recomendações. Estima-se que com eficiência energética, ou seja, somando todas essas medidas, seja possível economizar até 30% da conta de luz. FONTE: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-63562836 IMAGEM - internet: Cofrinho Trilha sonora: acervo pessoal.

In this short podcast episode, Bryan answers a listener-submitted question: How do inverter air conditioners work? Inverter-driven systems have variable capacity to match loads. We can provide cooling or heating BTUs to match the needs of the space without overcompensating or undercompensating and causing temperature swings. Load matching also helps us get better efficiency out of the system. High-humidity climates also benefit from load matching, as equipment doesn't dehumidify well unless it has been running the entire time. When set up and designed properly, variable frequency drives (VFDs) improve comfort, efficiency, and even dehumidification. You can "overclock" your compressor to get more BTUs out of it without oversizing, particularly when you have high heating loads due to the cold weather. Inverter-driven equipment takes AC power in, runs it through a rectifier circuit, and turns it into rough power that resembles DC power. The current is then smoothed out and goes through the inverter bridge circuit. Unlike an analog AC wave, we rely on pulse-width modulation (PWM) to simulate three-phase power and control the motor speeds according to a space's needs. We typically troubleshoot residential inverter-driven equipment by following the manufacturer flowcharts and possibly by communicating with tech support. Commercial VFDs are external to the motors and tend to be a bit more universal rather than manufacturer-specific.   Watch the livestream about VFDs & inverters with Matthew Taylor and Corey Cruz HERE, and you can also watch the livestream about cold climate heat pumps with Ross Trethewey and Russ King HERE. Learn more about NCI's High-Performance HVAC Summit at https://www.gotosummit.com/.  Have a question that you want us to answer on the podcast? Submit your questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/hvacschool.  Purchase your tickets or learn more about the 6th Annual HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. Subscribe to our podcast on your iPhone or Android.   Subscribe to our YouTube channel.  Check out our handy calculators here or on the HVAC School Mobile App for Apple and Android.

In the 194th edition of Too Noobs, the guys discuss a bizarre request from the Paris Olympic Committee involving units with 12,000 BTUs of raw cooling power! Then, more silliness in the world of business as Coldstone Creamery faces a class action law suit and Wells Fargo fires 12 "mouse jigglers" and Harvard goes all "National Enquirer" involving aliens. Finally, the guys put together their own "Mount Rushmore" of Philly athletes for the city's four major teams.

In this short podcast episode, Bryan talks about when to switch to emergency heat. He talks about coefficient of performance (COP) and how it's a deciding factor when to run emergency heat, which is when a system ONLY runs the backup heat; it doesn't use it as supplementary heat. When we have a heat pump with backup electric heat, we shouldn't ever rely just on emergency heat; we want the heat pump to run. Electric heat is just designed to supplement the heat pump's heating because it's inefficient. Hybrid or dual-fuel systems can use gas or hydronic fuel-based heat, and they work well on their own (such as if the heat pump is broken). You can't usually run the fuel-based emergency heat at the same time as your heat pump, so it makes sense to run just the emergency heat if it is fuel-based. The thermal balance point is the point at which the heat pump can no longer keep up with the heating load by itself; the temperature in the space will start to drop, but the heat pump will still produce heat. The thermal balance point can give us a clue about client comfort, not efficiency. COP is a measure of efficiency, and an electric heater has a COP of 1. A heat pump with a COP above 1 saves energy (compared to using just electric heat). COP is the heat delivered in BTUs divided by the energy supplied; it's a ratio.   You can read the "Good COP - Bad COP" tech tip at https://hvacrschool.com/good-cop-bad-cop/.  Learn more about the 5th Annual HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/Symposium24. If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE.” Subscribe to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@HVACS.  Check out our handy calculators HERE or on the HVAC School Mobile App (Google Play Store or App Store).

Vamos ver as principais notícias de tecnologia de hoje: transferência DOC chega ao fim no Brasil, Governo desiste de CLT e propõe a criação de uma nova categoria para motoristas de app, MAX desembarca recheado de confusão e reclamações e muito mais!

As principais notícias de tecnologia do dia incluem a Motorola trazendo o Gorilla Glass para todos seus novos celulares de agora em diante, novo recurso para facilitar busca de mensagens no WhatsApp, Netflix aumentando os preços mais uma vez e novidades da próxima grande atualização do Windows 11!

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital commerce and content creation, the pursuit of effective growth strategies has led to the emergence of innovative concepts such as Binary Traffic Units (BTUs). By capitalizing on the diverse user bases generated through strategic crossposting, content creators can unleash the full potential of BTUs to create a powerful and engaged audience. This essay explores the dynamic synergy between BTUs and strategic crossposting, highlighting their role in shaping the ultimate growth strategy for digital commerce and online video content. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mydigitalbrain/message

Mohamed El-Erian, Bloomberg Opinion Columnist, guests hosts the show and says the 'enormous volatility' in the bond market needs to be corrected in order to restore the Fed's credibility. Stephanie Kelton, Stony Brook University Professor of Public Policy & Economics, says the Fed has effectively put fiscal policy on autopilot. Steve Chiavarone, Federated Hermes Head of Multi-Asset Solutions, describes the Fed's policy trajectory as headed for a "rocky landing." Stephen Schork, The Schork Group Principal, says traders have become skeptical about supply levels of oil and jet fuel heading into a major travel season. Jeannette Lowe, Strategas Managing Director of Policy Research, says the meeting between President Biden and Xi Jinping won't change the dynamic between the two countries in a major way. Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance  Full transcript:  This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Tom Keene, along with Jonathan Farrell and Lisa Abramowitz. Join us each day for insight from the best an economics, geopolitics, finance and investment. Subscribe to Bloomberg Surveillance on demand on Apple, Spotify and anywhere you get your podcasts, and always on Bloomberg dot Com, the Bloomberg Terminal, and the Bloomberg Business App. Why don't we move on to what doctor Olrium cares Mohammed, We've got to sit on crude, the idea that crude has essentially collapsed into a bear market, down more than twenty percent from the September highs. We spent this week talking about soft lending, hopes and dreams. Do we have to start thinking about an economic downturn in the not too distant future, well some of them. Some people are talking about this. I mean to see oil prices down more than twenty percent from the highs at the time that there's a conflict going on in the Middle East. It's quite quite and that's feeding into the soft landing. And we're going to talk a lot about this. But the market has now fully embraced not just that the fat has finished this hiking cycle, which I think is correct, but that we're going to see deeper and deeper cuts next year without a recession, and that's the critical assumption that's now built in across markets. I want to get the money question out of the way right away. As CEO of a major two million employee company in America called Walmart, yesterday brought up a d word deflation seared into the fabric of Cambridge, Oxford in the London School of Economics as a study a British deflation of the thirties and forties. America has never faced that have they They haven't, and we've had Japan recently. And the problem with deflation is it discourages people from buying today. However, I want to stress the US is deflation in certain products, food being the primary example, and that's why Walmart we decited it. We don't have general deflation, and I doubt we're going to have general deflation. I mean, I look at the an inflation question and it is a vector of disinflation in place. Clearly we see that. What is your optimism of getting back to John Williams two point zero percent? Richard claired is two point x percent. I think Richard is more likely to be right than John. I think we're going to get stuck in the high twos, and the FED is going to have to make a very difficult decision. Does it live with inflation higher than target because the target itself is too low, or alternatively, does it acknowledge that two percent is the right target and then crushes the economy. I think that's the choice the FED is going to have to make. What's your best guess right now? I think it's going to go for the format. I think the FED will understand that pressing two percent inflation in a world where there's insufficient structural supply is not the right thing to do. So where do you think it leaves this bond market? Let's go through this course right now. We've got a two year at the moment at about four eighty, a ten year at about four forty. Think about where we've been in the last month of Summerhammet had a two year pushing five twenty five high set of cycle, ten year through five percent high set of cycle. How are you thinking about what we come back down to, bearing in mind what we're pricing for right cuts next year. I think we've come down too far to tell your truth. I understand why some people think that we're going further, but if you look at the inflation dynamics, that's harder to get unless we go into recession. If we go into a recession, then the stock market is mispriced, so you can't have both at the same time. Has something changed? I think this is what it goes back to. Has something changed post pandemic? That means we don't go back to the pre pandemic world. That debate, I think is still on going. Mohammed, where'd you come down on it? I think the pre pandemic world was exceptional. It was a world of qui. It was a world of insufficient aggregate demand. And when you have insufficient aggregate demand, you can push into the economy as much liquidity as you want because you won't get inflation. That world is gone. We're in a world now of efficient, inflexible supply, and that's a very different world. Sometimes talk about over the two hours with doctor Olian is growth economics. I've been telling a lot of people to remind themselves of a guy named Solo at MIT in nineteen fifty six and the near religious experience of trusting and growth. Can you state that we have a new American growth economics of what some people are indicating is improved productivity, improved efficiency. So you know, I listened carefully to our friend Mike Spence, the Nobel Prize winner, because he spent so much of his career studying studying with John Hicks, I mean correct majesty of that alone, and he is incredible and his insights are really valuable. And his bottom line is that most countries have to evolve to a new growth model. The US is the most advanced in that evolution. I think the three important piece of legislation that the administration passed last year were critical in that perspective. So if you look around the world, whether it is the US, Europe, or China, all three have the challenge of evolving the growth model, and only the US is doing it seriosly right now, too gloomy? We no, Lisa isn't here, so we're not too blooming. No. I think we recognize that the world is evolving. This is a different global economy, this is a different domestic economy, and policies have to evolve accordingly. What worries me and I think the concern of a lot of people listening to this conversation on going at home is you just have to go about forty eight hours and we're talking about disinflation, soft landing, hopes and dreams, and then twenty four hours, forty eight hours later, you look to Burberry a collapse in luxury. You look to Walmart a warning about the US consumer. You look to Crew entering a bear market, and all of a sudden, we're talking about a slowdown and maybe even recession. Mohammed. The bond market is stuck between all of this. We're seeing double digit moves day after day in either direction. You've written about this extensively in the last few months, about a bond market that's lost its anchors. Is an economic slowdown sufficient to regain some stability in fixed incoming treasury specifically? No, I mean I was really struck yesterday. I was watching you when you said, guess what, we had the same level of the tenure as we were a week ago, and my reaction is, how could that be? So I looked it up and you were right. Now. Most people feel that this week is very different from last week because of the inflation print that we've had. We still lack one of the three anchors. You either need an economic anchor, or a policy anchor, or a technical anchor to the bond market, and we've lost all three. So these moves are going to continue. The thing that has really impressed me is that nothing has broken. If you had told me a year ago we're going to see this incredible volatility and the most important market in the world is the benchmark for so much else, and yet nothing will break, I would have said that's impossible. So the resilience of the functioning of the market has really impressed me. The financial system, and of course we had the shock and the United Kingdom off a derivative structure in the pension plans, but to lead to this and measured in standard deviations, which is how fancy people like Alarian think. We had a six seven eighth standard deviation and thereat moderation. There's a hope in prayer we get back to that trend line that's in years. How many years are do you think we heal this great bond tobacco. I think it's going to take time. Remember we've had ten exceptional years where the bond market was distorted, so I must say back to vulgar We've had, you know, thirty exceptional years. But the shift to an artificially low interest rate and ample and predictable injections of liquidity fundamentally changed the bond market and that is going to take time to recover from. Did you and Bill Gross get a free ride because you were within the Great Moderation? Was that such a structural like a free life? But the PIMCO when you build it, you invented it with Bill? Was it? Was it easier because you had the Great Moderation? Or just just think of investor. Investors care about three things, returns, volatility, and correlations. And we went through a period that because liquidity was being injected into the economy over and over again, we got high returns, we got virtually no volatility, and the correlations broke down. But in your favor, you made money on your risky assets and you made money on your risk free acids. At the same time, there was a great time. We took it to be normal, but it was truly exceptional. And we're going back to a world that I think is more like what we had before the Global financial crisis. It's going to be so hard to shake this, Mohammed, because we've got a whole generation, in fact, a couple of generations conditioned by two major shocks, the financial crisis and the pandemic. And we know how the FED response to major shocks. What we've all forgotten is how it responds to just normal economic downturns and upside pressure on inflation. How do we start to get into that all over again? Yeah, And this is where FED credibility and better communication is better. John, It's really striking that the market is willing to take on the FED on a price that the FED controls. The FED totally controls the policy rate, and yet the market does not believe what the FED is is telling us. And it is really striking because we have got to restore FED credibility otherwise we're going to continue with this enormous volatility. Your thoughts on what's percolating into the end of the year in the Q one twenty twenty four. Are there shadows in private equity? Are there shadows in the new non traditional finance? Yeah? So, one thing that I don't think is pricing enough is that when you move from the banking system to the non banks, you change the lags in the system. So you see this with commercial real estate. Everybody recognizes that the re financing of a trillion plus of assets is going to be tricky, but because it's over time, we don't worry about it. Everybody recognizes it as a maturity wall in the corporates out there, but because it's over time, we don't worry about it. If it were all within the banking system, we would have worried about it really quickly. So the move from the banks to the non banks has extended this Michael Spencer's shore. The regulatory lag here is tangible. This is the uncomfortable calm note as well, just to borrow that phrase from a long time ago from the Bank of International Settlements, This maturity wall is out there in twenty twenty five, and it's just this feeling mohammed that we don't have to think about it. But at some point we have to start thinking about it, don't we, right? But you know what, you enjoyed the journey before you get to a destination. Oh, here we go, and you want to give us some good news bad news, bradmos out here, No, no, I totally understand, you know, because momentum is really important, and you want to be exposed to this market. And I think most people have much more of a tactical mindset than they do of a strategic or structural mindset, and investment has become very tactical. Mohammed's set in the Town's great to have you with us, by the way, it is without questions, through the pandemic and literally over the last five years she has had a greater influence on the debate of our American economics and anyone out there. Out of Sacramento, Cambridge and a tour of duty at the very liberal New School of Social Research, Stephanie Kelton joins us now from Stonybrook University. The book is a deficit myth. In the three letters, are MMT professor honored to have you on Bloomberg's surveillance? Are we unraveled? Stephanie? The worry here of the annual interest expense the return of a real interest rate? Are we unraveling as we roll into twenty twenty four? No, I mean we are. The Fed is effectively in a sense, putting fiscal policy, a big part of the federal government's budget on autopilot. And it's really tantamount to running, you know, a pretty regressive fiscal stimulus. That's what the rate hikes are actually doing. If we don't like it, Tom, there's a pretty easy way out of it, which is to say, if the rate high are pushing up the amount of money the federal government is spending to service the debt, interest expenditure up by hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars over time, remittances from the Fed to the treasury have collapsed. All of this is adding to the deficit, which triggers more issuance of treasuries, which puts you in what is essentially just a cycle now of higher rates, higher deficits, higher debt, and it will continue for as long as the Federal Reserve holds in this position with a deficit. The debt and the deficit is from the new school Heilbrunner and Bernstein classically talked about years ago. But the arch MMT criticism is, you're handing monetary decision making from the acuity and date driven data dependency of a FED over to the legislative branch. Can we trust the legislative branch to prosecute MMT given where we are right now? Well, okay, I'm glad you mentioned hal Brunner. He was a professor of mine when I was there in a really terrifically bright person Tom. MMT is a description of the monetary system that we have today. It is a floating exchange rate fiat currency. Love it or hate it, it's what we have. MMT describes the monetary system that we have and the mechanics of government finance. It's not a policy proposal. It doesn't propose changing anything. It's describing how things already work. So think about what Congress did with the onset of the pandemic, drafting first the Cares Act that two point two trillion and then the big Omnibus Bill, a nine hundred billion dollar package, and then the Democrats came in and did their one point nine trillion dollar American Rescue Plan Act. All of that was deficit spending. We didn't give Congress any new permission to do anything. We just described how it all works. And it helps to unders stand why Congress was able to muster that kind of fiscal firepower when so many economists had previously said that when the next crisis came, we would be unable to act. People like Larry Summers said because of the Republican tax cuts in twenty seventeen, that we would be living on a shoe string for decades to come. Those were his words. That we wouldn't have the ability to spend money because of the deficits, because of the debt. That was wrong. Congress has the power of the purse. MMT recognizes that, and MMT says, listen, this is an extraordinary power they have. They need to use it responsibly, and that means thinking before you move forward with bold spending programs about the inflation risk that's associated with those spending proposals. And that's the piece that was missing. The one thing you didn't mention in you know, my tour of going through my education and so forth, was the time I spent in the US Senate as the chief economist for the Demomocrats. And I'll just say very quickly and i'll stop that. When I was in the Senate, my great frustration was being surrounded by members of the Senate on both the Republican and the Democratic side, who were drafting bills trillion dollars of infrastructure, talking about medicare for all and all these other things without ever mentioning inflation risk, I couldn't believe it. So MMT would have us do things very differently when it comes to the way we approach the federal budgeting process. It's inflation that you have to watch for, Stephanie, it's Mike McKee. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. The idea that Congress is going to think about anything before these start passing bills is probably not going to happen. So I'm wondering, after all this is there a limit in the sense that at some point we aren't going to be able to respond fiscally, for one reason or another, to some sort of crisis because all the money is going into debt payment instead of instead of going into additional spending, and the way we're set up now, we got to pay those bills. Okay, So two things I'll say. One, I've been hearing this my entire life. You'll remember that Chairman Volker had into straights up pretty high. And meanwhile, you know Ronald Reagan did two massive tax cuts and massively built up the military. So again, if Congress has the will to pass legislation, the votes are there, the money is there, and I'll just say I don't think it's right to say, actually that we can't trust Congress to rein it in. Remember, the so called Inflation Reduction Act was Congress's effort to say, listen, we don't want to continue passing legislation given the inflationary environment. So we want to get revenues up, we want to control costs. We're going to negotiate prescription drug prices. That was all Congress taking, you know, careful steps. I think are you would you suggest, Stephanie, whether it's a Republican or Democratic, to houses that we can have budget responsibility. Do you see displayed budget responsibility in the modern Congress and Senate? Well, Tom, what I'm saying is that if we were doing things the way I'd like to see them done, instead of handing proposed spending bills to let's say, the Congressional Budget Office and saying, give me feedback on this legislation I have drafted. Tell me if it's going to increase the deficit, tell me whether it adds to the debt. I don't think that is the most important feedback. I think it would be much better to have CBO and or other agencies evaluate proposed legislation on the basis of inflation risk. But we don't do it that way, right, So I think that that would put us much closer to having a Congress that operates with fiscal responsibility, i e. Inflation risk at the heart of what it is. Okay, can you and say a critic of yours, John Cochrane, the great conservative economists, Can you and John Cochrane get on the same page and say we need a Simpson Bulls reducts where in the initiation of that panel we actually demand that we get something done. No? Uh, sorry, sorry, but no is the answer to the question. You would have to first convince me that there is some sort of looming crisis that necessitates the formulation of a fiscal commission. And I don't believe that we are facing that kind of crisis. Inflation is coming down. So if you approach things the way I do, which is to say, you know, are we at risk? Is the budget posing and inflation problem, then let's get at it and let's figure out what adjustments need to be made to ensure that we aren't putting ourselves at risk of trenched inflation well above the Fed's target. I don't think that's the future facing fascinating and controversial Professor Calton. Thank you so much, Stephanie Calton. I can't say enough about how refreshing to any and all her book. The deficit myth is she is at Stonybrook and you know her from the phrase MMT right now with us and Mohammedalarian with us is a great thrill today. He is at Queen's College in Cambridge and he's interested in the asset allocation of their endowment. That's the campus that Steve chiveron had a multi Asset Solutions that federated him as Steve. This is a lonely bull market. How do you reallocate into the end of the year. Well, you had to get ahead of it a little bit. We were adding over the course of the summer when it was uncomfortable on the idea that markets like FED pauses and they price in soft landings even if a soft landing doesn't materialize, because when the FED pauses, invariably it's on suspicion they've gone too far, not on confirmation. And so the data that's available to you is a FED that's no longer hiking and an unemployment rate that's still low, and that's been the case throughout history and it's the case today. And so finally, with the bond market having broken, we're getting that FED pause rally and that can be powerful, Tom. You know, historically those are nine month events, and you can see the equity market up fifteen twenty percent. And interestingly enough, and this is something that's been on our mind, the equity market has hit an all time high each of the last five times that the FED has paused. Now four of those ended in tiers, but it still happened either way, and we think this rally has legs. I think the jury on whether or not, you know, how soft this landing is next year, is still very much out or for the time being, we think this rally continues. Steve, what are you looking at to determine this whole macro question of has the FED not just paused, but it's going to stop cutting and kind to do so within a soft What are the key variables you look at. We're calling them the five Games of Chicken, and it's that corporate refinancing wall. You're going to have about sixty percent of corporate debt come due between twenty four and twenty eight, So what percentage of that is going to face materially higher rates, and what does that do to company earnings? That's number one. Number two for small businesses, they've already seen their debt repriced because it's variable rate bank debt. So how many quarters of high rates can they survive? On the consumer negative or I'm sorry, real income growth is finally turned positive, But how positive does it get? And does it allow a consumer to de lever again, rebuild savings and continue to spend eight hundred and seventy seven billion dollars of bank deposit outflow? What does that do to restrict lending? And then what percentage of the federal debt, a third of which becomes due this year reprices to a significantly higher rate. Those five things we think, if they were to all go perfectly, you'd get this immaculate soft landing. I think that's unlike we think what's more likely is a kind of rocky landing where inflation stays stuck at three rates, stay hi, there's some slow down, and it's a kind of malaise. It's a single digit equity environment with a real risk that something breaks and you get into a classic recession. So it's really between that rocky landing and then a kind of a classic recession break that we think is most likely to happen. We're in the rocky landing camp at least for now. And what do you say to those who say, of your five factors, it's one in five. It's all about supply. It's all about who's going to buy all the supply. I think that's big. But where I would focus more acutely is on the nexus between banks and small businesses. The banks. Again, if there's eight hundred and seventy billion dollars less of deposits, that's eight hundred and seventy seven billion less of loans that can be made. And small businesses are reliant on that, and they're not facing a maturity wall. They've already seen it, and so if something's going to break, we would look there. So we're spending a lot of time focused there. It also has a bias towards larger cap companies within our asset allocation. Steve, let's get to the quote that shook up this market in the last twenty four hours. TK talked about it at the start of the program. It came from the Walmart CEO. We may be managing through a period of deflation in the months to come. Steve, when you heard those words yesterday, what was your response. I think the word deflation is probably a little strong, But I do think that there could be a lot more disinflation than what we've what we're expecting. If you look at the areas of the economy where you've seen disinflation so far, it's goods prices, it's food prices, its energy prices, It's a lot of stuff that quite frankly, can be explained by COVID normalization. Big interest rate sensitive purchases have not really seen the big deflation that you'd expect r. I mean, home prices are still relatively buoyant. Go and try to buy a car. It's not exactly a value exercise these days. And so I think as the rate heights filter through the economy, there is more disinflation in the pipeline, and I think you could see a at some point in twenty four go very quickly from worrying primarily about inflation to worrying very much about growth and the employment markets. And that could switch on a dime. And it's something that keeps us in a kind of humble position. Well states is the same true for investors just to jump in. You mentioned that as a federal reserve can make that switch. I just wonder how quickly investor start to make that switch, and whether we can get some divergence between what's happening with bonds and what's happening with stocks. I think what you do is you pull up some charts and you look at them. Historically, you know, unemployment takes stares down and elevators up. The equity market takes stairs up and elevators down. Particularly if you are headed towards a recession. You don't gradually shift your view in the late part of a cycle. It happens very, very swiftly, and that's why as an investor you have to prepare for that. You start to lengthen duration, you start to upgrade the quality of your equities. We like companies right now that have strong balance sheets, strong cash flow generation, low external financing, and you move in that direction so that if it does move on a dime, which historically it does, you know you're you're not left out in the coal stave. What if I get you thoughts, it's going to catch up. Have a good weekend, my stave Chevron the Federated terms, Stephen Schory, So principle of the short group saves us. Now, oil disinflation, Stephen, how does New York Harbor adjust to oil deflation? All the little idy busy things jet fuel, diesel, distillate, how do they adjust as collapse in oil. Yeah, it's a really interesting question, Tom. We're trying to figure it out as we speak right now. When you look at the spread action between gasoline on the flub with curb and inventories, seemingly there is enough oil power, enough gasoline in your harbor. The neok Carver just want to point out is important because that is the delivery hub for the mercantiles, diesel and gasoline contracts. Now, when we look at overall supplies relative to demand, we're looking at about twenty four days worth of supply of gasoline. Now. That is normal, That is spot on to the five year average, and it's slightly above a year ago. The problem now is that traders are skeptical. They are pricing in a premium on the front end of the curve, which is a clear signal that someone out there is concerned about these supplies, regardless of the fact that we do have all of this space worth to supply? The other big issue here is jet fuel. Right now, we don't have enough jet fuel stocks are extremely low and as we look forward to next week, we expect this or I should say Triple A expects us to be one of the busiest travel seasons for Thanksgiving of the past twenty odd years. So when we look at the rising demand, when we look at the spread action, something here is afoot. It doesn't line up that the spreads are saying one thing, ie, there's not enough supply, regardless of what we're actually seeing in a weekly inventory reports from the EIA. So Stephen, the SANDI is a frustrated with the price section, as you can imagine. I just wonder if they're frustrated enough to change policy again, do you think they are? It's really interesting and it is really conundrum that, to be honest, I am perplexed that the market never really priced in any sort of risk premium with regard to what is happening now in the Middle East. And let's be clear on this. This is a war not between Israel and Hamas, but it is effectively a war between Israel and Iran. Given that we're fighting that is to say, Israel's fighting Amas has Blah and the Huti's all backed by Iran. Now that is a pretty scary proposition with Iran's ability to halt the flow of oil coming out of the Persian go free straight her moves. So yes, there clearly is a head scratcher here that we have this huge risk on supply, but the market refuses the price that in regardless, we're focusing now on the demand picture. And yes, if you're Sali Radio, if hey, if you're a Texas and you are trying to produce and you're looking at this price action, yeah you are frustrated at this point. But I want to say here, based on our modeling, we're likely at the bottom of the market right now, given this situation around the globe and the inbalance now between supply and demand. So, Stephen, do you think that the Saudis will weight this out or do you think the Saudis will be on the phone to the Russians and any other ORPAC plus member that's willing to participate in another cut in production. Yeah, I do think that there is a concern that we'll see further cuts Already the Saudis, Russia, have extended their cuts of volunteer cuts to the end of the year. We've seen now in oil prices, unlike the product prices, we've seen an absolute collapse in the front end of the curve. So we've now actually on the noomics. We've moved into a situation called contango, meaning that prices for nearer term delivery are now below that of prices for longer term delivery. So this is a clear takeaway that right now from an oil standpoint, fundamentals are extremely weak, and I would suspect that we'll see the chances are going into the quarter OPEC plus either extending the cuts or increasing those cuts into the new year. Steven Shark over the arc of Bloomberg surveillance twenty years. One of the great shocks has been America's success with hydrocarbons into the new year. Are we energy independent? No, not at this point. Now. I want to point out that we were energy independent a few years ago. In keeping in mind, energy independence does not mean we do not have to import a BTU from anywhere around the world. We wore a fluid trader in the world. We wore the dominant krudeoil producer in the world, and we wore the swing producer. That is so for all intents and purposes, we wore an energy independent when it comes to hydrocarbons, and that is just a shout out to how well how efficient the industry has grown over the past fifteen to twenty years. But given current policy right now, no, we're not energy independent and going into the new year, big risk is that we are playing a zero sum game. That is to say that we are taking off dispatchable BTUs natural gas, nukes, coal faster than we can replace them renewables. That's not opinion, that is fact. The regulators are telling the government this is so, and yet the government is still going ahead enforcing these retirements where we don't have enough power. So everyone out there get used to this and get ready. There's going to be a huge jump in volatility over the next two years, a huge jump in pricing for electricity and for other alternative BTUs because we're quite not ready for the transition that the government is forced in upon the industry. Stephen with a big one is Stephen Schork at the Short Group. A lot of happy talk this week. Jeanette low Strtigas wrang in on this meeting between Biden and Jain, saying this the meeting does not change the trajectory of US Chinese relations. Tom the US will continue to push for de risking or decoupling with China in order to protect this national security interest, and China will continue to push to develop a multi polar world against US interest. Janet Low there join us now from strtigis MS Lord, Jeannette. I look at where we are, and of course the major question is what's the next step. What is the next step. Should we look for President Biden to visit China. Yeah, that's probably, to somewhat extent unlikely. I think maybe if we look back at last year, we had a meeting between Biden and She in November of twenty twenty two, and you know, not much occurred out of that. After that, a couple months later, we had that spy balloon flying over Montana, which then ruptured relations again. So I don't necessarily think that there's going to be a lot more steps moving forward. It was also very interesting to have the Defense Secretary at the exact same time in the Philippines talking about continued coordination while this APEC and the Biden She summit was happening in San Francisco. So I think this is going to be about trying to lower the temperature, trying to make sure we have continued communications. As you guys have mentioned, having she he wanted to he's having some domestic issues. This is also a good opportunity for him to kind of have a reset. But ultimately, I think that the two sides are going to continue on their trajectories and this is not going to change the overall path. What it is going to do is just make things a little bit easier in the short term. We have an election coming up in the US. We don't want to continue tensions with the China. But at the same time, if Biden was to be too conciliatory towards China, we have a whole lot of hawks in Congress who would then pounce him on that. So Janetta, I very much agree with your analysis. Can you take it one step further? How easy is it to de risk without decoupling? Right? And I think that this is part of the issue too. I mean, you have the US has been trying to make strides to de risk from China, but it's going to take quite a bit of time. Obviously, We're quite reliant on China for supply chains, for critical minerals, for a whole host of things, and so it's going to be very difficult to actually move those pieces away. And so I think that trend is in place and you're going to see it continue over the next couple of years. But that also means that to some extent, you almost need a daytunt at the highest level so that you can build these pieces out from the bottom and ultimately get to that de risking. I don't think decoupling is probably where the ultimate goal is, but it is really about trying to protect US national security interests and making sure there is reduced dependency on China. And I do think that you are seeing that you regardless of the fact that you have to make choices between how you align with US and China, there is an effort or there is a realization across the globe that having too much dependency on China is not a good thing either. And from Chrona's perspective, de risking involves building little pipes around the US at the core of the system. How far can they go into building basically an alternative global system. So this is obviously something that they have been working on, and they would like to continue to accelerate that. I think the one thing that is important is I think the fact that the US is not doing this alone is important that they will actually be more successful and actually trying to at least move supply chains. China is still going to be involved, China is still going to try to work with their partners in Asia to get around some of those pieces. But the other thing is that is if you look at China trying to build this multipolar world, they have been doing that over the course of a couple of years. They're trying to obviously move away from the US dollar, They're trying to get other countries to do the same. But if you are looking at China also being in a place of having economic weakness, that also is not necessarily conducive to them actually being the leader of that movement. So there's a lot of things that have to be worked out on both sides to actually reach their ultimately ultimate goal. And I think that's why we're going to kind of see a I don't want us to use the term muddle through, but kind of a muddle through scenario where they continue down their path but there is obviously some need to be conciliatory in the interim quickly, here Jin ed and I've been guilty of this all week. I have failed and taken my eye off Ukraine, Ukraine in this cold December. What will that debate, that study look like. Right, So this is the US does not have a lot of military aid left to provide to Ukraine at the moment unless Congress appropriates more funding. And so the spring offensive has not necessarily produced the results that the both sides were looking for. We're going into the winter, which makes it more difficult for there to be progress on the battlefield. Think that you will see an effort in Congress to try to come back from a Thanksgiving holiday and pass Biden's National Security Supplemental, which would provide aid for Ukraine as well as Israel and Taiwan and the border. But that is something that they still are trying to find a solution on. They need to figure out whether or not they can add border policy changes in order to get Republican support for that bill. But if we don't get aid to Ukraine over the next couple of weeks, there is probably going to be a strong hole put into Ukraine's defenses because they really do need more money. You obviously have Europe also supporting them, but Europe has been struggling to get some aid packages passed, some munitions given to them as well, so it's it's been put on the back burner. But I think you might start to see more discussion over over the next month in Congress. At least this is a fine We're going to seek out it to the new year. Jeanette low A shatigas Jeanette, thank you. Subscribe to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live every weekday starting at seven am Easter. I'm Bloomberg dot Com, the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can watch us live on Bloomberg Television and always I'm the Bloomberg Terminal. Thanks for listening. I'm Tom Keen, and this is BloombergSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this English lesson, we will visit my brother's backyard, and he will teach you some terms native English speakers use when talking about heating their house in winter. He will talk about what a cord of wood is, how he heats his home in the winter, and how he sells his extra wood.

Ready to unravel the fascinating world of heat pump water heaters and the influence of ducting on these devices? We promise, this episode will equip you with insights that can potentially save you a great deal of trouble. We kick off by exploring the common practice of ducting water heaters to the outside and why it might not be required in unfinished spaces. Also, discover how heat pump water heaters can be a game-changer in commercial places where there's an existing heat source.Ever wonder how humidity levels affect the efficiency of heat pump water heaters? Well, we've got you covered! We take a deep-dive into the role of varying humidity levels, especially in humid regions like Minnesota, and how heat pump water heaters might still be beneficial without impacting your gas bill. We also discuss the relevance of the size of your furnace and the BTUs per hour of the heater. We wrap up with some invaluable tips on ducting and the importance of reading the installation instructions. So, gear up for this enlightening roller-coaster ride that will leave you with a wealth of knowledge on heat pump water heaters and ducting.Send us your feedback or topic ideas over on our social channels!Eric Aune @mechanicalhub Andy Mickelson @mick_plumbCheck out our website: mechanical-hub.com

In this short podcast, Bryan talks about air changes per hour, also known as ACH, and what it means in HVAC design and indoor air quality (IAQ) discussions. ACH tells us how frequently the entire volume of air in a room or structure is replaced; we are referring to the cubic feet of air leaving a space and then being replaced within that same space. If we have a balanced number of cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air supplied to and returned from the room in one hour, we would multiply that CFM by 60 to get the ACH, as there are 60 minutes in one hour. ACH should not be used to calculate heat loss and heat gain, even though BTUs are moved with air. ACH is a practical guideline for HVAC design. Ventilation needs will vary based on the purpose of a room and the number of occupants in it, and ACH tends to be a more important factor for determining how we can meet ventilation needs in commercial and industrial structures than in residential structures, in which we mostly rely on Manual J calculations of sensible and latent BTU gains and losses. However, we should not confuse ACH with outdoor air ventilation requirements as described in ASHRAE Standards 62.1 and 62.2. ACH also comes into play when it comes to infiltration and the tightness of an entire structure. When used in the context of blower door testing, the ACH will tell us if a building meets tightness standards. There is also a term called ACH50, which refers to air changes per hour at the standard pressure for blower door testing: -50 Pascals. ACH50 does not reflect ACH under natural conditions (ACH natural).   If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE. Check out our handy calculators HERE.

Frank and Jacque answer a couple listener questions. First question is about properly sizing a pool heater and brand recommendations. Then they answer a couple questions about salt systems, corrosion, and CYA issues. https://poolwerx.com https://ipssa.com https://sizing.aquacal.com/ How do you determine the size of heater you need for your pool or spa? First, many pros will agree that bigger is better. We will discuss how much heat it takes to achieve the temperature rise in the water, but one of the most important things to consider is how fast you want to achieve the desired temperature rise. And then you have to consider overcoming heat loss while heating and maintaining the heat rise, and of course the cost. BTU = the amount of energy it takes to increase the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. One gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds. It costs around $4.00 to $8.00 Per hour to fire a 400,000 BTU gas pool heater. Prices will vary between areas of the country. One Therm = 100 cubic feet of natural gas, which = 100,000 BTU. So to determine your actual cost you will need to see what you pay for natural gas per therm at your location. In North Texas we are currently paying around $1.80 per therm. To calculate if a heater can achieve your desires in heating your swimming pool (or spa, but of course spas are much smaller). It takes one BTU to increase the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. So if you have 10,000 gallons of water you must first calculate how many pounds of water that equals. 10,000 (gal) x 8.3 (lbs per gal) = 83,000 lbs. So it takes 83,000 BTUs to heat 10,000 gallons 1 degree. If you need to increase 20,000 gallons 15 degrees, then 20,000 x 8.3 = 166,000 lbs of water, x 15 degrees = 2,490,000 BTUs are required. Now, how much heat can your heater produce? You have to consider the efficiency of the heater. Every pool heater will have a rating. Most common residential heaters will be listed around 80 to 84% efficiency. That means if a 400,000 BTU heater is 80% efficient, then it will actually only result in 320,000 BTUs of energy being transferred into the water. Please note that the efficiency rating on a pool heater is determined under optimal operating conditions. Proper gas volume provided to the heater, proper water flow through the heater, and proper air flow through the heater are critical to achieve the maximum rated efficiency of that heater. A heater that is not operating with optimal conditions will actually be much less efficient that what it is rated at. So make sure your heater is properly installed and maintained. If you have a 10,000 gallon pool, and you need to increase the water temperature by 15 degrees, with a 400,000 BTU 80% efficient heater, and you are paying $2.00 per therm for natural gas, then this is what you can expect. 10,000 (gal) x 8.3 lbs = 83,000 total lbs. 83,000 lbs x 15 degrees = 1,245,000 btu required. 400,000 btu heater x .80 (efficiency = 320,000 actual btu per hour. 1,245,000 / 320,000 = 3.89 hours to achieve desired heat rise. Now we have to consider that the water in the pool is losing heat to the atmosphere and surrounding surfaces This can be very significant. While heating you must be able to overcome this heat loss faster that it occurs. In a perfect scenario we said 3.89 hours in our example. But if the air is cold, and there is wind whipping across the surface of the water, it can take much longer to heat the pool, and in some scenarios the heat you are putting into the water may not be able to keep up with the heat being lost. This and other factors are why many believe that bigger is always better when it comes to heaters. Even if you have properly calculated what minimum size heater is required, circumstances can make it insufficient and incapable of achieving your needs.

This podcast episode is one of Alex Meaney's HVACR Training Symposium presentations: HVAC Design Backwards, Forwards, and In Between. Load calculation factors in all three means of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. It doesn't directly tell you the tonnage; it just tells you how many BTUs (sensible and latent) are entering or leaving a structure. When designing systems after doing load calculations, we need to be mindful of industry standards and their pitfalls, as well as the climate conditions and the difficulty of obtaining manufacturer data. Equipment selection by tonnage is only part of the picture when it comes to HVAC design; we also need to factor in airflow and duct design, especially duct sizing. However, many rules of thumb and poorly explained terms are counterproductive to a thorough understanding of HVAC design. In some cases, the best way to design a system may seem "backward," especially when starting with blower selection instead of ductwork. Duct design is particularly difficult, especially when software identifies several problems with designs that seemed to look good on paper. However, the software points out areas where you can adjust the duct size and manage restrictions to allow the fan to do its job without being derated by friction. Alex also covers: Insulation and efficiency ratings CLTD Groups Tricky radiant gains and losses The relationship between BTUs and tons AHRI ratings Shortcomings of Ductulators in duct design education Pressure vs. friction in ductwork Static pressure vs. velocity pressure Measuring friction with pressure Regulations vs. reality Furnace static pressure range Differences between commercial and residential duct design Oversized and under-ducted systems Variable-capacity systems ACCA manuals and tables   Check out Alex Meaney's consultation business at https://www.meanhvac.com/.  Learn more about the HVACR Training Symposium or buy a virtual ticket today at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE. Check out our handy calculators HERE.

Gary Klein is in hot water and that's a good thing. Hot water is the often-overlooked aspect of energy use in our homes and buildings and that makes zero sense. Energy for water heating is either the second largest, or in some cases the largest single energy use and does not get enough attention.As if that were not motivation enough, hot water is also the place where convenience and energy savings align perfectly because no one wants to wait for hot water and no one (arguably) wants to needlessly waste energy. With all the product based attention on ways to heat water - air-water heat pumps, electric, gas, tankless - it may surprise you to learn that once you have hot water what you do with it can matter even more. Join us in this action packed interview with Gary Klien, a true national treasure in the realm of water heating and distribution as he applies simple logic again and again to break down the How and the Why of having hot water arrive efficiently When and Where you need it. Gary KleinGary Klein is the principal and founder of Gary Klein and Associates. Every day, across the United States, millions of gallons of water and millions of Btus of energy are lost in our hot-water systems through a combination of structural and behavioral waste. Ours is an era where efforts to conserve resources have led to ever-increasing complexity, be it in water heaters that are harder to understand and use, be it in the smart grid and electric meters that tell the utility all about our behavior. Given human nature, it is our responsibility to provide the infrastructure that supports efficient behaviors.Gary Klein is tackling this issue in a different way, rejecting complexity and concentrating on elegant simplicity. He works to change building codes and to get architects and builders to use plumbing systems that, by their design, deliver hot water quickly and with minimal waste. He has looked at the structural and behavioral waste and believes great resource savings are to be had in both. When he gives a presentation, it's impossible to doze in the back row. He calls on people at random to serve as props, marks lines on the floor in tape, makes people think, and makes them laugh. It works.TeamHosted by Kristof IrwinProduced by M. WalkerEdited by Nico Mignardi

In this short podcast episode, Bryan talks about TXVs and their impacts on energy efficiency ratings (EER and SEER). EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio) is calculated based on fixed conditions (an outdoor temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit and an inside temperature of 80 degrees with 50% RH). EER is a ratio of cooling-only capacity in BTUs per hour to the total electrical input in watts. SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) is the ratio of an HVAC system's cooling output during a typical cooling season to the seasonal electrical input in watts. Both energy efficiency ratios use non-proportional units (BTUs to watts), but SEER is supposed to account for a wide set of conditions (even though the climates of regional markets can vary quite wildly). EER2 and SEER2 are new standards based on updated equipment testing protocols with more realistic static pressures. TXVs and EEVs can modulate to control the amount of refrigerant going into the evaporator coil. TXVs maintain a set superheat at the evaporator coil outlet, which it detects with a sensing bulb mounted to the suction line. These sorts of modulating metering devices can boost system efficiency by adjusting the amount of refrigerant it feeds into the evaporator coil. Underfeeding can lead to inefficiency, and overfeeding can cause system damage. Non-bleed TXVs shut tight once the compressor shuts off, which prevents refrigerant migration during the off cycle and pressure equalization, thus protecting the compressor and reducing the cyclic degradation coefficient. The compressor may have to start a little bit harder, but the effects of the hard shutoff can improve the SEER rating by about 0.5. TXV systems are, overall, more efficient than systems fixed-orifice metering devices.   Learn more about the HVACR Training Symposium or buy a virtual ticket today at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE. Check out our handy calculators HERE.

This podcast episode is Nikki Krueger (Santa Fe Dehumidifiers) and Bryan's 2023 HVACR Training Symposium session about how we can optimize dehumidification and efficiency to create an HVAC design and humidity utopia. While we attempt to achieve comfort and high indoor air quality in humid climates, we may find challenges integrating these with the HVAC system and getting customers to understand the need for proper dehumidification. Older homes that are built "leaky" allow for uncontrolled infiltration and exfiltration, but newer constructions are a lot tighter and rely on mechanical ventilation to control where the outdoor air comes from and make sure it is properly filtered and distributed. We deal with both sensible and latent BTUs in a home, and we can't treat them as though they're all equal. Many high-efficiency systems have high sensible heat ratios (SHRs) and are designed to remove sensible BTUs very efficiently, but they're not adequate at removing latent BTUs. Ideally, we would rely on an A/C system or heat pump to dehumidify the air in cooling mode before adding a dehumidifier. However, some of the systems that are best equipped to handle high latent loads will be less efficient. If you wish to install supplemental humidification, the ideal design will have a dedicated return and tie into the main HVAC supply duct. Nikki and Bryan also discuss: Willis Carrier's real invention Strategies for reducing conductive, convective, and radiant gains Understanding relative humidity and dew point Design loads Electrification and energy efficiency incentives Adiabatic heating and cooling Single-stage vs. multi-stage equipment Dehumidification for ductless mini-splits Supplemental dehumidifier designs   Learn more about Santa Fe Dehumidifiers at https://www.santa-fe-products.com/.  Learn more about the HVACR Training Symposium or buy a virtual ticket today at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE. Check out our handy calculators HERE.

A full quarter of global energy use goes toward heat that powers industrial processes. To provide clean industrial heat but avoid the variability often associated with renewable energy, a company called Rondo makes a thermal battery, storing renewable-energy heat in bricks. In this episode, Rondo CEO John O'Donnell talks about this breakthrough technology and the opportunities that thermal storage promises to open.(PDF transcript)(Active transcript)Text transcript:David RobertsElectricity gets the bulk of the attention in clean-energy discourse (this newsletter is, after all, called Volts) but half of global final energy consumption comes in the form not of electricity, but of heat. When it comes to reaching net zero emissions, heat is half the problem.Roughly half of heat is used for space and water heating, which I have covered on other pods. The other half — a quarter of all energy humans use — is found in high-temperature industrial processes, everything from manufacturing dog food to making steel or cement. The vast bulk of industrial heat today is provided by fossil fuels, usually natural gas or specialized forms of coal. Conventional wisdom has had it that these sectors are “difficult to decarbonize” because alternatives are either more expensive or nowhere to be found. Indeed, when I covered an exhaustive report on industrial heat back in 2019, the conclusion was that the cheapest decarbonization option was probably CCS, capturing carbon post-combustion and burying it.A lot has changed in the last few years. Most notably, renewable energy has gotten extremely cheap, which makes it an attractive source of heat. However, it is variable, while industrial processes cannot afford to start and stop. Enter the thermal battery, a way to store clean electricity as heat until it is needed.A new class of battery — “rocks in a box” — stores renewable energy as heat in a variety of different materials from sand to graphite, delivering a steady supply to various end uses. One of the more promising companies in this area is Rondo, which makes a battery that stores heat in bricks.I talked with Rondo CEO John O'Donnell about the importance of heat in the clean-energy discussion, the technological changes that have made thermal storage viable, and the enormous future opportunities for clean heat and a renewables-based grid to grow together.All right, John O'Donnell of Rondo. Welcome to Volts. Thank you for coming.John O'DonnellThank you. It's a great pleasure.David RobertsI am so excited to talk to you. I've been geeking out about thermal storage for over a year now, just wanting to do something on it, and there's so much there. And I find that unlike a lot of electricity topics which I cover, there's just not a lot of baseline familiarity out there among, let's say, normal people. So there's a ton to cover from the ground up. So I want to start at the highest possible level, which is to say, let's just talk about heat. Like in the clean energy world, electrical power gets a lot of attention, a lot of discussion, a lot of technological development.Everybody's got their favorites, everybody knows what's going on. But then there's also heat, which is the sort of weirdly ignored not so much anymore, but up till pretty recently ignored. So maybe just start with an explanation of why heat is important if you care about clean energy, why you should care about heat?John O'DonnellThank you. Sure. That's a great question. And that context you just provided is, of course, dead on. There's a really simple answer. Heat. Industrial heat is 26% of total world final energy consumption. Whether you are making baby food, or fuel, or cement, or steel, the manufacturing processes vastly predominantly use energy in the form of heat, not electricity. Globally, it's three quarters of all the energy used by industry is in the form of heat. Again, whether you're pasteurizing milk or melting steel. And the DOE has just created a new office focused on this topic. We're thrilled about it.Their assessment is that industrial heat is 11%, I think, of all total US CO2 I'm in California. Here in California, we burn more natural gas for industrial process heat than we do for electric power generation. And to a first approximation, as you just mentioned, no one knows that.David RobertsRight. So heat is a huge portion of final energy consumption. It's a huge portion of global CO2 emissions. So maybe give a sense of like, what percentage of total heat final consumption is industry, like how's the total heat-pie divided up.John O'DonnellSo when I said 26% of world — that's industrial heat, right. So that's not buildings, that's not other heating sources.David RobertsRight. Heat is a bigger category than that.John O'DonnellI mean, if you take actually heat for buildings and heat for industry, together they're like 60% of all the natural gas used in Europe. But within industrial heat, people sort it out by a couple of different things. One of them is the temperature. There's a lot of heat in cooking processes. That's around 150°C in the form of steam all the way up to the highest temperature heat in making cement, that's around 1800°C. About 95% of total heat is used in processes that need it below 1500°C, about maybe half to two thirds of industrial heat is below about 400°C.There's a fairly steep curve. About half of all industrial heat, something like that, is delivered as steam.David RobertsRight. Steam is the lower end of the temperature spectrum. I recall looking at these charts of sort of what industries use, what levels of heat. Up at the super high heat, you have pretty singular industries, like steel's up there and concrete's up there. But down in the lower heat registers, where you're using just steam, there's a bunch of little industries clustered up there. Most of the industries are using that.John O'DonnellThat's right. All of these have been things that people say are hard to decarbonize because across many of these industries, they're making commodities, whether it's steel or tomato paste that are relatively low margin and for which the cost of heat is a very significant portion of the total cost of production. So this is a sector where all these processes use heat in somewhat different ways. The cost of that energy is really critical to the competitiveness of that industry and what commodities cost consumers. And there have not been great solutions until recently that could provide decarbonized heat at the same or lower cost.David RobertsSo the situation is there's a huge chunk of our energy that goes toward heat, a huge chunk of that goes toward industrial heat. And there's been comparatively little work on finding zero carbon versions of that heat. That's the problem we discussed the last time we talked, probably three or four, five years ago. Everything pre-pandemic is a haze. But I think it was around five years ago I covered this big comprehensive report on industrial heat options, like, what can we do about industrial heat? And it went through the options, and basically the conclusion was that continuing to do it with fossil fuels and just capturing the emissions post combustion was the cheapest option for a lot of these heat uses.And I dutifully reported that. But I didn't like it. I didn't like the idea that that's the best we can do is create these Rube Goldberg machines where we're digging up carbon, burning it, capturing the carbon, burying the carbon again, et cetera. I was like, surely that's not the best we could do. But things have changed a lot, since then. So maybe just run through what are the low carbon heat alternatives and which ones have emerged recently, and what has changed that has helped them emerge?John O'DonnellYeah. Thank you. You said for a long time there hasn't been much work on this. I would say partly there hasn't been so much success on it. I've been working on for 15 years.David RobertsNo offense, John.John O'DonnellAnd in two previous solar companies we wound — who are a lot of the team here at Rondo worked with me there — we wound up delivering more than half of all the solar industrial heat that's running worldwide right now. But to say that's a drop in the bucket is oversizing a drop you asked exactly the right question. What are the options? Because the world has really changed.There has always been the option of burning biomass, which is more or less sustainable, but very high cost, high air pollution, and very, very limited availability. Other kinds of biofuels, like renewable natural gas, if we take it to a giant scale, it might power as much as 1% of our industrial heat. And it's easy to laugh about, but it's true. The thing that has profoundly changed is what the wind and solar PV industries have accomplished over the last 15 years. The 95% reduction in cost means that intermittent electricity is becoming — has become — the cheapest form of energy that humans have ever known.And it's now cheaper than burning stuff as a source of heat, but it's intermittent. So how do we take that intermittent electricity and use it to deliver the continuous heat? I mean, you turn on a smelter or a factory or even a tomato paste plant, you run it for months or a year on end, it has to have continuous heat or it will be damaged.David RobertsIt's worth just pausing to emphasize this. The vast majority of industrial processes are continuous. They cannot run intermittently. They cannot stop and start with the sun and the wind. It just would be wildly uneconomic.John O'DonnellThat's a beautiful and concise way of saying it. Like there are processes where if they get a half second interruption in their energy supply, it takes a week to restart the process. Reliability is a very big deal. So what are the tools we have for that? Intermittent electricity, which is becoming plentiful. And in places right now, you can have essentially unlimited amounts briefly every day at prices far below fuel prices. We have hydrogen, electrolytic hydrogen, make hydrogen, compress it, store it, and then combust it. That works. Although electrolyzers are today expensive, they're coming down in cost.But the laws of physics bite you in that you get about one unit of heat for every two units of electricity because of the chemical steps involved.David RobertsRight. All the conversions.John O'DonnellYes.David RobertsBut can you just dump hydrogen into existing boilers and kilns? Like, is existing equipment hydrogen ready, as they say?John O'DonnellNot exactly. It's hydrogen ready for a few percentage of hydrogen. But when you look at a boiler, 95% of its lifetime cost is the fuel, not the boiler. So upgrading boilers to run that other fuel, that's something that you would do if the economics of that fuel were sensible.David RobertsGot it.John O'DonnellRight? Now at taxpayer expense. We're creating a period where hydrogen, electrolytic hydrogen is going to get down to the same cost as fossil fuel in the US with tax credits. But again, intermittent electricity by itself today is cheaper than fossil fuel. Doesn't need tax credits to get it to that point. And now there is this emerging class of electric thermal energy storage systems that don't do chemistry. They just convert electricity to heat directly and then store the heat. Because heat storage, another thing you could do I skipped over is you could, of course, store electricity in a battery.Right.Which would be the most expensive thing.But if you have a coffee thermos on your desk, it's storing energy as it happens. The energy stored in your coffee thermos is more energy than the energy stored in your laptop battery, and it's a bit cheaper than your laptop battery. Storing heat is cheap right now in the thermos. What do you have? You have hot water, which stores a lot of energy per degree, and an insulation thing around it, depending on how good the insulation is, that'll tell you how long that thing will store energy. All those things have been around for a long time, and suddenly, okay, how are we going to heat these things electrically?How are we going to use simple technology? Because most people who are working on electric thermal storage are doing simple things. There are some exotic things using conductive materials, liquid metal things, but there are simple things that people are doing also.David RobertsYou're hitting directly on something. That is why I love this area so much, why it sort of kind of caught my imagination so much. Like, you really have a situation here where electricity was just more expensive than fossil fuels for these purposes up until like five minutes ago.John O'DonnellExactly.David RobertsIn terms of looking for opportunities for just storing. Now that electricity is cheap, we're looking for ways to store it and use it as heat in a lot of ways for the first time. And what that means is there's like, very simple low hanging fruit all over the place. The way I think about it is, like, my generation maybe like younger people than me, when we think of technology or advanced technology, we generally think digital, and that generally means opaque. Like, we don't know what's going on in there. Even cars these days. Like, so little of it is mechanical anymore and so much of it is digital and computerized.It just seems opaque to us. And these technologies of storing electricity as heat are so delightfully simple. Like, you're literally just heating up a rock and that's, like, you might say that heating up a rock is literally the oldest energy transfer mechanism that humans have available to them. It's probably the very first way we moved energy ever, literally. So it's just fun to me in that it's almost like a childlike sense of discovery to it. Anyway, that's just my that's completely off topic, but ...John O'DonnellOne of the electric thermal energy storage technologies actually uses rock. And on the outside of the pilot it says, welcome to the new Stone Age. And there's a mastodon as the mascot. So, yes, it's a well understood thing.David RobertsSo just to sort of summarize where we've been so far, you need all this heat. Up until very recently, it was overwhelmingly cheaper to do it by combusting fossil fuels. A lot of the alternatives to fossil fuels are more expensive than fossil fuels. But now recently, along comes renewable wind and solar electricity, which are cheaper than anything. So now the challenge is, well, how do you get the heat from the wind and solar electricity? As you say, the applications are running around the clock. Wind and solar come and go. So in between the wind and solar and the applications, you need something that's going to store that wind and solar that can release it in a steady flow.John O'DonnellExactly.David RobertsSo that's the new thermal storage technologies that are emerging now are sitting right in that space, including Rondo. So if you're talking about something sitting in that space, what do you need out of it? What are the sort of metrics by which you judge the performance of that thing that's sitting in between the renewables and the application?John O'DonnellGreat question. So obviously you need safety, efficiency, cost, temperature at which the heat can be delivered.Right.Some other things as well. One of them is the faster that you can charge the system and deliver energy continuously. If you can charge it, if it takes you typical batteries, they charge and discharge at the same rate. But here we'd like to charge perhaps during the solar day in six or 8 hours and deliver for 24 hours continuous. If you could charge in about 4 hours, we find that's even more valuable. The periods of curtailment and the periods of zero and negative electricity prices in electricity grids are short.So the ideal thermal storage can charge very rapidly. You can control its charging like other batteries, it could participate in providing grid services and it can run continuously, shut it down once a year for inspection and when the factory that it's connected to is shut down and just sit there and require low O and M, operating and maintenance, costs.David RobertsYeah, and I presume low losses too.John O'DonnellYeah, that's right.David RobertsBut I want to pause and just emphasize the first point you made just so people get it. We have these wind and solar all come online at the same time because they're all using the same wind and sun. So what you have are these periods of oversupply. I think people are familiar with this. You get oversupply more than the grid can use and today that just goes to waste. It's curtailed. That energy is not used. And so what you're doing is proposing to come along and use it. But if that's your economic sweet spot, those couple of hours of curtailed energy, you need your battery to charge as much as possible during those couple of hours.In other words, charge really quickly because the amount of energy available in those curtailed hours, especially in coming years, is going to be potentially huge. Right. So you need to stuff a lot of energy in your heat battery really quickly.John O'DonnellThat's right. Now the early deployments of heat batteries will use what is curtailed today. One of the things that we see that's uniquely pretty cool about this class of electric thermal storage is the total amount of energy that industrial heat needs is really large for scale. I think we had a 52 gigawatt system peak in California not long ago. We've got about 20 gigawatts of PV in the state. Just repowering the boilers and furnaces that we have right now in California needs 100 gigawatts of new generation to replace those fuel BTUs, about 40 of those gigawatts can actually be built without any connection to an electricity grid.One of the things that's great about ETES powering industry is we're headed for a world where industrial electrification is not creating more problems for the grid, but we'll get there. But this matter of fast charging rate means that new generation projects that are serving the grid, the best ones, the cheapest ones, will be built selling part of their power to thermal storage. Like during the peak and curtailed hours and then delivering those broader shoulder renewable power to the electricity grid. And we're seeing again and again that that's a formula for low energy prices for the industrial and for lower prices to the grid.There's an interesting synergy.David RobertsYeah, we're going to get into that synergy in just a second, but I want to focus on how we're evaluating the heat battery. So we want it to absorb a bunch of energy quickly.John O'DonnellFast, charge. Yeah.David RobertsAnd then we want it to hold that energy with very little losses. And this is the other fact about thermal storage that blew my mind that I do not think is widely appreciated, which is the incredibly low losses here. People are accustomed to, I think if you want to store energy in hydrogen, you're losing about 50% of your energy through all the convergence. Like a 50% efficiency ish yes, batteries, lithium-ion, depending, you're getting up to don't know what the standard average is, but just heating up a rock, you get 90% to 95% of that heat back out of that rock.That is wild to me.John O'DonnellThat's right. Yeah. The least efficient of the thermal energy storage systems are around 90%. We happen to be 98%.David RobertsThat's just crazy. So the heat just sits there in the rock and doesn't go anywhere?John O'DonnellWell, fill up your thermos with hot coffee, take the thermos and wrap it in a couple of blankets, open it up, three days later the coffee is still hot. It's not like a chemical system where there's self discharge or something. The only place energy can go is either lost to the environment through insulation or delivered to the target. So it's a lot easier than it sounds. A lot of people think, "Oh, this efficiency couldn't be possibly the case." It really is almost embarrassingly simple.David RobertsAnd now my question though is when we say 95-98%, what are the time horizons of that? Like if I fully charge your thermal battery and we're going to get into the guts of your thermal battery here in a second, but if I fully charge a Rondo battery and then just don't do anything to it, how long would it take for all that heat to be lost? Like what is the time horizons we're discussing here?John O'DonnellAgain, the use case that we're considering that we're targeting, is it's discharging continuously?David RobertsRight. It doesn't need to hold it that long. Theoretically, I'm wondering.John O'DonnellTheoretically that's right, because the one place where you are holding energy, we've got a food factory that runs shift work. They operate one shift five days a week. So yeah, you're storing some energy and you got more energy on Monday than you did on Friday afternoon. The short answer is we lose about 2%, 2.5% per day. So if you were holding energy multiple days, there would be self discharge. But that's because we were designing for a particular use case. Again, you could decide the rate at which your thermos loses heat by if you wrap it in a blanket ... you could make it store energy for months on end.Then the question is, is that valuable? If you really want to store energy for months on end? If you want to move energy from July to January, chemical storage is a great thing because it doesn't have self discharge.David RobertsRight.John O'DonnellIf you are in a place where you can have a salt cavern and you can make hydrogen in July and pull out in January, okay, that's great.David RobertsRight? Because the hydrogen you pull out in January contains the exact same amount of energy ...John O'DonnellExactly.David Roberts... as you put in the hydrogen.John O'DonnellAs long as it didn't leak out. But yes.David RobertsSo in the hours today's, maybe multiple days, rarely a week time horizon that you're working in, you're getting 98% efficiency. 98% of the energy that goes in comes back out to the application.John O'DonnellYes. In that use case. That's right.David RobertsI think now that we're focused in here on the heat battery, let's just discuss what the Rondo heat battery is, and maybe while you're telling us, tell us what some of the other options in this space are. I know people are heating up. You're heating up bricks. Some people are heating up giant chunks of graphite. I think sand is on the table. I don't even know what all the options are. But what are people trying in that space?John O'DonnellThe one technology that's been at scale for quite a while, that's been used by the solar industry since the 1980s is using nitrate salts, which melt at around 250 degrees. Salts? That's right. They're stable up to about 600°C. And so you can have a big tank of cold salt, which is something like 600 degrees Fahrenheit. It looks like a transparent liquid, but stay away from it. And a tank of hot salt, and you heat by pumping from one to the other and pull the heat out going the other way. I built my first molten salt test facility back in 2008 at a national lab.David RobertsI remember there was a hype cycle around molten salts that has kind of faded. Why has it faded? Like, why are rocks preferable?John O'DonnellThe more you know about it, the less you like it. It's one thing to use it in a solar power station where there's nothing in there for a mile away except for the turbine. It's quite another thing for an energy storage facility to be put inside a factory where people are working. When I mentioned safety first, you don't want a system that can catch fire or spill a superheated liquid that would burn everybody or release toxic gases. I'm not aware of any molten salt projects that haven't sent at least one person to the hospital. So there's the molten salt systems.And again, they work. They're proven but they have proven challenges.David RobertsThey just require a lot of engineering to contain.John O'DonnellWell, and that's another matter that you've talked about previously, which technologies get cheap, right? Molten salt systems are a lot like they have the nuclear reactor characteristic that everyone is bespoke, those tanks at that site with that engineering and there has not been much learning capable to drive cost out. The modular approach, the factory manufactured approach, eludes that technology. Now there are a lot of people exploring how do we do modular factory manage. And one of the things that you first do if you want to store heat is, okay, what's it cheap to store heat in?As you mentioned stone, crushed rock, various kinds of rocks in a box or sand in a cylinder where you build an industrial strength hairdryer. You blow superheated air through the rock or the sand bed. And then when you want heat, you push cool air the other way through the sand or the rock bed. That works. There are people taking it to scale. It has temperature and cost challenges. What you find in every one of these cases, the rock is cheap, but the box costs a lot.David RobertsAnd the fans, I assume like the fans and that kind of engineering adds to the ...John O'DonnellThat's right. And remember now that your fan has to blow at your peak charging rate. And there's an example of a technology that leads you to it's more expensive to charge fast. But the big problem with those unstructured materials is when they heat up, they expand and you have to have a container strong enough and then when they cool, they shrink and settle and then the next day they expand again and they slowly turn into dust over at a rate. So the material looks really cheap, but the system turns out to be not so cheap.Right then you mentioned there are a lot of interesting science experiments with new materials that have never been used this way before. When we started Rondo, we did a really careful look at everything that's out there. There are people using liquid silicon. It melts at 14° Celsius stores a lot of heat. Just like ice melting in a glass absorbs a lot of heat melting and releasing silicon. Freezing silicon is a really good thing for high temperature heat. But what do you make the glass that's holding that silicon-ice? How do you keep it like there are a lot of challenges that companies have been working on for years and it's probably going to take another decade before that technology is at the point that an ordinary project finance guy will say, yes, that's as low risk as PV. I'll invest in that at the same finance rate. And that time to bank ability is one of the biggest issues. If you want a technology to go big fast, everybody's got to agree it's boring and low risk and that's a challenge with new materials. Graphite is another material that's interesting. It has higher heat capacity than rock or brick, especially when it gets hot, but it catches fire at 560°C. So you want to store energy at 1500° or 2000°.You've got to keep it in some atmosphere so that it can't catch fire for 30 years and it's conductive electrically, which could be great. But anyway, there are interesting engineering challenges and there are at least four companies working on that. One of them is also looking at using that graphite not for electricity to heat, but electricity to heat to electricity. Using PV cells to capture the light from the graphite.David RobertsIs that Indora?John O'DonnellAntora.David RobertsAntora. Yeah, I talked to them, too. And in terms of like science-fiction geeky fun, that one is just a great one. They heat the graphite up, it gets so hot that the energy comes back out as light.John O'DonnellLight.David RobertsSo they have it covered in shutters that they can open incrementally. And the light can either shine on tubes full of fluid if you want heat, or these special PV modules that they built especially for it. If you want electricity, like the whole conceptually, that's very satisfying.John O'DonnellIt's super cool. My first job was infusion power, where you have a reactor that wants 100 million degree plasma right next to a superconducting magnet that has to be five degrees. The Antora PV challenge when they solve that that technology is cool for electricity to electricity because it could turn out to be long duration, no moving parts storage. It's hard for us to see that. That's an example of we're going to do something deeply innovative. How long will it take to prove that it's bankable and what we're doing is much more boring? The back to electricity is their superpower is back to electricity.David RobertsYeah, I want to discuss that. Like the ability to go back to electricity and what, you'll come to that. We'll get to that. But you guys have settled on rather than any of these materials science fun time experiments. Bricks.John O'DonnellYeah. Okay. Somebody told me this the other day. How many gigawatts of batteries are there in the world right now, do you know?David RobertsI don't.John O'DonnellSomebody told me there are about three gigawatts of batteries in the world right now.David RobertsLithium-ion batteries, you mean?John O'DonnellYeah. So how much heat storage is running in the world right now? As we speak, there's about 30 gigawatts of heat storage running right now. In 1828 was the first patent for a thing called a cowper stove, which is a tower with a thousand tons of brick in it that has air passages that on a 1 hour cycle. The still combusting exhaust of the blast furnace is blown down through that tower and heats all the brick to about 1500°C. And then for about 20 minutes, fresh air is drawn up through the tower and it's providing the inlet air to the furnace and it's delivering 115 megawatts heat for about 20 minutes.David RobertsCrazy.John O'DonnellAnd then it's heated again. These. Things are heated and cooled 24 times a day. They last 30 years. There's a million tons of that brick in service right now at the blast furnaces around the world.David RobertsAnd these are just ordinary brick-bricks that people are familiar with. Like, what are bricks made of?John O'DonnellWhat, are they the term they use? Yeah, there are a bunch of different materials, but two of the most abundant elements in Earth's crust are silicon and aluminum. Silica, silicon dioxide, alumina, aluminum oxide are two of the most important minerals. Different bricks are made of different mixtures of silica and alumina. And there are other kinds of bricks as well that are even higher temperature, but they call it aluminosilicate brick. It's higher temperature brick than in your fireplace. Looks a lot like it. And it's what is in every if you have a ceramics kiln, that's what's in your ceramics kiln liner.It's in a cement kiln, and it's again, used in all kinds of areas. People have been making brick like this for thousands of years. Brick is made from dirt. I mean, certain kinds of dirt. You mix it up, you put a little binder, you throw it in a kiln, and you've got your brick.David RobertsSo if I'm looking inside a Rondo box, am I literally just looking at a stack of bricks?John O'DonnellPretty much. The one thing that's different ... our breakthrough. So the brick, as you know about brick, it's brittle. If you drop a brick, it'll break.David RobertsRight.John O'DonnellYou also know that brick is not a good heat conductor. That's why we make fireplaces out of it. So if we want to heat it fast, we have to heat it uniformly. If you stuck a brick and you had, like, one side in a bucket of water and the other side in a fire, the brick might fracture. But if you put the brick in the middle of the fire, it'll heat up rapidly to the temperature of the fire. It's one of those ideas that once you see it, it's obvious. But it only took 80 design revisions.If you look inside a Rondo unit, what you'll see is a brick stack that's full of these open chambers. It's a checkerboard of open boxes surrounded by brick, and brick surrounded by these open boxes. And electrical heaters are embedded directly in the stack, and they provide radiant heat within those open boxes. And because thermal radiation of every object in the universe goes as the fourth power of its temperature in degrees Kelvin, as I know you remember.David RobertsOf course.John O'DonnellThings that can see each other get to become the same temperature by exchanging heat. So the result of this was we found a way to directly, rapidly heat the brick.David RobertsAnd this is an alternative to blowing hot air over the bricks.John O'DonnellThat's right.David RobertsWhich, a. would require more engineering and more money, but b. also might not heat them uniformly, like might heat one side before the other side or something like that.John O'DonnellHot air. You can heat them uniformly, like the blast furnaces do that. But in that case, you have the same electrical heater that's in something like a hairdryer. And inside a hairdryer, the heaters are mostly radiating to the metal plates, which in turn are heating the air, which in turn would in this case, heat the brick. There'd be a couple of hundred degrees difference between the final temperature of the brick and the temperature of the wire. In our case, that's about five degrees.David RobertsSo instead of using the wire to heat the air, to heat the brick, you're just sticking the wire in the brick, and the wire is heating the brick directly.John O'DonnellThat's right. So we just last week, we announced the world's highest temperature thermal energy storage system running. That's not because we use different heating materials than others. It's because of that physics insight that led to that structure. That's right.David RobertsGot it. Okay, just quickly, what are some of the engineering challenges here? Do the bricks expand and contract when they are heated, or do they degrade over time? What sort of things are you dealing with here with bricks that you had to overcome?John O'DonnellYeah, there were lots of things because what we're talking about is kind of at some level obvious, and people have done really good work on this previously. But the challenge is you have to think about, yes, the bricks expand and contract, so build your structure. But the nice thing is they're freestanding. They don't need a container to hold them in. So if you build your structure properly, it can freely expand and contract.David RobertsSo there are like spaces between the bricks in which they can ...Where they're touching when they're hot and spaces open up when it's cold. Exactly. Other big challenges consider if you have a storage system and one area has some airflow blockage so that during discharge, it's not getting as cool as another area the next day when you put heat in, it's going to wind up hotter than another area. And the day after that, even hotter thermal runaway that would cause failure because one part was too hot. If you have that possibility, you have to run the whole thing cooler. So it turns out one of the hard problems, one of the hard engineering problems is making sure that the temperature inside the material is uniform.John O'DonnellAnd it's uniform not just when the unit is new, but when it's 30 years old.David RobertsYour promise here is that this Rondo battery has the same capacity and the same performance characteristics in 30 years that it does today. Is that the idea?John O'DonnellThat's exactly right, yeah.David RobertsAnd no other battery? There's no other battery that can say that.John O'DonnellI think that's true. But here, there's a million tons of this material running in the world, and those guys have much higher mechanical force on it. They build 30 meters tall things. We build eight meter tall things. They heat and cool it 24 times a day. We heat and cool it once a day. Lasts 30 years for them. Pretty clear it's going to last longer than that for us. Yeah.David RobertsAnd let me ask about getting the heat out to where it needs to go, because as I have been reading about, I did a thing on a company a while back that was using concentrating solar to superheat a fluid. And they could get to these levels of heat that are germane to concrete and whatever the higher end, the higher temperature applications, but only at a particular spot. Right. It's got to be right where the sun is and where everything's coming together in that one spot. And then, of course, you face the challenge of how do I get that heat to where it needs to be without losing a bunch of the heat?And this is sort of, obviously the other half of the thermal energy challenge. And there's sort of two challenges. One is making it into steam right. For all these lower temperature applications, and then, I don't know, making it into what, for the steel or the super high energy. I don't even know how you transfer that high version of heat. So what are you using on the back end?John O'DonnellYeah. So every combined cycle power station in the world has a jet engine that's generating electric power. Its exhaust is around 605 C. That exhaust is passed through a boiler, a heat recovery steam generator that drives a steam turbine that makes extra electric power. So the world knows how to build those boilers that run on about 600 C air.David RobertsGot it.John O'DonnellThe Rondo storage is much hotter temperature than that we mix down. And for the systems that are delivering steam, we work with leaders who build conventional boilers and we've engineered the heat battery to include that boiler. So the basic heat battery models are exact drop in replacements for particular models of industrial boilers. They're just about the same size. Stick us next to your existing one, hook us up to the pipe.David RobertsYou're replacing a fossil fuel run boiler with a heat battery and a boiler in the same space.John O'DonnellYeah. We think of the heat battery as from the substation to the steam flange in that case. So it is a like for like drop in replacement. The less work the customer has to do, the better off we are.David RobertsYeah, I was going to ask it. We might as well discuss this now, because this is obviously one of the this is something you run into with battery chemistries all the time. Right. Which is just like there's so much existing infrastructure that even if you have something clever and fancy and new that's super cheap, if it requires all the facilities to update themselves, you're just starting way, way behind the eight ball.John O'DonnellThat's right.David RobertsSo to what extent is the sort of Rondo heat battery plug and play like in a low temperature steam application and like a steel plant, can you wander into any of these and just switch out with no pause.John O'DonnellAll of the energy. So the top four categories in the United States, the Doe just gave a talk recently and the top four categories in descending order of industrial heat use are chemicals, food and beverage, paper products (That includes everything from toilet paper to cardboard,) then cement, and then steel. So for chemicals, about a third to 50% of all the heat is steam. For food and bev and paper products, it's all steam. And for cement and steel, none of it is steam. So we are simultaneously, we're delivering drop in boilers today and simultaneously with our investors and partners building and developing the calciners, the ethylene crackers, the kilns, to drive particular industrial processes.Because you made this point about the solar tower. Yeah, you have a spot that's 100 meters up in the air where you can have your heat. But what we want, the heat is in some process unit. And look, we have 200 years of designing industrial process units that are powered by fuel. Which of those can we retrofit? Where will we need to design new things? We were given a grant by the Danish government. We have a project underway to design and pilot a true-zero cement process, intermittent electricity to zero-emission cement. Most of the work in that project is the design of a calciner that instead of internal combustion, runs on superheated air or superheated CO2.So it doesn't all happen all at once, but it does all happen, but some of it will. The high temperature things will take more work to integrate because industrial plants today were designed with magnificent engineering and heat balance and efficiency burning fuel. And so, as it happens, everything that runs on steam, easy drop in all the high temperature processes. We have work underway now and hope to have results over the next couple of years that use the same thermal storage platform.David RobertsBut this first commercial battery that you've deployed now, which by the way was just last week, I think, what application is that or what temperature level is that?John O'DonnellYeah, that's targeting steam, steam, steam, steam and steam. The particular installation is at a fuel producer and it's at a biofuel producer. Whether you're making renewable diesel from soybeans or animal fat or ethanol from corn, about half the total carbon intensity of that fuel is fossil fuel that was burned to produce that biofuel. And we can set that to zero. So we can produce biofuels that are about half the carbon intensity of what they are today. Interesting, our customer is really a visionary that's going to zero because the other thing that's been talked about a lot with biofuels is combining carbon capture of the biogenic CO2 in those facilities.As it happens, using Rondo for the heat eliminates about half the total carbon intensity using carbon capture, eliminates about the other half and together you get about essentially a zero-CI, zero-carbon-intensity fuel. That little unit we just started up is the pilot for deployment of a series of larger ones to do exactly that, to produce zero carbon biofuel.David RobertsVery interesting. So let's pull the lens back a little bit, maybe talk about business model. Is the idea long term that if I'm say I'm a manufacturing facility and I'm making I don't know what baby food, is the idea that I buy a Rondo unit and install it in my factory? Or is the idea that Rondo comes in, sets things up and sells me heat as a service? In other words, am I buying the equipment or am I buying the heat? Or some of both.John O'DonnellYeah. Over time, there are as many answers to that question as there are to how conventional gas turbines and steam turbines are sold. Right. Sometimes people own their own cogeneration plant. Sometimes they contract with someone else to provide them electricity or heat as a service. The renewable heat as a service business will develop the same way. In the United States today, there's a huge community of developers who know how to shave a few pennies off solar and wind electrons, but have never really looked at these industrial facilities. In Europe, actually, there are already renewable developers who are out there originating renewable industrial heat projects.So, first of all, Rondo is offering, on four continents, commissioned, guaranteed installed heat batteries. That's the foundation. We are also originating and financing heat as a service, principally in North America.Interesting.Because, again, whether you make baby food, as you said, or steel, you don't drill gas wells to get the fuel to run your process. You buy energy as a service, your capital dollars, most folks want to spend it on their own processes. And this class, this thermal energy storage class, is arguably creating one of the great business opportunities of our time for the development community, because we all know wind and solar deployment is slowing down, not because of reduced demand, but because of congestion.And I think the interconnection queue time in England is now 13 years.David RobertsYes, there's like a terawatt now, I think, waiting in the queues.John O'DonnellRight. Rondo heat batteries. Our basic unit, the RHB 300, needs 70 megawatts of generation. Typical installations may have two to ten at a single site. These are utility scale energy demand and they can be built with no grid connection.David RobertsRight. So the idea is you go build a solar farm or a wind farm that is just attached to these batteries.John O'DonnellThat's right.David RobertsAnd then you're selling the heat from the batteries. So at no point do you need the electricity grid. You're not waiting for the interconnection or anything else, that these are a coupled unit. Wind and solar being so cheap, the implications are endless and often counterintuitive. Like when I hear I could either buy heat from a conventional boiler or I could buy heat from someone who had to go out and build an entire utility scale renewable energy installation and a couple of heat batteries. Intuitively, that just sounds more expensive. But are wind and solar so cheap now that that's competitive?John O'DonnellYes, absolutely. And it depends, right, because one of the things that's exactly the right matter that you just raised someone is making an investment that's going to provide 40 years of energy to your facility. They're going to sell it to you on a contract, they're going to care about your credit worthiness and your willingness to sign that contract. That's one of the things that's unique here. It's different than selling electricity to a utility. On the other hand, from your standpoint, someone is saying you can get off the fossil fuel price roller coaster. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of people in Europe who ... and we've seen that in US.Prices have been fourteen, they've been two, they're ten. And they are also in places that have carbon prices. You can have a permanent. This lack of volatility and exposure to regulatory matters also is a strategic advantage. A friend of mine said, why were all the factories in England built on the coast? Because where it was cheap to bring the coal, low cost, reliable energy supplies are the foundation for industrial investment.David RobertsSo you're free from fluctuations in fossil fuel prices and you're free from any worry about escalating carbon prices or other carbon related regulations. Basically, like two huge worries because as you say, for a lot of these facilities, the cost of energy is the bulk of the costs. And to have the bulk of your costs fluctuating 500x back and forth over the course of a couple of years is just an insane way to try to run an industrial facility.John O'DonnellThat's right. This matter of what kind of risks do we take? People say, oh, it's risky to work with this new technology, but look at the risks that we just were used to taking. And we're entering this new world where we're not talking about a green premium, we're talking about the same or lower energy cost with these reduced risks. And then, of course, depending on what the commodity is, low carbon aluminum trades at a price premium on the London Metals Exchange. Low carbon fuels trade at much higher prices in California and Germany. And for consumer facing brands, there are buyers, coops of producers who are seeking low cost effective renewable heat sources so they can offer to the market low carbon commodities.David RobertsYeah, I mean, it seems like there ought to be a bunch of market actors that are just ready to embrace this. Like, for one thing, as you say, just on a quantity basis. If you take all that energy that we're using for heat and transfer that to electricity, you need a lot of new electricity and a lot of new clean electricity. So it seems to me like renewable energy developers ought to be over the moon about this, like beating down your door. Are they lining up to be proponents for renewable heat in the industry generally or have they not caught on yet?John O'DonnellIn some places the answer is yes. As I mentioned, Europe is very aggressively moving in this direction and a number of folks over the last few years have said "this Rondo thing sounds too good to be true. Come back to me when you're operating something commercial." We're now operating something commercial. So the short answer to your question is yes, because again, these projects offer this mix of speed and certainty that we're not tied up in a grid queue. Scale, utility scale, there's a lot of commercial industrial C&I Solar, where people are building 2 MW here, 2 MW there.It takes the same amount of brain power and lawyer time to do the two megawatt project versus the 400 megawatt project that the same facility would use for heat, and returns now that we're in an era where that's the coolest thing is that the numbers work for the heat user, they work for the financier, they work for the builders of the solar fields and they work for us. And that's a new world and economic tailwinds driving it. It will keep going faster and faster. The size you mentioned, I think at the end of 2021, there was about 1000 gigawatts of wind and 1000 gigawatts of solar each in the world.The IEA did an assessment of industrial heat and their number is it's about 9000 gigawatts of new generation that's going to be required to replace the oil, coal and natural gas now being burned.David RobertsGood grief.John O'DonnellThat's worldwide, right? And so it's only, what is it, 20% of that in the US. Yeah, that's right. It's only a few thousand gigawatts in the US.David RobertsAn enormous opportunity to build more renewable energy.John O'DonnellYeah.David RobertsA similar question is, and I have always had this question about electric vehicles too, which is electric utilities are sort of notoriously stressed, worried about this death spiral, they're worried about grid defection. And you represent potentially just a wild new load, a new responsibility for them. Something that natural gas utilities were doing, were handling, is now all going to transfer and be their responsibility, which is just a way for them to grow and invest and just a wild new opportunity for them. Why aren't they at the front of the line beating down the door, trying to make this happen faster?John O'DonnellThat's a great question, and they are. One of our investors is Energy Impact Partners, whose backers are the North American electric power industry. And for sure the lowest cost way that we're going to decarbonize all of civilization is electrification. And for sure the electric industry is at the heart of that. One of the things that's really profound about what we're doing for them is that electrification, you install an electric furnace. That furnace is now running on wind power 30% of the hours of the year. And the other 70%, it's a new load on gas fired or coal fired power stations until the grid has fully decarbonized.David RobertsRight.John O'DonnellThese thermal storage systems, these things can be dispatched by the utility the same way they dispatch generation. The deal is not that I want a megawatt continuously, the deal is I want 24 megawatt hours today. You deliver them when it's convenient. These things become an asset in the electricity grid and a solution to these problems of variability and over generation and balancing.David RobertsRight. In the same way that sort of any controllable load helps grid stability. These are controllable.John O'DonnellYeah, but people talk about controllable load, demand response, for example, is a load that you expect to run all the time, but you can turn it off during emergencies. That's not this, this is something that no, no, you're going to dispatch it so that it never takes a single megawatt hour of spinning reserve or gas fired power generation. You're going to dispatch it so that it never raises the peak demand on your transmission or distribution system. You can manage it with telemetry from the grid operator. It's different than anything that's come before. It's like lithium-ion batteries in that sense, but at a tiny fraction of the cost.And we're not trying to solve from moving electric power from noon to 07:00 p.m.David RobertsRight.John O'DonnellWe are taking that electric power and replacing gas combustion principally in North America, and oil and coal combustion. We're opening an entirely new segment to renewable deployment. So, yeah, the electric utilities are getting engaged now. They face all kinds of issues with the regulatory frame that we have for electricity. Of course, they're already facing those matters as renewables deploy. And there are some new challenges, but there are people actively working that issue and we're thrilled to be working with them.David RobertsSo if I'm, I've got this manufacturing facility, I've got a big Rondo battery and I'm trying to decide between two options. One is I could build my own off-grid behind the meter generation, solar and wind. I could put my own solar and wind up, or I could just get on the grid and time my charging so that I'm chasing the clean energy on the grid so that I'm only charging when there's clean energy on the grid. Do we have any sense of which of those will be more economic or why you'd want to go one way rather than the other?I'm just wondering how many of these sort of self contained, off-grid, purpose built renewable energy installations there are going to be, it seems to me intuitively like that ought to be more expensive and what you ought to prefer is just for the grid itself to clean up so you have more, so it's easier. But what are the choices there?John O'DonnellThese questions are right at the heart of the matter. You're dead on. And I'll give you the long answer. The short answer is it depends. And it depends primarily on where you are. Pre-war economics, one project in Europe, large operation, that wanted to replace a 250 megawatt gas boiler. They could install a 250 megawatt electric boiler and eliminate their scope one. Their actual scope one, plus scope two would go up because they're in an area that's about 40% wind. And now, if 60% of the energy is coming from a coal plant, you were worse off.But from an economic standpoint, they were paying $35 a megawatt hour for gas fired heat. The electricity price annually would have been about €68 sorry. Per megawatt hour. But upon a study, given the presence of offshore wind in that area, their expected energy price on a long term buying in the cheapest 4 hours a day was under €10 a megawatt hour. So that's an example where the grid connected thing is exactly right, and it will only take four years to get the grid upgrade done, of which about three months is construction. So in a lot of places, the grid connection for grid projects is a matter.Oklahoma last year had 2000 hours of negative wholesale prices. If you put a project in Kansas or Oklahoma, you have energy prices that are slightly negative on an annual basis. If you can charge very rapidly, if you are allowed to participate in the wholesale market, there are regulatory obstacles.David RobertsBut in theory, in Oklahoma, during a time of negative wholesale prices, your facility that's running off a Rondo heat battery could be paid to charge itself.John O'DonnellThat's right.David RobertsIs that how that works? Is that what negative prices means?John O'DonnellThat's what negative prices means.David RobertsThat's so mind-blowing.John O'DonnellWell, again, and we have lots more of that coming. I know you've spoken to folks about the IRA. The production tax credit coming to solar is going to broaden the areas of the country where we see intermittent negative prices. Because, of course, if I'm getting $20 megawatt hour for tax credit, I'm perfectly happy to generate when prices are negative $19, right?David RobertsYeah. That's just crazy.John O'DonnellTechnologies like this that can absorb those periods are going to lift the price floor. They're going to benefit all the generators, especially the generators that can't turn off. And we're pretty excited. But again, it's can we connect to the grid? Can we capture those prices?David RobertsBecause if you can, there's enough heat to absorb all the curtailed power in the US, times a gazillion. Theoretically, if you could hook up all heat to electricity, you'd never curtail again, or at least not for decades. Probably.John O'DonnellOf course, subject to where is the heat-load versus where is the curtailment? Some curtailment is regional associated with total generation. You know, some of it is transmission constrained. But to a first approximation of the answer yet, that was correct, yes?David RobertsYeah, that again, seems just a crazy business opportunity for everyone involved.John O'DonnellYeah, we agree.David RobertsBut you do expect to see these off grid, custom built renewable energy installations, purely powering heat batteries in areas, say, where the grid is congested, or the grid is dirty or the interconnection queue is unusually long. You do expect to see those pop up?John O'DonnellWell, as I mentioned earlier, and just for scale, California has on the order of 20 gigawatts today. We need 100 gigawatts of new PV just to replace the BTUs of fuel now being burned for industrial heat. About 40 of those gigawatts, because of where the things are cited, could be built with no grid connection at all. And most of them will need some kind of grid connection. We see again and again that the new renewable project development model is going to be building a project that part of its electricity goes to industrial heat, into a heat battery, and part of it goes to the grid.And that, that's the sweet spot that delivers lower cost electricity to the grid. And we're absorbing what would have been curtailed power from that new purpose built thing to get all the power we need for the factory or the cement kiln or whatever.David RobertsRight. Yeah, if I'm a renewable developer and I catch wind, that there's this whole category of renewable projects that don't require this unholy paperwork nightmare that they all go through. Now again, I just can't imagine that they're not going to be stampeding in this direction. I mean, I hear them complain about this constantly.John O'DonnellWhat are the required conditions? Obviously the financial community we have to get our minds around. Okay, how are we structuring these projects where most of the energy is going to a single factory rather than to the utility? Let me think about the credit worthiness of that. And then for the moment, how long will it take to retire the Rondo technology risk? How do we backstop that? And we're busy building systems and projects that this first one of course, is the first step at commercial scale to build the track record. But again, there's a reason why we chose these century proven materials specifically, so that once you turn one of these things on and operate for six months, there's nothing left to prove.We know it works and we already know everything is durable.David RobertsThe brick heats up, the brick cools down. It's not again, it's so simple.And exact ... but that exact material, there's a million tons of doing that around the world. Doing that right now in much more severe service. But yes, it's simple. That's right.And I would imagine also that this space is going to see a lot more entrance competition. Of course, once it's kind of uncorked and it becomes clear what the opportunity is.John O'DonnellLook, trillion dollar markets don't happen without lots of people trying to enter them and nothing could be better, right? That's what we urgently need.David RobertsRight. One other question about industry, about location matters. You mentioned industry clustering along a coast where the coal is available. As more and more of our industrial activity in general and civilization gets hooked up to cheap renewable energy. Do you see something like over the course of I mean, I guess this will take years and decades, but do you imagine areas of intense renewable capacity like with lots of sun and lots of wind becoming new attractors to industry? Do you see global industry starting to migrate to renewable energy? Is it that much of a chunk of the cost of an industrial facility that it might be worth someday literally moving to it?John O'DonnellThe short answer to your question is yes. Just look at what happened with the shale gas revolution in the US. Vast investments in petrochemical and other manufacturing immediately shifted to where huge employment growth shifted to where that low cost energy was. And there's a question of how fast these transitions happen. Vasila Smill likes to talk about, "oh, it takes a really long time," but there are lots of examples where that is not true. Just, again, when the rules changed and combined cycle gas fired power generation was allowed in the US. We saw giant capital flows and giant rates of transformation.Now, that took awareness. It took enough experience that investors could say, oh yeah, I'll build that giga project because I know it's going to work. It took awareness of the kind that you are building that these opportunities exist, but the long term. Yes, absolutely. That's right.David RobertsThat'll be such an interesting geopolitical like of all the forces in the last 50 years or whatever that have moved industry around the globe, this will be just a completely new version of that. It's going to scramble all the previous alliances.John O'DonnellYeah, but there is one example that's even faster, which is not just the long term, but the right now. A couple of weeks ago, I spoke at the Munich Security Conference in a session with a number of industry CEOs and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president and president. Wevine said, look, there are three wars underway. There's the ground war, there's the energy war. He thought he would bring us to our knees. And there's a clean energy war, mostly with China. And a huge challenge before us today is how do we get off gas? But we need to get off gas without deindustrializing.There have already been giant plant shutdowns and layoffs because of the unavailability of gas right now and the forecast unavailability of gas longer term. Europe's bullets in the energy war are clean electrons, domestically produced, stable, low cost sources of energy. And again, we and all the other electric thermal storage technologies because we save twice as much gas per kilowatt hour as hydrogen. We're an important part of speeding up that transition there and preserving an existing industrial base. I think the same thing is true in the US as well as carbon prices come into the world. As gas prices rise, the competitiveness of US manufacturing on the world stage is going to be affected by how fast can we make this transition to renewables.And it doesn't happen all at once. But there are beyond the climate drivers, beyond the huge business response that we've just seen in the last five years, to the climate drivers, the pledges, and not just pledges, but action that we're seeing across all kinds of industrial producers. We are really at an amazing moment. I kind of wish we had gotten started with what we're doing here at Rondo five years ago. But five years ago what we were doing was stupid, right?I mean, go back ten. What we're doing somebody could have figured out earlier.David RobertsI said it at the outset, I'll say it again, I say it over and over again. Wind and solar being as much cheaper now as they were five to ten years ago is just like it's not an incremental change, it's a phase change. It's a flip to a different system. All we're doing now is just like sort of one at a time here and there in different industries, in different places, kind of opening our eyes to like, oh, this is a completely different landscape, like completely new opportunities. It's a different world now. It's going to take a while just to absorb the implications of super cheap renewables.John O'DonnellYes. And the thing we know for sure is that every year somehow those cost reductions will continue, right? We have some short term supply chain things, but somehow, I mean, I worked in the electronics industry for decades and everybody every year said, oh, Moore's Law is over, it can't keep getting better.David RobertsThey say it every year for wind and solar too, right?John O'DonnellYeah, exactly. And you look back over every five year period, every year's forecast was wrong, it fell faster than that. It's reasonable to assume we're going to continue to be in that, so that this era that we're entering, it keeps getting better and better. Our storage technology and the other storage technologies will cost reduce as they come down. But the storage technology is only 20% of the cost of the total project. The fact that the wind and solar are coming down so steeply, this cost advantage is going to continue to open for the people who have made this transition onto renewables.David RobertsIt's really interesting watching people in industry try to sort of skate to where the puck is going to be, as they say, sort of like start off on something that might not be economic when you first start developing it, but you're going to meet that cost curve, right, in five years, and then your business model will become viable. It's a real tricky timing there. There's a lot of people trying to sort of coordinate that dance just right.John O'DonnellYes, but my point is we're already at that point where we're at break even or better, we're not waiting five years. That's one of the big difference of this class versus there are a lot of things that are just as you said, we're investing now because we're hope it's going to be cheaper in the future.David RobertsWe're already at that point, right, so a final question. I wan

Here is the audio portion of the live stream broadcast on 12/1/2022. We answered.1. What is future proofing2. Why does a MUTOA need to be 49 feet from HC3. Best Practices for pulling in J Hooks4. WAP at the WA?5. What height should floor penetrations be?6. Calculating BTUs for TRs7. Pulling cables in freezing temperatures. Support the show

Click here for Dick Storm's slides about energy, the future of electricity, and more: https://linktr.ee/wescomincTo learn more about Dick Storm, visit his LinkedIn profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-storm-00557810/For more information about Wescom, visit: https://wescominc.com/

In February 2021, it got really cold in Kansas. It was about 15 degrees below zero for more than a week. Natural gas prices shot up, in terms of BTUs, from $2.54 on Feb. 1 to $622 by Feb. 17. Then, as if the market had been manipulated again, it dropped back to $2.46 by the end of the month. The bills for all that are coming due. The Kansas Corporation Commission has decided the extraordinary costs paid by public utility companies for natural gas during that period will be largely covered by residential retail customers — about $622 million spread over 2-10 years. The KCC action raises many questions. Where are the investigations into price gouging? Was there a missed opportunity to negotiate a better solution on behalf of consumers? What prevents this from happening again in February of 2023 James Zakoura, an energy and public utility attorney with a keen interest in the work of the KCC, joins the Kansas Reflector podcast to delve into these issues.

Episode Notes Episode Summary For this episode of This Month in the Apocalypse, Brooke, Margaret, and Casandra chat about more horrible things and some fixes. They talk about supply chain shortages, corn, ways to keep your house warmer without using a ton of energy or resources, dubious debunked how warming myths that also might burn it down, and a thorough introduction to hurricane preparedness. Host Info Casandra can be found on Twitter @hey_casandra or Instagram @House.Of.Hands. Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Brooke is just great and can be found at Strangers helping up keep our finances intact and on Twitter @ogemakweBrooke Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Next Episode Hopefully will come out Friday, October 4th, and every two weeks there after. Transcript An easier to read version is available on our website TangledWilderness.org. This Month In the Apocalypse: October Brooke Hello and welcome to Live Like The World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Brooke Jackson, one of your hosts today, along with the brilliant Margaret Killjoy and the iridescent Casandra. This is October 2022 installment of your most favorite Live Like The World Is Dying sub-segment, This Month In The Apocalypse. Today, we're going to talk about the latest shortages, the looming crisis in energy, fuel sources and what can be done about the crisis, war, climate disasters and probably some shit about the economy. But first, we'd like to celebrate being a member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts by playing a little jingle from one of the other luminous podcasts on our network. Doo doo doo. Jingle Speaker 1 Kiteline is a weekly 30 minute radio program focusing on issues in the prison system, you'll hear news along with stories from prisoners and former prisoners as well as their loved ones. You'll learn what prison is, how it functions and how it impacts all of us. Margaret Behind the prison walls, a message is called a kite, whispered words, a note passed hand to hand, a request submitted the guards for medical care. Illicit or not, sending a kite means trusting that other people will bare it farther along until it reaches its destination. Here on Kiteline, we hope to share these words across the prison walls. Jingle Speaker 1 You can hear us on the Channel Zero Network and find out more at Kiteline radio.no blogs.org. Brooke And we're back. Quick introductions for those of you who might not remember each of us or might be listening for the first time. I'm Brooke an indigenous, baby anarchist woman who loves spreadsheets home remodeling and connecting with the land. And I'm going to toss to Margaret. Margaret I'm Margaret, and I am someone who writes a lot and is on podcasts a lot. And does useful stuff too. But, those are some of the things I do. And I will pass it to Casandra. Casandra I wasn't prepared for an introduction. Margaret Neither was I. Casandra My name is Cassandra. I garden and weave. Check! Margaret Yay. Brooke And do amazing art. Casandra Yeah, I make books. And drink tea. Okay. Margaret That's good tea. Casandra Yeah. Margaret Back to you, Brooke. Casandra Oh, yeah, we're supposed to remember to plug things. Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness is putting out our...Well, it's not really technically our first book is it, Margaret? Brooke Speaking of books, I feel like there's a book that you've been working on lately. I know we're supposed to plug things at the end. But this sounds great to mention it now. Margaret No, but it's our first book is a new collective. Casandra Okay, we're putting out our first book as the new collective. And also, first book in a long time, called "Try Anarchism For Life: The Beauty Of Our Circle" by Cindy Barukh Milstein. And I think I sent it to the printer yesterday. So fingers crossed. Brooke If people want to preorder that, Casandra, where can they do that? Casandra On the Stranger's site. And if you preorder it, you'll get some cute little book plates, which I didn't realize other people didn't know what book plates are. But, they're like the little stamps or stickers, you can put at the beginning of books. And it says "ex libris," which means 'from the library of,' and you can write your name so everyone knows it's your book. Brooke Nice. So check out our website for that awesome book, which is beautifully designed, and actually a really, really good read. I really enjoyed it. All right, in our very first episode of This Month In The Apocalypse, one of the things we talked about was things that were in shortage, and surprise, surprise, we are continuing to have supply chain shortages. The thing that made me recall this and want to bring it up, again, is that I saw an NPR article in the last week about the fact that Adderall is facing a shortage, which is interesting, and did a little more digging on what's going on there. And part of it is that they had labor shortages. So, they fell behind in their production. And then the part that was super interesting to me that I've never thought about, Adderall is a highly controlled substance. It's probably a well known fact, part of the part of the highly controlled portion of it is that manufacturers are regulated in how much of it they can produce. So, if they fall behind their schedule, it's not as easy as just like, "Oh, we're gonna do a double shift and make extra this month," they have to get like, special dispensation to be able to make more. So they can make the amount that they're allowed to, but not more than that without special permission. Margaret So they can't catch up? Brooke They can if like they apply for FDA approval and get, you know, temporary approval or whatever to make extra, assuming they can get the ingredients they need and workers to actually make the extra. But yeah, it's not as easy as just like, "Oh, we need to make extra." There's a whole bunch of extra stuff going on that they have to do to do that. Casandra Yay, bureaucracy. Brooke Yeah, totally. So ration your Adderall? That's probably probably not how that works. There are other medical supplies that are still in shortage too. This, I also found interesting because we haven't seen it in the headlines as much, or at least I haven't, right.? Like, it hasn't been in the news. But, there have been things that have continued to be in short supply of the throughout the whole pandemic. One of the items is gloves. There's lots of different kinds of gloves that medical providers use, you know, you've got vinyl gloves, and nitrile gloves, and powdered, and non powdered, and the thicker and thinner, and all of that kind of stuff. And so there's like several different types of specific gloves that are in short supply that.... Casandra When you said gloves, I was picturing like knitted gloves. Like why? Brooke Sorry, no, like medical gloves. Casandra That makes much more sense. Brooke Just get your grandma's to start knitting, and it'll be okay. Casandra Yep. Brooke Also, testing supplies are in short supply for medical providers. And specifically, it was like the equipment used to collect samples, store samples, transport samples, for medical tests, that portion of it. And then I guess, ventilator parts are still in short supply, as well. Margaret I guess that makes sense, since everyone wants that. Brooke Yeah. So that's the medical side of things. And then other things out in the real world, this is one I hadn't heard about, but tampons, I guess I've been in short supply. So it's good time to learn menstrual extraction. If you know somebody that can teach you that if you want to learn, or looking for other options, if you haven't previously been open to trying things like menstrual cups, might be a time to do that. Margaret, this is a fun throwback to our first one, there was this thing that was in short supply that you mentioned, and that each of us have two have on our respective homes. Margaret Um, wind...I'm trying to come up with something clever, I know the actual answer, but trying to come up with something funny. Casandra Garage doors? Margaret Yeah, it's garage doors. Brooke To the point where like, if you're a contractor, and you're going to build a house, they're recommending that before you start with anything related to the building of your house, the very first thing you do is order the garage doors, because it will take basically the whole time for them to get there. Like the last thing that will arrive and that you will install in the house is the garage door because of how long they taking. Casandra I knew it! Casandra Okay, I feel like every, like it's a running joke, and you all will always bring up garage doors. And every time I'm like, But, why is there a shortage? And then every time I forget, so I'm gonna ask again. Why? Brooke I don't think we talked about why last time. Margaret I don't think we have a 'why.' I think that there's just a lot of shit that is like, my guess is because it's so specialized that they make a certain amount. And then I don't know, but it might be something more about new homes? I don't know, The answer is I don't know, Brooke Part of it is lumber. Because remember, lumber was in short supply, like lumber mills shut down early in the pandemic. And so there was like a lot of lumber that was not being produced. And then when they started up again, because the price of lumber has gone up the price of garage doors are like two or three times higher, depending on where you live than they were pre pandemic. And part of that's because the lumber is so much more expensive. Margaret Okay, but hear me out. It'd be prettier anyway, it's instead of having the kind that rolls up above, just have like big old barn doors that swing open, and just make them out of two by fours. And it will totally work. And I'm sure there's no specific reason that people have developed a much more specialized solution. Brooke Yeah, definitely not. Casandra And there can just be like a rope from the door to your fence. So when you drive up to your fence, you can just grab the rope and pull it. Margaret Yeah, totally. Casandra And that will open the garage door. Margaret Yeah, or some sort of like system where you like knock something over as you're driving up towards your house. It like knocks over the ball, that rolls down the hill and it hits the thing and then it does the thing. And then the garage door swings open and then hits something that it shouldn't have and then starts another chain reaction and then the whole neighborhoods on fire. Casandra Yeah, totally secure Brooke I was with you till the end. So a real nice Rube Goldberg type of garage door opening. Margaret Yeah, I think that is the solution for most of these things that we're missing. Like for example, lack of gloves. Have doctors considered using knit gloves? Brooke Really great point, Margaret. Really great point. Moving on. Computer chips continue to be in short supply.That was an issue like this time last year. It got a little better. Casandra Wait, what news? Brooke Computer chips, Casandra Computer ships? I'm sorry, I... Brooke The ones that go into like everything, like not just computers, but like they go into cars now, they go into your television, they go you know... Casandra My contribution today is going to be to mishear everything. Brooke That's alright, it's going to be way more fun that way. Margaret Okay, so tortilla chips, also chips conduct electricity, probably if you put enough electricity into them. Brooke I don't know if they have any conductive materials in them, Margaret. Maybe we need to add some metal to our tortilla chips. Brooke And then they can do this. Margaret Yeah. Margaret It's good for everyone. And just mark it for anyone who has braces that they should avoid them. Brooke Okay, yeah. Excellent. Renewable too because corn. Margaret That's not something I'm going to talk about later about. Anyway. Brooke Sadly, baby formula continues to be in shortage. Again, that's not making the headlines like it was when it first started. But, that is still a major issue. So, check on your people. Do what you can to help out there. Unfortunately, that's ongoing and doesn't still doesn't have a solution in sight right now. They've been...like they ramped up production on it and stuff, but it's just still not enough. And then the raw ingredients that go into make it too, of course, have continued to have problems. Here's a really sad one for you, Margaret. It's it's one of your favorite things. And the concept of this item tends to be a sponsor of one of those other podcasts. Casandra Guns. Margaret Oh no, smiling children? Brooke No, there's plenty of them. You only really need one. So that's, that's okay. Margaret Don't tell me that there's no potatoes. Brooke Potatoes are in short supply. Margaret This has gone historically badly for my people. Brooke There was like a whole famine or something. Except there wasn't. Casandra Something. Brooke Yeah, sorry. potatoes, potatoes in short supply. Okay. Casandra But it's like harvest potato season right now? Are they just already anticipating that there won't be enough potatoes? Brooke Yeah, that's part of it. Again, we've talked about in previous episodes, how like, there have been really weird climate shit happening, especially like in the US that's affected the growth and production of things. Like here where we live, our Spring was way long and cold and wet. And it really fucked up the growing cycles of things. So, loss. Casandra Yeah, my potatoes didn't do great. Brooke Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there were losses due to that early in the season of like potato plants. And then they're not anticipating, you know, what they are getting out of the ground to be, excuse me, as plentiful as it might otherwise be. Or normally be. Yeah, that's sad. Less sad, Christmas trees are probably going to be in short supply again, this year, they're not sure. But, they were last year, and the conditions that cause that are looking to be much the same. So yeah, living things that get chopped down in order to decorate your house for a month, fewer of those. Sorry? Margaret Alternatives include decorating a living tree, or moving into a house that some old weird person left a fake Christmas tree in the attic. Or using last year's tree. Casandra I'm a big fan of rosemary trees, and then you just plant it. Brooke You can also paint a tree on your wall somewhere and then just set out presents. You can make out of cardboard with your children. Margaret Or, you can realize its pagan idols idolatry and realize that a true Christian would never celebrate Christmas. Casandra Or you can convert, and do Hanukkah, because they overlap this year. Brooke Yes, I love it when they overlap. Casandra Menorahs are pretty. Margaret There's so many options. Yeah. Brooke Okay, cool. And then our last supply chain thing, which will be a nice toss is that energy and fuel are in short supply and expected to be in even shorter supply, which means I can toss this to Margaret to talk more about that issue. Margaret Yay, everything's doomed. I mean, everything's gonna be fine. Somewhere in between these two extremes is the truth. Okay, so Europe is having a power crisis. And not the old fashioned kind where people decide they don't want kings anymore, but kinda about natural gas mostly. And, it is the worst energy crisis since World War II. And, there's a lot of causes of it. The most immediate cause, that is absolutely the most immediate cause, and it's, it's not the straw that broke the camel's back, it's like the two by four that broke the camel's back, is the is that Russia has responded...Okay, so no, I'm gonna start at the beginning instead. Okay, so for 20 years or so... Brooke No, start in the middle! Margaret So for 20 years or so, Euroupe has been trying to use fossil fuels...If I was really starting at the beginning it would be like: the economic project that is Europe was caused by stripping all of the natural resources out of the developing world. But, for the last 26 years, Europe has been like, "We want to be the seen as the people who are really good. And so we're going to use fewer fossil fuels." And so, for about 20 years, they've been trying to work on that. However, this has basically increased their dependence on other places, like Russia, primarily Russia, in this case, where natural gas imports cheap, natural gas imports from Russia have been absolutely a mainstay. However, this has been crisis for the past two Winters too, even before the Ukrainian war, basically. Because, if you're going to have renewables as the way that you're trying to make a sustainable world, it has to be coupled with degrowth, instead of just like continuing to have a growing thing, because like, actually, renewables create less power overall at the moment, right. So, increased dependence on Russia, and then Russia has not officially cut off natural gas exports to Europe, what they did instead is they stopped 89% of their natural gas exports. And, they did it by saying, "Oh, we have a leak, and we can't fix it because of the sanctions. So, I guess you have to stop the economic sanctions against us, or you don't get any natural gas." And so they're blackmailing the West, and I don't know, whatever, I mean, I don't expect better of them. They're in the middle of fucking fading and genociding Ukraine, so whatever. But, this is a problem. And also increasing drought that's been hitting Europe really badly, it fucks up a bunch of other things, too. It fucks up their hydroelectric. And then, it even fucks up their coal, because coal is transported by river. And, they can't if the rivers are too low. And so the Right wing wants to blame a lot of this on Germany's shutdown of like the completely safe nuclear power plants or whatever. But, I think that that's worth contrasting with...France is actually at half nuclear power right now, because corrosion, lagging repairs, and general lack of safety have caused the nuclear power plants about to...to have to operate at about half capacity. So nucular, actually, sometimes complicated. And the heatwave has also meant that they can't use river water to cool the plants, because there's the nuclear power plants, and the other, I think other power plants too, because they use river water to cool it. But, I think it's a combination of the river water being much hotter than it usually is. And then also much less of it. Though, the one weird thing that people are like hoping will like pull it through at the last minute is there's now this new micro nucular reactor that's supposed to be safe, because it uses molten salts and fuel rods. And it fits onto a tractor trailer and powers 1000 homes, and is not yet being produced commercially. But, it's like a thing that people say that they've developed. So, the UK has seen energy prices, the energy price increase has doubled since last year's increase. So, it's not like...energy prices aren't double, but they have grown at double the rate, protests are breaking out, people are starting to burn their utility bills. And what's kind of cool is that you'd sort of expect this kind of protest to kind of go in a Right wing direction about like, you know, fuck you, let's go frack or whatever. But, actually, it's, at least what I've seen is that the protests are mostly coming out of a Left wing and a-political position. And, a lot of is like pushing to nationalize gas, and basically say like, "This is fucked up. This is affecting the poor people more than anyone else." Gas being, in this case used for heating, but also is used for power generation, and then a lot of industrial manufacturing. And, this is not just a matter of rising costs, it's literally a potential in the next couple of weeks, there might be blackouts and power rationing. Various places are limiting power use, like businesses are being encouraged to turn off their air conditioners, and all this kind of stuff. And of course, everything happens in a vacuum with this kind of thing. So, there's no way...wait, no, no, this will cause stagnation economically and could easily trigger a recession. Margaret And the other thing that it does, is it creates this awful fucking feedback loop. We talked about last time where like the feedback loop of like, all this flooding, destroying Pakistan, causing them to get IMF loans, which cause more austerity, which cause more, you know, climate change or whatever, you have a very similar feedback cycle, in that it's the...because of this stuff that's happening, more fossil fuel production is happening, coal plants are coming back online. Fracking is no longer banned in the UK. And of course, the pipeline attack that didn't help any of this, that was probably Russia, but Russia blames it on the US, was the largest methane release in documented history. So, even though the pipes weren't even an active use, the fact that they were ruptured caused the largest methane release in documented history. And of course, it was the heatwave the summer that spiked power usage. And so, climate change causes people to get more desperate for power. So, we enter to a vicious cycle, which will definitely not have any effects anywhere but Europe, and we can probably be done with that issue unless someone else has something to say about it affecting elsewhere. Casandra Yeah, I was reading about how the domino effect is impacting the US. It sort of seems self evident, but I'll talk about it anyway. So it looks like 40% of the US of our electricity is generated by natural gas, which I didn't realize. So, you know, in the US, we either heat our homes with natural gas or electric, but natural gas prices impact electricity prices, maybe someone else can explain that to me, because I don't quite get it. But, the moral of the story is that when natural gas prices go up, all of the other prices go up as well. Yeah, they're expecting anything from a 17% increase to a third increase? I don't understand. Yeah, thank you. 33%. So that sucks. It's not as bad as Europe, like I'm looking at...I was looking at Germany in the UK, and it sounds like their prices are way, way, way, way higher, but it's still not gonna be great here. So, I was hoping we could talk about things that people can do. Like ways they can keep their home warm, and insulated and stuff like that. Brooke and I are both in the Pacific Northwest, which is known for its mild winters, but we also get lots of rain and damp and then Margaret is on the East Coast and has much harsher winters. So maybe between the three of us, we can come up with some good ideas. Brooke Let me start with what I tell my kid which is put on some socks and a goddamn sweater. Casandra And a hat. Feet and head. Margaret And then what I tell your kid which is, "If you if you make a...if you build a fire, if you build a man a fire, he's warm for a day, but if you set a man on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life. Brooke Well we do like to set men on fire in this house, so that's that's perfectly acceptable here. If any men come in, you can be set on fire for our warmth. Margaret Yeah, yeah, that's a renewable resource. Casandra Because, I mean, we know that lumber and wood prices have gotten up and you got to use something in your fireplace, Margaret And I hear that they're made out of wood. That's why we throw them in the lake to find out. Cause men are witches. Wait, hold on. Okay, so sweaters and hats, okay. Okay. Casandra Some things I learned. So clothes dryers can be up to 20% of a home's energy bill. I had no idea. And in my head, a dry...like drying racks aren't good idea where we live because it's so damp here. But maybe that's not the case. So, I'm gonna try that this winter. Checking...I've always rented so the the idea of like checking the filters and shit on my whatever way your home is heated has never occurred to me, but apparently that's super important. Right, Brooke? Brooke Absolutely. I'm gonna be totally honest, I don't know if that has anything to do with the, I guess it probably helps the efficiency of the device. Yeah, I do it every six months, because I know it helps the air quality in my house. And that's important. Casandra I don't even know how to do that. So you should come over. Margaret There's both filters in the HVAC. Sorry. Casandra Let me know, tell me more, I don't understand. Margaret As far as I understand, there's both the filters that are like the big screen filters that people are like run out and strap to their fans to do air filter cleaning, right? And then there's like, at least in my house has an oil heater and in an oil heater, there's a filter, an oil filter, and so my presumption is that it just takes more power to push things through a clogged up filter, both air filter and oil filter. That's my guess. The main thing I learned the hard way by moving somewhere with harsh winters and an oil furnace is that if you let your furnace run dry, it breaks. And so you actually have to keep it full, which is cool because my gauge is broken, so I just need to every now and then like call and be like, "Hey, can you fill it up?" And they're like, "How much do you need?" And I'm like, "I don't know. You fill it up." I did learn that heating oil and diesel are functionally the same thing, although you're not allowed to put heating oil in your car, because that they'd like stain it red so that you can get caught if you do that. Casandra Weird. Margaret Yeah, and there are some diff...please don't run out and put diesel in your home oil filter because you heard some girl who lives in the mountains tell you to. I haven't fucking done this. And but, some people I think sometimes like top off, like in a hurry. They'll do that if they keep diesel around for like their tractor or whatever the fuck. Brooke I mean, it's probably better than...may be....I'm guessing, totally guessing, that it might be better than letting it run dry, because that can be an expensive fuckup. Margaret Yeah, if you do that you have to change at very least the oil filter. And then if not the also the fucking spark plugs and all this shit and the parts are cheap, the capacity to do it without exploding things is harder. This is sort of beside the point that only applies to oil. Let's talk about other ways to heat homes. Casandra So, yeah, other ways to heat your homes or more like how to keep heat in. I was researching this anyway, because my house has lots of windows like huge, like walls of windows, which is beautiful, but they're all single pane and none of them seal. Like literally, there's no, I don't even, I still haven't figured out what this type of window's called, but it's like slats of...horizontal slats of glass sort of layered on top of each other, and you can crank it so they tilt open or crank it so they tilt shut, but there's nothing actually...like air just you know, comes in. So using that fun, classy plastic stuff that's temporary to cover your windows. That's one of my plans this year, the few windows that don't have that tilty glass, that's an official term, I'm going around the edges and caulking them. I checked on my door seals. I learned that they're like energy efficient electric blankets. Casandra I'm anticipating that if I set my set my thermostat a lot lower and like use those while I'm working during the day or even at night, maybe that will be helpful. Margaret Oh, that's cool. Brooke Heavy curtains can help too. With Windows. Casandra Yeah! Inulated curtains! Brooke That can be a real trade off if you have any like seasonal effective disorder, light issues, but like they can do a lot to keep the cold back if you have a heavy curtain that you hang over the window. Casandra Totally, yeah, those are super effective. Margaret And then you can play the fun game of opening them when the sun's out and then closing them when the sun's gone. Casandra Though here when the sun's out, it's colder. Margaret Oh, okay. Yeah. Casandra So, that's why we're all sad all winter. Margaret Yeah. Casandra Let's see, did I find anything else exciting? People are on social media right now sharing all of these like wild ideas about how to heat your house. And, I haven't tried these. I'm not going to vouch for them. But some of them are really interesting. So, one is like, when you're baking, you put very, already dry, that's important, bricks in the bottom of your oven, because they hold in heat. So, when you're done baking, you can open your oven and turn your oven off and the bricks will keep your house apparently. People are making a little like tea light and flower pot heaters. Margaret Can I talk shit on those really quick? Casandra Yeah, please do. Margaret They're bullshit. They're absolutely bullshit. Casandra I kind of figured. Also, like open flames? Margaret Yeah, no. And like actually, a lot of them the the actual clay pot can get hot enough to catch the candle wax on fire. And so, there's been like a bunch of houses, people have like burned down their houses trying to use these fucking things. And it would take like, I think it I looked this up the other day, it would take like hundreds of these to heat a small room. The time in which that this is a reasonably efficient thing to do is an emergency or survival situation. If you make...if you're in a fucking tent, if you're in, if you're in your house, you can do this, you can throw a blanket. If you're trying to heat up the space hidden under a blanket. A candle can be a meaningful part of that. But, if you're trying to heat up even a small room, they're not a meaningful part of it in terms of the trade off, but the stuff about thermal mass like these bricks, sorry, is it okay to just tangent on this? Casandra No please do. These are my like things that people are talking about that kind of sketched me out. Margaret Yeah, and so it's like in that I haven't specifically researched putting the bricks in the oven. What I would probably do, I mean, you want thermal mass thermal mass doesn't heat things. It's like a battery. It's a heat battery, right? And so like for example, what a lot of people do is if you put like...thermal mass is often like clay or something like that. Some people even historically use like stored jugs of water and stuff where the sun comes in and heats it up or wherever your passive heating comes from. Then it radiates out that heat once the heat sources gone. And so, you can keep your house cooler at night by having a lot of thermal mass. This is one reason why cob houses have some advantages in a lot of climates and adobe and all that stuff right. And concrete even, can actually act as thermal mass, although I don't know as much about the efficiency of that. Brick houses have an advantage for this. But yeah, like a lot of the hacks around like, "Oh, light a candle," are like just a really good way to burn your house down. Casandra Well, it's not even just a candle. People are like building...like constructing these like...you take a flower pot. You know what I'm talking about? Margaret Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, so and that doesn't actually amplify...Okay, so this idea where you take the candle and you put the flower pot on top of it and the terracotta flower pot is amplifies the heat, it doesn't amplify shit, you can't amplify heat. That's like one of the laws of thermodynamics. But you can't store the heat and you can centralize the, so it doesn't get lost as much, right? So in some weird ways as maybe like a handwarmer, it would like be maybe a little bit more effective, right? Because Casandra That's an expensive handwarmer. I'm gonna knit gloves. Margaret Yeah, totally. And so it, the, the flower pot itself does get so hot, and especially if you put enough candles under it to make it useful. And you can see there's a bunch of like research that people have done, where they're like, "Oh, the flower pot gets up to 170 degrees with one candle or like 400 something degrees with four candles," or something roughly like that. I don't have the numbers in front of me. But, it doesn't make enough heat to fill a space. It instead is actually specifically preventing that heat from going out into the space, which is... Casandra Which is why it gets so hot. Margaret Yeah, totally. And again, like I mean, I don't know, and there's some advantages to it. But overall, however, I think the alcohol lamps that people make, the like DIY, there's like, like the heater block, and I think it's Philly, I can't remember. Brooke Portland has one. Margaret They like make...you can make alcohol lamps, as little portable heaters. And, and when you're talking about like a tent or something in a survival situation, they are fairly effective. I actually don't know enough about the BTUs that they put out to, to in terms of heating and other spaces. That that's beyond what I know. That what's my rant about candles, sorry. Casandra No, I appreciate the rant. My contribution was gonna be like, people are talking about sketchy shit that I don't know about. So confirming that it's sketchy shit is great. Yeah, I don't know. Do y'all know any other fun ways? I'm trying to think about like, my grandparents live in a really old house, and they have a wood stove, which heats one room. And the house is very long and thin. So, it heats one room on one end of the house and their bedrooms on the other end. So, all of the weird shit I've seen them do over the years to stay warm, like the window plastic, or those like long sock things that you put at the bottom of doors, you know, I'm talking about? Margaret Oh, yeah, totally. My house. I mean, I clearly bought my house with like 'prepper' in mind, but my house has the two different wood burning stoves, or one's a pellet stove, which are more like human energy efficient, but they require electricity, so a little bit more complicated. It's like a wood burning stove, but it's a little pellets of fuel that you can buy super cheap, but you have to buy them. You can make them yourself, but it's super labor intensive and complicated. I looked into it for a while. And then I have a regular wood burning stove in the basement and the wood burning stove is actually hooked into the HVAC like vent system in my house. And so that is something you can do is you can put a wood burning stove and hook it up to...this is not a simple retrofit. Installation in general, just fucking add insulation to your house however you can, which sometimes means like, you know, tearing open the walls and putting in more insulation or putting more insulation in your attic. If you have an attic or Casandra Covering your fireplace when you're not using it, that's one I'm learning. Margaret Oh, really? Oh, that makes sense. Because it just goes up out into the...Yeah, Casandra Yeah, even when it's closed, it can still suck heat out. Not using fans for too long, which sucks. I'm thinking about like bathrooms. You know? Margaret I see Yeah, yeah. Casandra Like, above your kitchen stove. Margaret Yeah, hmm, that makes sense. Brooke One thing I've done for the last several years to conserve energy use is to consolidate where in the house I am located and or with my person, or people are located to a single room or a portion of the house and then closing up the rest of it and closing the vents that go there and all of that and just focusing the heat on wherever I am or I am with my kid or whatever it is. Casandra Oh, closing the vents you're not using as a good idea. Brooke Yeah, so like when she's off at school while I'm working, I close the door to my office, close most of the rest of the house. And then when it's like the two of us, we'll hang out in just her room with the vent open, or just our two bedrooms that are next to each other with vents open. Margaret And it's it's another advantage of people who choose to live communally is that I mean more people in a house is just going to warm things up a lot, like putting a bunch of people into a room with closed...that's like closed off and insulated is a real good way to stay warm. So like, I don't know, use this as an opportunity to get close to someone, I mean, very consensually and stuff. Brooke I was gonna say cuddling. Cuddling is a good way to provide heat. Margaret Get a dog. Brooke Or fucking Margaret I take back the part about the dog. Okay. Casandra They're also, both in Europe and I know state by state and the US, there're also energy and utility assistance programs and grants that have always been available, but it's seems like more are starting to become available. So, if you live somewhere colder than me, it's a good thing to look into. Margaret Well, and then also in Oregon, starting in 2024, Medicaid is going to cover expenses related to climate change in terms of like, generators and air filters and shit like that. Brooke That's amazing. I haven't heard that. Margaret I just read about it while I was getting ready for this episode. Brooke If you think you may qualify for one of the energy assistance programs, that's something to look into sooner rather than later, like, Now, instead of before the colds get real high, or the bills get real high. I know that one of the programs here in our town, for instance, only has a few days a month in which they accept applications. And we'll even close that, you know, for the next month if they got too many in the previous month kind of a thing. Casandra Yeah. Yeah, then, yeah. The The only other thing I wanted to bring up with all of this is that, you know, we've talked in past episodes about how expensive food is getting and how expensive everything's getting, and with rising energy costs, that's just going to contribute to inflation more because of businesses are having to pay more money to stay open. You know? Margaret Yeah. Brooke But Biden just passed the Inflation Reduction Act, so everything's gonna be fine now. Casandra Right? Brooke He did it. Casandra Okay? Brooke He solved it. Margaret Yeah, thanks, O-Biden. Casandra 'O-Biden?' is that what you said? Brooke Haven't you heard that joke? Margaret Usually, it's because you want to complain about something. The gas prices are high, like, "Thanks, O-Biden," because people always said, "Thanks, Obama." Casandra Okay. Yeah. Thanks for explaining jokes to me. Brooke Well, Biden's just Obama's puppet. I mean, haven't you heard that he's old and senile, and it's actually just secretly Obama still running the country through Biden? Margaret Who's totally not old and senile. Casandra I mean, according to Tulsi this morning, it's it's actually the elite Cabal. So. Brooke There's a whole other conversation I want to have with you about why everyone is so anti--fucking-semetic. But that's like not on our topic list. Casandra Oh, gosh, the French Revolution. Brooke If we want to do a segue I really really want to talk about it. Casandra Now we're gonna segue to talk about the French Revolution. Margaret Welcome to Mediocre People Who Made Lateral Moves, the new podcast about all the revolutions that have happened Casandra and how people blamed it all on the Jews. Margaret The only revolutions accepted are the Haitian Revolution, the Mexican Revolution kinda, yeah. Anyway, Brooke This is the thing I don't understand. Like, why why is anti-semitism been such a global thing for fucking ever? Like, I can't think of another group of people that have had it quite like the Jews. Casandra It's called the coldest hatred for a reason. Margaret I mean, everyone has it different. I think anti-blackness is also real fucking old and anti-indigenous as soon as we find y'all. Casandra There's these interesting accounts of of...We should not go on this tangent. Brooke But it's interesting. Casandra I could talk for too long. Brooke It's topical. Casandra It's always topical. Brooke Exactly. Casandra Oh, what were some of our other fun topics? Margaret Okay, let's talk about hurricanes. Can I talk about hurricanes? Casandra Hurray! Margaret Oh, wait first I wanna talk about about corn really quickly. It's like a short note. Okay, so by 2053, the Corn Belt won't be able to grow corn. Brooke What? Casandra Wow. Margaret Because there will be days 125 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. And of course, corn is already having trouble now. It's not like a switch that will be flipped in 30 years. And also, my cynical ass has been proven right every time someone's like, "All of the X will happen by 2080." I'm like, that's gonna be way sooner. And then like 2020 comes around, they're like, "Yeah, nevermind this is sooner." And then so some of the solutions that people are trying to come up with around this, some of them are like make a lot of sense about like, being a little less monocroppy and like, and people are like getting really into perennial grains. But, of course they're doing it in like weird capitalist ways. So there's like weird named ways to be less monocrappy. And there's also this perennial grain that's like trademarked called Kernza which is a plant name with a little reserved symbol after his name. So that's how you know, it's good. And basically, a lot of the existing perennial grains are actually more like hays and things are for foraging. And so intermediate wheat grass is Kernza. It's a type of intermediate wheat grass, which is not actually wheat, but has a similar grains. However, they're currently trying to hybridize it with wheat and it's hard to bake with because it's not as gluttony. Unfortunately, it still has some gluten, so it's not the solution for that problem, either. But, people are trying to do some weird shit. Then I could talk about hurricanes unless y'all wanna talk about corn. Casandra Most grass seed is edible. That's my contribution. Brooke Also tubers. So plant yourself some day-lilies, dahlias. Casandra Turnips. Brooke They're pretty and then you can eat them. Casandra We should bring back neeps as a instead of mashed potatoes, mashed neeps. Margaret Y'all are just making up things. Casandra We're listening now. Margaret Casandra's always making up plants that don't exist. There's only three plants: corn, potato, and grapes. Casandra I thought it was wheat. Margaret Oh, yeah, and wheat. Brooke I know you've seen apples. And also, I've given you kale. So. Margaret That's just fancy. It's just different forms of...okay to be fair, broccoli, kale...Can you help me list off all of these things that are the same plant? Casandra Brassicas? Margaret Yeah. Brooke Cauliflower? Brussels sprouts, cabbage, mustard. Margaret Everything is already secretly...the the secret cabal that we should be blaming is the brassicas. Casandra Plant families? Margaret No, just brassicas, because they're everything. Everywhere you look, it's brassicas. Casandra Unless it's a nightshade. Brooke I get what you're looking for. And I'm with you. Margaret Okay, so hurricanes. So, there's two things about hurricane survival. And one is like this, like promising thing, although it ties into some bougie shit is that like....cause obviously, people who are listening this...a lot of people are listening to us have dealt with hurricanes more immediately and recently than any of the three of us have. And so I don't mean to be light hearted about like, you know, like, whatever I want to say that, like people are dealing with this shit...I, I'm not trying to...It's a big fucking deal. Okay. One thing is that communities absolutely can be built to survive hurricanes. And it isn't done because people aren't rich enough. And because doing so is incentivized, and because people don't value this, right. It's like a combination of these things. Have you heard of this small town called Babcock Ranch that survived Hurricane Ian? Brooke Nope. Margaret Okay, there's this. It was built in 2015 People started moving into in 2018. It's a 2000 home community. And it's, it's sort of like actually mixed class a little bit. The houses start at 200,000 and go up to a million dollars. And it's, and they're like working on building condos and stuff. And it is meant to survive hurricanes. This is in fucking Florida. And it got hit by Ian. And so it makes sense to build things are meant to survive hurricanes. The streets are designed to absorb water. I think that they're designed to absorb water into like, basically almost a French drain system that runs underneath where there's like pipes or whatever. I know that they are capable of making this like some kind of concrete that water can just like flow right through. And I think that's what's happening. Yeah, Brooke Yeah, pervious concrete. yeah. Casandra What is that not everywhere? Brooke More expensive, Margaret Because people don't value infrastructure in this country. And and then there's, they use native landscaping everywhere to like limit flooding. They do all this stuff to like, make sure that...because flooding kills more people in hurricanes than wind. And so they do all of this stuff with native landscaping to limit flooding. The power and all the communication lines are buried, which is another thing that should just be happening everywhere, but isn't. Like where I live, I lose power all the fucking time, because like, "Oh, sorry, a tree fell on a power plant. Power Pole." Casandra Are you laughing at me Brooke? Brooke I'm picturing your backyard right now where you could like, garrote yourself with your power lines in your back yard. Casandra That my landlord is like, "This is not a problem." Yeah. Margaret Yeah, no, totally. And like, every...where I live like a tree falls on...it's like, it's like once a month, I lose power for a day, because I'm in the fucking mountains with really shallow soil, and so the trees fall over every time there's a windstorm, but we're in the fucking mountain. So there's wind storms all the time. Anyway, so they bury their power and internet lines. And the whole town has it's own solar array that powers like all of it, and 8000 other nearby homes. And so, to that 2.6 million people lost power during Hurricane Ian but not Babcock Ranch. And this was its first like trial by fire. And to be and to be fair to them they weren't total assholes about it. It wasn't like "I've got mine fuck you." They turned their school into a shelter for all the nearby folks, because it still had power even though, it like I think I think it couldn't be registered as an official storm shelter because didn't have a generator. But, it didn't need one. Casandra Cause it didn't need one? Margaret Because it had its own fucking micro grid. Casandra Wow, amazing. Bureaucracy. Margaret Yeah. So that's like, what we could be doing, right? We could have a society that like, prepares for these things, you know, and like there are ways to build things if people are able, if people are able to have the resources or like institutions are willing to give resources to make things that are appropriate to their area you know, you can have fire resistant homes you can have...I mean everything would just be concrete domes if I had my way as of the past six months, but then I'm sure get over this particular infatuation with concrete domes, but they're like everything proof. Okay, anyway. Except aesthetic proof. Okay, so actually, okay, whatever. The other thing that's... Brooke Also concrete is not great for the environment and climate change. It's really bad, actually. Margaret Yeah, but it has actually weirdly, I haven't looked in this little while, there's the embedded greenhouse gases and in terms of how long it lasts are like, compare favorably in a lot of ways. And also in terms of its insulating...Well, its insulating properties because of thickness. The way it's constructed is...the way it's made is not nice. You can you can also disagree with me about this. Brooke No, that's fair. And there's been recent research and work into putting cellulose into concrete mixtures that actually helps. I can't remember all the beneficial properties of it, but some really cool research that's out there about about mixing wood fibers. Margaret That's cool. Plus brutalism is way cooler than...anyways Okay, whatever. Now everyone's gonna hate me if I start talking about liking brutalism. Alright, so hurricanes, I have never survived a hurricane, just to be really clear. And so I'm not trying to tell everyone....okay, but I it's my disclaimer, I researched... Brooke You've also never not survived a hurricane. Margaret That's true. Oh, I see what you're saying. Every time I'm in a hurricane, I die. I've been playing this...I want...this video game I've been playing called...Okay. So, God, what if I was...the ultimate prepper would be Groundhog Day guy. That's what he really should have done. Margaret You ever seen that movie "Hurricane Day" where the person has no...groundhog, whatever, as a movie,... Casandra What? Casandra What does Groundhog Day have to do with hurricanes? Margaret Okay, but if you died and came back every single day, you could do so much research. The ultimate scientist Casandra No one can see me putting my head in my hands. Brooke They just heard the thunk of your skull on the table there. Margaret Alright, so what to do if you live in the path of a hurricane and you don't live in a little weird prepper neighborhood. First of all, if you live in a mobile home, I'm sure you already know that life sucks, because classism is real and awful, but mobile homes are in a really bad situation. And I'm sure you already know that. Hurricane timing is forcastable, but its course is less predictable. So, you can start knowing that a hurricane is possible, but you won't necessarily know where it exactly where it's going and exactly what kind of power it will have by the time it lands. Flooding kills more people than wind. And basically the best that I've been able to read and find different people have researched this is that like overall evacuating if the instructions say you should evacuate is probably the best move. And, voluntary evac happens before mandatory evac. Voluntary often comes earlier to basically give people to get a head start, because when everyone tries to leave an area all at once it fucking sucks. I'd love to at some point, talk to someone who has done more work into evac, and like talk about like what it means to transport oneself over a roads during those kinds of crises. But, and to be clear, mandatory evacuation doesn't mean they come around at gunpoint to force you out, it means that no one will help you while you stay. At least that's the official version of it. If you're going to stay or rather, if you like think that you might be stuck, consider being able to survive two weeks without outside help or without the grid. And the grid in this case means water. And it means probably the ability to heat food if you run on a municipal gas line or power, right. And that also means electricity. And so you want like for example 15 gallons of water per person in storage containers. You want two weeks of non refrigerated food that doesn't require utility cooking gas, because maybe you have a separate gas stove you know, or you're planning a cold cans of chili or whatever. You want a battery or hand crank radio, you want to get medical kit. If you're trained, you want a chainsaw, but one of the main ways that people kill themselves in the wake of disasters is using chainsaws incorrectly to try and like move down trees and stuff. One of the other main ways is like propane and propane accessories, and people trying to use like shit that you shouldn't use inside inside. Don't run a fucking generator in your house or your garage. Make sure everyone has a flashlight. When you're prepping your house. You want to bring in everything in your yard like furniture and tools. You want to get directions to local evacuation shelters and you want to have them printed out and or like saved offline in Google's maps. You want to prepare your house for internal flooding by moving shit up off the floor, and like getting everything that you don't want to get wet available. Make sure it's able to stay dry. You want to know how to shut off your utility gas, water and electric in your house. You do want to fill up your bathtubs for extra water, but don't fucking rely on this. This isn't the like "Haha," everyone's like , "Oh it's cool I got like you know this bathtub filled with water." You usually want to use bathtub water more for sanitation water. You want to turn your fridge and freezer to the coldest settings and make sure they're packed full of thermal mass like we were talking about. Thermal mass is also a battery for cold as well as heat. So for example, your freezer works way less hard if it's full of frozen bottles of water. And so, if you feel plastic water bottles like 90% full, and this is true generally speaking, right? A full fridge or freezer works way less hard. And, because you know it's not stuff that disappears every time you open the fucking door whatever. In general, your fridge or freezer can last about two days without power if they're like real packed full of thermal mass and set to the coldest. In terms of long term preparation for your house, if you live somewhere and you're trying to retrofit shit, you kind of want to go through and make sure that there's hurricane ties attaching your roof to your house. And do the same with your deck and shit, which are just basically these like metal straps that attach one piece of wood to another piece of wood. If you look up hurricane ties, you'll see pictures of them. And then you can go up to your attic or whatever and look to see if you have them. And you can you can retro actively add this, because what happens, the way that wind destroys a house, first, it like pulls off like shingles and siding and stuff that only sort of matter. And then it starts breaking out windows with debris, and doors flying open because of wind, and stuff like that. But then eventually you get to the point where the fucking roof rips off your house is like one of the main things, and then once the roof rips off your house, then the walls have nothing supporting them, so then they fall over. And so you can do a lot of stuff with your doors also to help protect them, especially if you have like double doors, you can add bolts to the inactive door, the door that doesn't open, or the door that doesn't have the handle or whatever, and you had bolts that go up into the ceiling and through the floor. It's also stuff that makes your house harder to break into, which is like cool bonus, right? And garage doors, our old friend garage doors. Casandra Why we're really talking about this. Margaret I know Margaret They they can be storm proofed, but it means you buy a new one. And, I have a feeling that they are expensive and hard to get right now. Like old articles are like "Oh, they cost between $1,000 and $5,000 for a storm proof garage door and I assume that that is not easily the case right now. Okay, and in terms of covering your windows, you want to cover all the windows in your house, not just the ones facing the water. And ideally, if you live there like long term, you want to actually get storm shutters, but those can be expensive. Worst case scenario, you can screw plywood or metal roofing over the windows and glass doors. With plywood you want to aim for about a half inch thick at least, half inch to five eighths. And particle board, don't use particle board or MDF, because probably not strong enough. I don't know and there's just like other shit right like you keep your car packed and facing outward with gas in it. However also, you might want to keep it in a garage and or at least next to a solid building, so that it doesn't fucking blow away or get destroyed by things. Fill up an extra gas can or two because fuck it there's often gonna be gas shortages after these sorts of things. Don't fucking drive through floodwater, that is another way that people die all the fucking time. Like it's about a foot or something of flood that will move a car that will like take a car away. It's way less than you think. Don't fucking drink floodwater. Most of the ways that people water filter don't filter out like gasoline and all kinds of other shit. With a generator, don't fucking run it inside. During the storm, don't go outside during the Eye of the Storm, it'll come back suddenly. Stay away from your windows and glass doors and such. Don't take a shower or a bath because of electrical risk. Kill the power of the main breaker if flooding is coming. And that is what I learned not through direct experience, because again I've died every time I've tried these...I've never been in a hurricane. I've been on the coast rain some storms, right, some tropical storms and shit. But I've never personally been through a hurricane. Brooke Full circle. Casandra We should add like Hurricane Preparedness Guide to our list along with the First Aid Guide. That'd be cool. We should talk to like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief folks or someone. Margaret Yeah. Agreed. Casandra Cool. But this isn't a Strangers meeting, so... Margaret No. Welcome to our Strangers meeting. Brooke You hurri-'can' survive. Margaret Hurri-'can't.' It's a hurri-'can', not a hurri-'can't.' But, that's...the hurricane itself can destroy houses. It can't...It's a hurri-'can' destroy houses not a hurric-'can't' destroy houses. Got it. You see what I'm getting at. It's a funny joke. Brooke You're hurri-canceled. Love it. Casandra When Margaret makes jokes... Brooke Margaret makes great dad jokes and I love it. So does my kid. Casandra It's us, not you. Margaret I say a few short things with our last five minutes. Margaret No, no, it's fine. It's fine. I mean, I'm trying to make you laugh, so you all laughing works. Okay, so I don't know, what other what other shit? I got. I got like some like little short things. Is anyone else have a major topic? We should talk about it? Should we go into short things? Margaret Okay, here's the ones I've got. Other people add them at the end. Monkeypox transmission is slowing. There's a small chance it's gonna go endemic, but like overall. monkeypox transmission is slowing. And that's cool. You should still go get fucking vaccinated, though. I should go get vaccinated. LA is installing water restrictors in houses of people who break their water limit, including like including rich people, which is great. Like basically if anyone is using more than 150% of their limit like they're going around and just like literally being like, "You get less water now." The Mississippi River is currently so low that grain and fertilizer transports are halted. Brooke And that's contributing to supply chain shortages in all kinds of ways, because they can't get stuff up here. Margaret It also fucks up China. They apparently...a lot of them...They get a lot of soybeans from the US, and 40% of the US soybean export to China comes through the Mississippi River. The Army Corps of Engineers, don't worry as dredging the river to deepen it. Brooke Great. Margaret So that they can still ship things there. Brooke I'm sure that no part of the Mississippi River is a Superfund site or anything like that, and highly toxic. Margaret Nah, it's fine. I'm sure it's good. I bet everyone who's working that job will be treated well. And a British Columbia river has dried up, and I think a bunch of British Columbia rivers have dried up. They're facing like one of the worst fucking droughts ever, which has killed 65,000 salmon, and has cut spawning by 70%, at least in this area. Bird flu in California is killing a ton of birds. I saw this thing, I was like reading oh, it's like a bird flu again. Goddamnit. And then I'm like, Oh, it's just killing birds...Wait, no, birds are good. Casandra Yeah, we need birds. Margaret Yeah. Oil prices might go up again, because OPEC countries are cutting oil production more. Thanks. O-Biden. Inflation is causing manufacturers to start using cheaper ingredients. That's like one of the main ways that like manufacturers are getting around this. And so like a lot of shit they're used to using and trust might now be made like shit. Casandra I've read about new homes they're building as well. Margaret Oh, great, because that's what we need is cheaper designed homes. Casandra Yeah, they're like, A) don't buy a home right now. But B) when you can buy a home in the future, maybe someday don't buy homes built right now. Brooke I hear that. Margaret That makes sense. Brooke But Biden passed the inflation Reduction Act, you guys, so it's gonna be fine. Margaret Yeah, the fine print is like, "Now use refined," I don't know, whatever, "corn syrup instead of..." Brooke And the Federal Reserve is raising the target interest rate. So, it's gonna be fine. Casandra Have you all seen the new like COVID antivax study that just came out? Margaret No. Brooke Nope. Oh, we were supposed to die yesterday. Casandra Apparently, I'm using air quotes, a study came out linking the risk of like heart disease with COVID vaccines in 'men' in particular, something like that. And so, you know, anti vaxxers are like, "See!" Margaret I wonder if it came out because...the the one that I had heard was that there was a study that came out and I don't have these numbers in front of me, and I'm sorry, audience. I think it's, I think that the the rate of death among Republicans is 18% higher than the rate of death among Democrats, with all other factors considered, as soon as the vaccine came out. And like, yeah, exactly just the vaccine came out people who didn't get it just fucking die more. Brooke Comparative Study. Margaret Conspiracy, to try and kill all the Republicans, by the Republican leaders. No, no, wait, go ahead, Brooke. Sorry. Brooke No, I was gonna give more details on the study. But y'all can y'all can look it up. It was definitely aninteresting study. And it's not like 100% due to COVID for sure. At least they can't like rule out... because it was like measure of excess deaths. And they don't have all the specifics on that. But yeah, a large portion of that is due to vaccine versus not vaccine. Than also there was some tweet that made the rounds that that we were all going to die on October 10 because something was gonna get activated in the vaccine. Y'all see this on Twitter at all? Margaret That explains why I died in the hurricane. Casandra I want to back up to the study I mentioned because I didn't clarify that there were like major issues with it. That's all. I didn't want. I didn't want to bring up like this study antivaxxers are using without saying like there were major issues with the study. Margaret Yeah. That makes sense. Casandra Yeah, that tracks. Margaret Well, does that do it for us this month? Casandra That was a lot. It really was a lot of bad things. Margaret Oh, one good final thing. Tankers that go around with like, all the stuff that they ship around, are starting to add sails back, and it saves about 10% of their fuel. This is a really minor thing. Brooke Sailing sails? Margaret Yeah, yeah. Brooke Math. Nice. Margaret Like all the container ships and shit. Not all of them, but they're starting to add sails to container ships to help alleviate the cost of fuel to move everything around. Whatever it is a really minor thing. I just thought was neat. This is my final note. Casandra Yay, sailboats. Margaret Yeah. The global economy that got us into this mess in the first place trudging along. Casandra Ohhhh. Well, stay warm out there, everyone. Margaret Brooke, you want to lead us out? Brooke Yeah, I do. So, I took your outro from from the last episode and transcribed it. I'm just gonna I'm gonna read it word for word, Margaret. Margaret Oh, God. Brooke Are you ready for how great this is gonna be? Margaret Yeah, let me hold on to something. Alright. Brooke And then maybe I'll do a real one after I do this. Thanks so much for listening. Algorithms suck, but if you like this podcast, please like comment, review, blah, blah, blah. It makes the algorithms give our show to more people. It's kind of the only way people end up hearing about our shows is word of mouth. All of that stuff's true. I'm not just saying it cynically, it's just that I have said it, like, whatever, I'm on Episode 50, or whatever. So I've said it like 50 times, and you can support us on Patreon by supporting our publisher, our publisher is Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. The three of us are collective members of a collectively run publisher called Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. It's been around for like 20 years, but it's like getting new mega forces Voltron combines version of itself lately, and it's primarily supported by Patreon. Brooke I think that was perfect. Flawless. And also, that means that Inmn doesn't have to transcribe it again. Margaret Yeah. Brooke You're welcome, Inmn. Just copy/paste. But more seriously, this podcast is produced by the anarchist publishing collective Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. And you can connect with us on Twitter at Tangledwild. And I think we have like Instagram and stuff too. But I don't do Instagram and I think Instagram's

Terrance from T- Dubb BBQ and Charlie from Maveric BBQ are back to talk more live fire

Oil is a global commodity. When President Nixon took the United States off the Gold Standard, it created difficulty with global commodities. At that time, the major oil producers around the world agreed that oil would be priced in dollars globally (which led to the term “Petro-dollar”). When you link something to a currency, it can be inflationary or deflationary.  We prefer the dollar to be strong, which makes the stuff we buy more affordable. Right now, the dollar is strong, but we aren't seeing deflation. We are in an environment that isn't following the “rules” of economic textbooks. So in this episode of Upthinking Finance, Chris Pusak—a Client Portfolio Manager at Cushing Asset Management—helps dissect the energy sector.  We talk about both the local and global impact of oil production and distribution, why fracking won't end, and weigh in on the various political and economic factors. Don't miss this episode! You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...[4:39] Learn more about Cushing Asset Management [7:31] Why the energy sector plays a huge role in the economy [11:11] Dissecting the influence and impact of OPEC [13:16] The two common types of drilling for oil [17:46] How the green movement will impact the future of energy [25:36] Why the price of natural gas is immensely volatile  [27:32] The political impact on the rising price of gas [32:13] Where is the energy industry headed?  The two common types of drilling for oilAt some point, Chris points out that the world will start to run out of oil. We may completely deplete oil from the planet. The Saudis do conventional drilling and draw from a pool from an underground oil reserve (it's like sucking the oil out with a straw). The US mainly engages in hydraulic fracturing.  Oil drilling was a risky business before this technique was developed. With hydraulic fracturing, you put the drill bit down two miles (10,000 feet) and then turn it sideways and drill out two miles. This allows you to “sweep” the area so you never miss.  With hydraulic fracturing, you get the most production from a fractured well in the first 2–3 years, and then production declines quickly. Because of the way these wells work, you consistently have to drill new wells to keep production levels steady. It's expensive and requires a lot of capital upfront. Oil companies are motivated to drill to maximize profits and that's the simple reality.  How the green movement will impact the future of energyThere is a transition taking place. However, the problem is that the green movement is trying to flip the switch too quickly. Many countries can't meet the demand for green energy. Chris points out that only 3% of power today is generated from non-carbon fossil fuel sources.  Because of this, banning fracking is impractical. Globally, oil is mainly a transportation fuel. Chris believes that there will be a day when oil is unimportant to the world. But Chris isn't sure that will happen during our lifetimes.  The case for fracking: natural gasNatural gas has greater longevity. Why? Because when you drill for natural gas, you get a dry gas (methane), which is converted to electricity. The US has reduced its carbon footprint by reducing power generation from coal to methane. Methane now contributes to 40% of power generation in the US.  Wet gasses that are drilled include butane, propane, and methane. Butane is common in lighters. Propane is used as a source for heating and cooking. Methane gas is one of the main ingredients in plastics.  Chris emphasizes that “If you ban fracking…you would send the price of all energy into the hypersphere, creating massive inflation and a global depression—as if we were living in 1875.”  Recently, because of the pandemic and energy policies in Europe, the price of natural gas has skyrocketed from $2 to $60–$70 in Europe. It's $9 for 1 million BTUs in the US.  The...

RACT manual co-author Eugene Silberstein joins the podcast to talk about the titular topic of his book, Pressure Enthalpy Without Tears.  Pressure Enthalpy Without Tears is a book that introduces engineering concepts to HVAC technicians in a way they can understand and apply in the field. Enthalpy is a fancy way of saying “heat,” and we use it to refer to the total heat content (BTUs). The pressure-enthalpy chart shows the relationship between the refrigerant pressure and enthalpy in a system; it's like a P-T chart that shows the relationship between heat content instead of temperature.  Each refrigerant has its own pressure-enthalpy chart, but the points and lines on the chart usually form a right trapezoid. Dirty air filters and other less-than-ideal conditions can distort the trapezoid or shift it on the chart. Each side of the trapezoid represents the refrigerant inside a major component of the HVAC system: evaporator, compressor, condenser, and metering device. The pressure-enthalpy diagram allows you to get a look at individual components while keeping the entire system in mind.  To plot points on a pressure-enthalpy chart, you need the high side pressure, low side pressure, condenser outlet temperature, evaporator outlet temperature, and compressor inlet temperature. Pressure is usually measured in absolute units (rather than gauge units), but ballpark estimates are typically sufficient. Entropy is another concept we need to consider. Compression theoretically leaves no additional entropy and is reversible. Crossing a line of entropy means that a process is no longer reversible. Eugene and Bryan also discuss: Technicians vs. engineers Temperature vs. heat content Psychrometric and pressure-enthalpy charts Using the pressure-enthalpy diagram to assess operation costs Electrical measurements Predicting compressor failure Putting passion into learning and trades education   You can visit https://www.escogroup.org/ to purchase Pressure Enthalpy Without Tears and access all of ESCO Group's resources. You can also use the code HVACSchool22 for a discount on ESCO Group's eLearning services. If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE. Check out our handy calculators HERE.

In this short podcast, Bryan explains what the heat of compression is and why we should care about it as HVAC/R professionals. More heat is rejected in the condenser than absorbed in the evaporator coil, and that's because the compressor adds heat. That added heat is called “heat of compression.” That heat does NOT contribute to the net refrigeration effect (NRE), as it doesn't contribute to cooling. When we compress something, we increase the system entropy during that process. Entropy is the waste and disorder associated with work. There is some inefficiency, which we see in the form of additional heat. So, the HVAC system needs to reject that additional heat of compression, and we can plot and track reversible changes by following lines of constant entropy. As the temperature increases, the molecules begin moving more quickly. However, the refrigerant doesn't absorb many more BTUs in the compressor (in a properly operating system). The temperature spikes, but the compressor doesn't typically add a significant number of BTUs to the refrigerant. Heat also enters the system via the suction line, which also doesn't contribute to the NRE. Long, uninsulated suction lines can absorb a lot of heat without cooling the space at all. That heat also has to be rejected in the condenser. So, short, well-insulated suction lines tend to absorb less heat. When plotting the heat of compression, we're looking at BTUs added into the system in the compressor, discharge line, and suction line. BTUs that don't contribute to the NRE may fall under the “heat of compression” label, though the actual definition may vary by organization.   Check out Eugene Silberstein's book, Pressure Enthalpy Without Tears, at https://escogroup.org/shop/itemdetail.aspx?ID=1445.  If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE. Check out our handy calculators HERE.

In this short podcast, Bryan explains what the net refrigeration effect (NRE) is and how it affects HVAC systems. The net refrigeration effect (NRE) is what happens in the evaporator coil. The evaporator is the heat absorber; as air passes over the coil, the cooler refrigerant within the evaporator absorbs that heat and boils. The NRE is the net energy change that occurs during that process. You can plot the NRE on a pressure-enthalpy chart. When air moves over the evaporator coil, there is a change in enthalpy or BTUs per pound in the refrigerant (usually called delta h). There should be more BTUs per pound in refrigerant exiting the coil than when it went in. We have to know how many pounds of refrigerant we're circulating (mass flow rate) and how many BTUs are in those pounds. Many of those BTUs come from latent heat transfer, which happens when the refrigerant boils. When refrigerant undergoes a phase change, it remains at a constant temperature (sensible heat), but it continues absorbing heat. The heat absorbed contributes to the phase change, and that's latent heat. Most of the NRE deals with those latent BTUs. (Note: this does NOT refer to latent heat loads.) In addition to the boiling or saturation phase, we also have to consider BTU changes when refrigerant flashes off at the beginning of the evaporator coil and heat obtained during the superheating phase at the top of the coil. We can maximize our NRE by running a cold evaporator coil (without freezing) and ensuring the evaporator is full of boiling refrigerant. BTUs absorbed in the suction line do NOT count towards the NRE, as they don't contribute to cooling spaces or refrigerated boxes.   Check out Eugene Silberstein's book, Pressure Enthalpy Without Tears, at https://escogroup.org/shop/itemdetail.aspx?ID=1445.  If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE. Check out our handy calculators HERE.

In this short podcast episode, Bryan talks about ERV and HRV technologies, including their appropriate applications and limitations. HRVs are heat recovery ventilators (not to be confused with heat recovery units or HRUs), and ERVs are energy recovery ventilators. The main difference between these two lies in the type of heat they move; HRVs only move sensible BTUs, whereas ERVs move sensible and latent BTUs.  As you bring air in from outside, you're discharging roughly the same amount of air (though modern technologies allow you to manipulate the pressure a bit more). The goal of the HRV or ERV is to recover some energy from the air exiting the structure and incorporate it into the incoming airstream. The airstreams cross over each other, and there is heat transfer but not air mixing. (ERVs also allow for the exchange of moisture.) Two fans drive the direction of energy flow, and a mesh or a porous desiccant medium facilitates the interaction between the airstreams. You will get some energy savings with an HRV or ERV, but savings are dictated by the amount of air moved and the temperature differential between the airstreams. In general, you will see HRVs up north (in low-humidity markets) and ERVs down south (in higher latent-heat markets). However, even ERVs aren't very effective in conditions with low energy transfer and high moisture UNLESS they're used with a ventilating dehumidifier. Bringing in fresh air is good for indoor health and safety, as it helps dilute the presence of VOCs, viruses, and harmful gases. HRVs and ERVs help us manage the air we bring in. Bryan also covers: Integrating ERVs with bathroom ventilation Safety considerations to consider for outdoor air Positive pressurization Demand ventilation with CO2 sensors Learning about ASHRAE 62.2   If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE. Check out our handy calculators HERE.

Visit our Resource Center: https://hubs.li/Q01cg_Pp0 for more information on the topics discussed in this show! Feel free to leave any questions for our next show in the comments below and don't forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE!Tune in again in two weeks for more on Thursday at 4:00 pm EST!Chapters0:00 Intro0:42 If I have stacked laundry and one machine fails do I have to buy two new machines? 3:13 What appliances need the most service? 6:21 Do all washing machines get mold in the door? 9:23 Why don't my clothes dry all the way in today's dryers? 12:29 Does using LP vs Natural Gas impact BTUs? Specifically on a Wolf 36" all gas range. If so, how? 14:50 On the 30-inch electric range, any thoughts on GE vs Frigidaire under $2,000? 16:25 Can you cover the distinction between induction and electric for a 30-inch range? 24:06What are a few appliances you can add to your kitchen to make it feel more high-end without breaking the budget? 29:29 What's the difference between a batch and continuous feed disposal? Should I always get the most powerful disposal? 32:25 Are any disposals safe for septic?

Steve Rogers from The Energy Conservatory (TEC) joins Eric Kaiser to talk about airflow measurement at AHR 2022. Steve is an expert in fluid dynamics and flow measurement, and he is a trainer in addition to being the president and CEO of TEC. Airflow is one of the most critical elements of an HVAC system; it allows us to move the correct amount of BTUs to condition the air properly. We have various ways of measuring system airflow and airflow to a space. We can use the TrueFlow grid for the former and flow hoods for the latter. When it comes to measuring airflow, calibrating the instrumentation is crucial. TEC uses a laboratory-grade orifice plate to calibrate the tools. So, the calibration process manages to yield high accuracy while using a low-maintenance device. To begin measuring airflow properly, start taking the total external static pressure (TESP) and looking at fan charts. TESP doesn't actually measure airflow, but it provides an idea of what the airflow might be like, and it's a practical, useful measurement in the field. The TEC TrueFlow grid has recently been upgraded, and it's a good step up from taking the TESP and referencing fan charts. It goes into the filter slot and measures the CFM per ton as well as the static pressure. Steve and Eric also discuss: Airflow's effect on latent and sensible cooling Blower door setups and chambers References for accuracy  Relationship between static pressure and airflow Is the hand-ometer an acceptable form of airflow measurement? Challenges of pitot tubes and hot-wire anemometers   Learn more about The Energy Conservatory at https://energyconservatory.com/.  If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE. Check out our handy calculators HERE.

From boiling in bulk, to searing a snag - we crank the heat on this week's episode of Snowys Camping Show, adding fuel to the fire that is comparing camp stoves.  Outdoor experts Lauren and Ben take this steak right to the edge, exploring the brands, BTUs, and fuel types behind some of the most practical portable cooking apparatuses.   Get to know the burners best for boiling, the secrets behind simmering, and the stove system best suited for your campsite cooking. Liquid fuel or gas - it's time to put that billy can on the boil. Head to snowys.com.au for all your gear needs: https://snowys.com.auFor links to everything mentioned in this episode, check out our show notes:https://www.snowys.com.au/blog/podcast-camp-stoves/Join the conversation over on our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/snowys 

NJ Ayuk's Book:https://amzn.to/3dUujVqUS urges domestic oil producers to raise outputhttps://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2283072-us-urges-domestic-oil-producers-to-raise-output- Jennifer Granholm tells members of the National Petroleum Council to please drill and hire people- Also says Biden won't return to a crude oil export banCHINA DATA: Independent refiners lift run rates to 5-month high as margins holdhttps://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/121421-china-data-independent-refiners-lift-run-rates-to-5-month-high-as-margins-hold- China indep refineries increasing run rates to enjoy attractive margins- Is this a good sign for the Chinese economy or not?Europe facing record low gas storage by winter's endhttps://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/europe-facing-record-low-gas-storage-by-winters-end-2021-12-14/- Russia hasn't fulfilled its promise to fill up Gazprom's oil stocks- Russia shouldn't be counted on to keep its promisesThe Federal Reserve Faces a Troubling 1965 Parallelhttps://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-14/the-federal-reserve-faces-a-troubling-1965-inflation-parallel- Argues that the fed needs to aggressively raise interest rates to get inflation down to 2% but the current Fed doesn't seem willing to do this because it would the stock marketEuropean Union stands united on Russia sanctions, top diplomat sayshttps://www.reuters.com/world/eu-says-studying-russia-sanctions-with-britain-us-2021-12-13/- Is the threat of sanctions real?- If you sanction Russian energy it will hurt Europe- Will Russia actually invade Ukraine? Many think this is unlikely, especially in the winter?Dr. Foreman and the Monthly Statistical Review- Surprising things from 2021: strength of demand and lack of investment and political shift that has occured this year- Trucking and distillate demand strong in November: retail model in America has shifted towards online. gasoline is slightly down compared to 2019 but diesel is up, jet fuel down and materials up. Trucking has buoyed distillate demand.- shipping helped double double residual fuel demand- Inflation: fuel prices are contributing to inflation but even if you take food and energy out, inflation is still going up. energy price is elevated and impacts 20-30% of food costs (fertilizer, transportation, etc.) Inflation is making things $350 more expensive for average US household, which most households don't have. GRound up data says this is a pressure point for households.- Reading the energy data for the future starts with the economy - despite all of the concerns, consensus estimates are showing 4.2% global growth in 2022 and 3.2% global growth in 2023. Economic growth is depending on oil and gas availability and need more to fuel economic growth. Inflation could take the wind out of the global economy, but not sure yet.- Correlation between spending growth and consumer sentiment. - Economic indicators are showing economic strength but there are a number of pressure points that could take us off track.- Oil and gas projects in funnel - anything past point of no return we've seen followed through, other things canceled. LNG projects canceled, petrochemical projects completed not canceled, refining projects canceled?- majority of global energy investment is in upstream (drilling). If looking at drilling activity as corresponding with investment, we are still down 30% from where we were in 2019.- International gas markets are a microcosm of what happens with a complete disconnect between supply and demand. Spot prices in Netherlands are showing never before seen prices.- Monthly average prices in excess of $35 per million BTUs in Europe and Asia- In US we've pulled back prices to under $4 per million BTU. Gas markets are regionally disconnected and little equalization seen- Why is there a dearth of investment? Supply chain, Covid, etc. How to remedy that? Lack of skilled labor to replace people when they go out with Covid. Problems getting pipes etc. through Port of Louisiana and trucked to where it is needed. Banks closing off credit lines, multilateral lines don't want to lend internationally to emerging economies. Immense debt taken on by companies is catching up with them. Policy issues - industry could use some help to get back up from recession and policy headwinds are against them, making drilling more expensive. Hard to make long-lived investments in industry when policy is against it even though market shows how much US NEEDS oil and gas drilling.- Why are prices up? drilling down, imports up, inventories low- U.S. exports: products exports down, crude oil imports dropped, crude oil exports increased this week. Average net petroleum imports for last 4 weeks is about 1 million bpd for U.S.- Could potentially see nearly doubling of petroleum imports!- If the economy is going to contract, recession then maybe we don't need more investment in oil and gas- If interest rates, what is the implication? US stands out in a negative way in terms of debt - expected to careen out whereas others are expected to remain flat. US has no trouble facing debt now but second only to Japan in relying on short term financing to place 45% of its debt. - If suddenly take 3 million bpd of US oil exports off the market, could put world into recession. Would be like Abqaiq attack. Have a short term impact to US prices but then would even out. Instantly East and West coasts would see higher prices.- Exports shouldn't be blamed for higher prices.

In this short podcast, Bryan goes over energy transfer and heat, specifically specific heat.   BTUs per ton is a common measurement; a BTU (British thermal unit) is the amount of heat it takes to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. 12,000 BTUs per hour is equal to one ton in heating or cooling technology. It takes one “ton” of heat to melt a ton of ice, but we kept the measurement and terminology as we moved away from using ice in industrial refrigeration.   When it comes to specific heat, we have to remember that one BTU has a different heating or cooling impact on different substances. Most fluids have a specific heat lower than water, meaning that one BTU of heat will result in more heat transfer in that substance than water. Air is one such fluid that has a lower specific heat than water (0.24 vs. 1); it's easier to heat air than water. However, the specific heat of vapors can change with temperature and pressure.   When we change a refrigerant from a liquid to a vapor in the evaporator coil, it will reach saturation before boiling. As the refrigerant boils, the temperature will stay the same because the absorbed heat will all contribute to the phase change as latent heat. Even though most refrigerants have low specific heat, direct expansion systems can still move a lot of heat because it takes a lot of latent heat to complete a phase change.   In other systems that don't use direct expansion (using glycol or water instead), specific heat is more integral to the effectiveness of heat transfer because latent heat isn't a factor in heat capacity.   If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE.   Check out our handy calculators HERE. Check out information on the 2022 HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium/.

We ARE in the end of times ! Coal vs. Solar - there is no comparison for BTUs - same for your love for others when you put God first  Sin is destroying the world 

In today's short podcast, Bryan discusses electric heat, how we use it in our work, and what it does.   Also called heat strips or heat elements, electric heat is a supplemental heat source that we usually see on heat pumps. We generally see them in fan coils within a cartridge or a kit at the top of an air handler. However, not all systems have backup heat.   We want to avoid running electric heat as much as possible because it is inefficient. There is almost nothing we can do to make heat strips more efficient; they will usually yield around 3.41 BTUs per watt.    We usually only run electric heat when a heating system can't keep up with the heat loss. However, the electric heat often runs more often than it should, which can cause inefficient conditions. You can avoid inefficient conditions by programming the thermostat properly.   If you reduce the voltage on the heat strips, the less heat they will produce. Current ratings also differ between 208v or 240v applications. When you have more voltage, you'll have more current as well.    In some municipalities, you may have to use a thermostat that keeps heat strips OFF unless the temperature is below a certain value, often 40 degrees. Your electric heat should also be the last resort for a system.   Heat strips also help with heating when a heat pump is in defrost. The defrost board backfeeds the electric heat. These heat strips are also often designed with an interlock that forces the blower on whenever the electric heat is on (but not the other way around).   Bryan also discusses: Kilowatts and electrical ratings Wiring and relays Wire sizing Furnace-to-heat-pump conversions Possible hazards If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE.   Check out our handy calculators HERE. Check out information on the 2022 HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium/.

Whether you have a gas line in your home already or you're preparing to install one, Mike and Randy help you understand how to size a gas line and determine the number of BTUs you'll need to get the best possible performance from your fire feature.

En este episodio platicamos de inversiones multimillonarias en commodities, sobre disciplina, y sobre triatlones junto a Mauricio, quién es una persona altamente disciplinada y exitosa en varias ramas de su vida.Mauricio es originario de Bogotá, Colombia. Actualmente reside en Houston, Texas, y se dedica a ser portfolio manager, administra el portafolio de un hedge fund, o fondo de cobertura, que en términos sencillos significa que trabaja en una compañía que recibe dinero de inversores calificados por el SCC, Security and Exchange Commission, e invierten ese dinero cobrando un porcentaje de las ganancias, más un cargo por manejar el fondo.El tamaño del fondo que maneja la compañía para la que trabaja es aproximadamente de unos 1.5 billones de dólares entre más o menos 30 personas, y el número de inversionistas también es bastante reducido, con sólo 9 o 10 inversionistas grandes, sean personas de alto capital, o instituciones financieras como, por ejemplo, fondos de pensiones o universidades con su endowment invertido ahí, o fondos grandes, que vienen siendo fondos de inversión que tienen a su cargo bastantes fondos pequeños.Mauricio también nos comentó que el retorno de inversión anual varía, con años en que se ha generado un retorno del 170% o hasta el 300%, pero también años en los que se han perdido el 5%. El promedio suele ser más o menos 25% o 30% de retorno al año.La rama en la que se desempeña Mauricio es la compra de commodities, que bien pueden ser de energía, de agricultura, o de minerales, y que se miden en BTUs o MMBTU. Esto significa que compran en mercados de futuros, que realmente son títulos financieros. Otra de las cosas que le pregunté a Mauricio fue sobre el escándalo de fraude de Enron, compañía en la que trabajó apenas seis meses. Aseguró que existen otros fraudes muchos más grandes, pero que el de Enron fue el más famoso por haber sido uno de los primeros. Desde su punto de vista el problema fue de contabilidad porque algunas de las transacciones que se hicieron no se publicaron abiertamente a los inversionistas, y esto generaba un conflicto de intereses con el gerente financiero de la compañía.Luego hicimos un cambio de tema un poco drástico y platicamos sobre los triatlones, que consisten en tres disciplinas; nadar, bicicleta, y correr. Sobre esto hicimos la observación de que aún con 49 años, teniendo cuatro hijos, tres de ellos trillizos, consigue el tiempo necesario para trabajar, compartir con su familia, andar en bicicleta, correr, entrenar varias horas, e incluso participar en varios Iron Man, que es una carrera de 225 kilómetros entre las tres disciplinas.Opina que el triatlón nunca es aburrido porque siempre hay un área que se puede mejorar, sea corriendo, en la bicicleta, o nadando. Por ejemplo, en la natación se puede mejorar la técnica o cómo respiras, en la bicicleta puedes mejorar la posición aerodinámica o puedes cambiar la bicicleta, y corriendo también se puede mejorar. De hecho, desde su punto de vista correr es la parte más difícil, ya que si no corres bien te puedes lesionar, y si te lesionas se acabó.Por último, le pregunté a Mauricio qué consejo de vida o de negocios le daría a su yo de 25 años, a lo que respondió que hay que estar seguro y confiado de que las cosas van a estar bien, tener una mentalidad optimista y de hacer las cosas bien. A esa edad uno está muy nervioso e inseguro a pesar de que no hay nada más que se pueda hacer. Para él hay que vivir contento y vivir satisfecho, porque el nerviosismo y la preocupación en exceso no sirve para nada. Si se presenta una oportunidad, hay que aprovecharla.Mauricio no tiene redes sociales y se mantiene bastante privado en este sentido.

Energy metering.  Is that EASILY accomplished?  Are there well suited applications for metering AND can a building owner be confident about energy consumption?  (YES!)  Greg and Dan, our Ask Caleffi gurus, talk about energy metering during this episode of the podcast.  They talk Modbus-to-BACnet (say what??) and what applications are perfect for calculating BTUs in a specific space.  Interested in a real-life example?  No problem!  Dan digs into an actual case study of successful tracking of energy usage with the 7504 Series CONTECA heat energy meter in action.Want to hear YOUR QUESTION on Ask Caleffi?  Take this quick 4 question survey for your chance to hear your question in a future episode.Survey:https://forms.gle/fRfnU8Px3B1Lq7K69

Quantum Quote: “Be the change you want to see in the world,” Gandhi said. So whatever it is you don't like, instead of complaining about it, do something about it. Live that change!”  - Chef Chris Galarza   Did you know that cooking with gas can produce unhealthy levels of carbon monoxide? At 200 parts per million, gas emissions can even far exceed the federal maximum of 9 parts per million.   While only 1% of chefs in America are currently cooking with an induction stove -  the top US restaurants are making the transition, and about 30% of the world's chef's have already moved to make our air cleaner, kitchens more productive and comfortable, and our lives more sustainable.    In one hour of cooking with gas, you can produce 38.9 pounds of food.In the same hour, an induction stove can cook 70.9 pounds of food.   Eco-friendly and energy-saving electric induction stoves are SAFER, CLEANER, more CONTROLLABLE, and FASTER than gas.    So what is stopping you from making the change?   Check out this week's AWESome EarthKind Energy podcast, where we interview Chef Chris Galarza, the Founder and Culinary Sustainability Consultant of Forward Dining Solutions LLC.   Chef Chris Galarza is the Founder and Culinary Sustainability Consultant of Forward Dining Solutions LLC and is one of the country's leading commercial kitchen electrification experts. Chef Galarza gained his experience by working at such notable places as the Greenbrier resort and Carnegie Mellon University, and has spent the last 6 years operating Chatham University's Eden Hall Campus  the world's first university campus designed to be a showcase for sustainability solutions.    As one of the most knowledgeable & experienced chefs in the U.S working with electric kitchen equipment, Chris has set himself apart as an industry leader and has consulted with some of the top tech companies in the world as a result.   Sign up for a free webclass to discover how easy it is to get ultra-efficient geothermal heating and cooling installed in your home – without the pain of emptying your savings account.   In “The Power Of Earth With Comfort” From Climate Master webclass, you'll discover the answers every homeowner needs to know, including:   How geothermal heating and cooling can draw energy from the ground beneath our feet (for pennies)   Why homeowners everywhere are making the switch   The secrets to securing utility incentives and tax credits to pay for a large portion of your new geothermal system   and much more…   If you tired of rising energy costs and want to save up to 70% on your energy bills, Go to www.AWESomeEarthKind.com and register now for this FREE special event that will show you exactly how to get geothermal heating and cooling installed in your home.   We'd like to hear from you! Please help us understand how AWESomeEarthKind can help you achieve your clean energy goals – and you'll automatically be entered into a Sweepstakes for a Free LED Light Fixture:   SEND YOUR FEEDBACK TODAY SuperNova #1. When talking about sustainability, when talking about electrification and decarbonization, it has to start with the kitchen.   SuperNova #2. When I was running Chatham Eden Hall, the recorded indoor kitchen temperature did not exceed 72 degrees Fahrenheit, despite having temperatures outside that far exceeded 85 degrees. Even through production, we were cooler inside in the kitchen next to the ovens than we were outside with the fresh air.   SuperNova #3. Gas ranges at best are 50% efficient - which means that, if you have a 60,000 BTUs burner, 30,000 BTUs are literally getting burned and tossed into your kitchen, which isn't going into the pan, isn't going into the food - it's just wasting your money.   Worst Career Moment: “So the worst moment was when we were giving a tour of the campus and I was explaining how this all works. I had someone trying to help that was doing it all wrong, and then the power went out. And, I was like “everything was going wrong”. So I had to explain to them that, of course, if the power goes out, you can't cook. But also it's illegal to cook with anything, gas or electric, when the power's out.” - Chef Chris Galarza   Aha! Moment: “My background was working at five stars, five-diamond resorts all the way down to mom-and-pop restaurants, I never worked with electric cooking. It was all new to me, and we were creating it on the fly. For the last six years, that's all I've done. I had this Aha! moment in the middle of like construction, in the middle of creating this, that if this works out it can be life-changing.” - Chef Chris Galarza   Best Advice He's Ever Received: “Get out of your head. Your worst enemy is the little voice in your head.” - Chef Chris Galarza   Personal Habit that Contributes to Success: “No matter what, even if I'm working from home, I always wear my chef's coat. It gives me the illusion that I'm at work instead of being at home with my Xbox is. So, always try to keep yourself professional, even when you're working from home. And be diligent.” - Chef Chris Galarza   Internet Resource: LinkedIn hashtags   Book Recommendation: What Einstein Told His Cooks: Kitchen Science Explained by Robert L. Wolke. The Flavor Bible by Karen A. Page & Andrew Dornenburg   Magic Wand: “It would be the destigmatization of electric cooking, Just eliminate all gas cooking and the stigma behind it.” - Chef Chris Galarza   WTF: “So I'll say my most fun one is a weird one. It was a hurricane right before Hurricane Katrina, I was living in Florida. Then another one that came through. It was my first hurricane ever. We were terrified. We're from New Jersey and have never lived through a hurricane. So we're barricading stuff, and then, we're ready to go. We have food. We have everything we need. Around three in the morning, we lose power, and everyone's asleep. My stepdad and I were listening to what's happening outside. And he and I are like, "We should open that door and check it out." So... we opened the door, and it flew open. There was stuff flying in the house. We were just- both of us, big dudes trying to shut this door, and we just laughed. My mom was livid with us because we had tree branches and water in the house. It was so awesome. And then after it was all done, we walked outside and for the first time and only time I've ever been in Florida, there was no humidity. It felt like a perfect fall day. I just enjoyed that day more than anything.”    Most Energized About Today: “One thing I'm most energized about is that people are actually taking this topic seriously. And there's a lot of people like yourself that are talking about it.” - Chef Chris Galarza   Parting Advice: “Never ever take a job that you're not afraid of. Always take a job that you think is outside your reach because that's what's gonna make you push yourself. That's just going to make you go in there every day and try to outwork everybody.” - Chef Chris Galarza   Connect:   Email: Cgalarza@ForwardDiningSolutions.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chef-christopher-galarza-8a632742/ Website: https://forwarddiningsolutions.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forwarddiningsolutionsllc/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DiningForward Podcast Website: https://sustainableoverloadpodcast.com/ Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sustainablepod/   Podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/S_O_Podcast  

Repeat customers are the heart and soul of just about every business. But when your product is something that you purchase maybe two or three times throughout your life, how do you create a repeat experience that will sustain your company long-term? That was one of the questions that Chip Malt had to answer when he co-founded Made In Cookware, a digitally-native kitchenware company that launched in September 2017 and is disrupting this $17B cookware industry.And the solution he came up with was a good one: produce the highest quality products possible, have a deep understanding of the industry you’re entering into, deliver an all-around experience that goes beyond those products, then keep scaling to bring more must-haves to market.This episode was such a fun one because we dove into the history of the cookware industry, long term partnerships they’ve set up in France (their knives are made from the great-great-great-granddaughter of a French knife maker who invented the modern chef knife in the middle of Central France), secret recipes for their cookware ingredients, the best cooking tip he ever learned, and more. Enjoy this episode.Main Takeaways:Make It Memorable: Customers today are looking for experiences. In order to secure a sale or differentiate your brand, bringing a next-level experience to the table is a proven tactic. Partner with the people you are connected to in your industry — influencers, celebrities, etc. — who are fans of your brand and create something special for potential customers.A Living Legacy: Connections are made constantly in personal and professional life. Smart business owners use those connections to their advantage. When you can tap into a reservoir of friends, friends of friends, family connections or business relationships of the past who can speak on your behalf or join you in a new venture, you immediately start to create a sense of legitimacy that can spread more easily to those you have yet to connect with.First Time, Best Time: There are many examples of brands that have launched products quickly because they thought it was better to get a product to market than wait for perfection. But the opposite approach is also worth consideration. Rushing a product to market that isn’t up to your brand standards might be what dooms you with new customers who find you for the first time through this subpar product and then judge the entire brand based solely on that experience.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO and Mission.org. Today on the show, we have Chip Malt, the co-founder and CEO at Made In Cookware. Chip, welcome to the show.Chip:Awesome. Thanks for having me, Stephanie.Stephanie:Yeah. I'm really excited to have you here. I might not be the biggest chef, but I feel like I'm still down to talk all things cookware and maybe you can train me up on what I should be doing, and I need all the help I can get. That's my caveat to start this show.Chip:Awesome. We're happy to do so.Stephanie:Yeah. I like that. So, I want to dive into the background of Made In Cookware because I think you have super interesting story where, correct me if I'm wrong, you started and co-founded the company with a childhood best friend and you guys have a lot of history in the industry with your family and family's family, and I would love to dive deep into all that background before we get into the actual company of where it is today.Chip:Absolutely. Yeah. So, we started the company, or officially launched it, in 2017. So, we're just over three years old, now entering our fourth year. But really, the story began a long time before that, as you mentioned. My co-founder, Jake Kalick, he comes from a hundred year old family that has experience with cookware. So, his great-grandfather in Boston where he grew up started a business that outfitted restaurants and hotels, their kitchens with everything from walk-in refrigerators to knives to cookware to a lot of stuff that we're selling today. So, he comes from almost 10 decades of experience in the cookware space, or his family does. Then Jake and I grew up together. We actually went to preschool together.Stephanie:Wow.Chip:We were in the yellow and blue room together, then we went to pre-kindergarten and went to a school that was the same all the way from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade when we left for college. So, our history goes back 28 years and we're 33. So, almost to the beginning of when you can even start to remember, and we've been best friends ever since. So, it's been a pretty incredible journey. We've been able to mesh his background, his family's background, his family's history into our childhood friendship into a business and have fun doing it. So, it's been a pretty cool journey so far.Stephanie:Yeah. Were there ever points when you guys veered apart, came back together? When did you know or even think, oh, we should do something together?Chip:Yeah. To be honest, and it's nice that he's not on this podcast because he can't defend himself, but I don't think growing up I would ever start a business with him. I was more of the studious one.Stephanie:I know too much about you.Chip:Yeah, exactly. I was more of the studious one. I would say he would copy off me in high school if we had to simplify it, and also that I remember me in the space, in the cookware space as well. That's his background and his journey. So, it's been really cool. To be honest, the startup world and starting a business, I feel like the public only gets to see the glamorous side of things. But it's a lot of hard work. It's a lot of ups and downs. For just as many amazing days and successful days we have, you have a really tough day as well. So, going through that with someone you're close with that at the end of the day, you can just have a beer and destress is a pretty incredible experience.Stephanie:Yeah. So, when taking best practices and lessons from maybe his family history and how they've been doing things, what did that feel like, taking this company and maybe bringing in new practices and new ideas? Was there any bit of a struggle behind that where they're like, "No, no, no. We've done this for a hundred years. We know what we're doing. Come on, Chip. Just follow the lead"?Chip:No, we get that a lot. At some point or at some level, we are cutting out his family business. His family is a distributor. They take some of the incumbents who we're competing with now and then they sell them to restaurants and act as the middle man. Ecommerce and direct to consumer in general is a cut out the middle man strategy, and so we get that question a lot. Are they mad we're displacing that to some degree? No, his family's been nothing but supportive. They're super happy we're maintaining the history into something new and just evolving it into the way that the world is moving. So, they've been awesome.Chip:His family and his knowledge of just the product and the industry has been absolutely crucial [inaudible] starting a business. When we walk into a kitchen and we're talking to a Grant Achatz, who is one of the best chefs in the world, he's able to talk about BTUs of the burner that Grant's using and the oven and why it's better, and he's able to talk the talk. It really gives us an air of authenticity and an air of just immediate warmth when we have ... Food in general is a very relationship driven business. It has a lot of credibility when we're approaching partners.Stephanie:Yeah. I saw that you're in crazy restaurants, really big ones. Top chefs use you guys. How did you even get in the door of those people? Because to me, I think you can be really smart around the product stuff and why you need it, like you're talking about the BTUs of the burner and all this stuff. You can have that, but if you can't even get your foot in the door or get in front of those people, you can't really go anywhere. So, how did you guys make those relationships and get in there?Chip:Yeah. I would love to tell you that we sat in a boardroom and whiteboarded out the perfect strategy and absolutely nailed it off the bat, but that was clearly not the case and that's not how it played out. The way the company came about, and taking a step back, what we do is we sell kitchen goods. So, knives, cookware, multiclad stainless steel, carbon steel frying pans, down to wine glasses and table top items, and really anything to outfit a new kitchen you're walking into, Made In will provide that.Chip:Our ethos to start and our launching hypothesis was that food is so emotional and people are spending so much money going to a Whole Foods or a farmer's market and getting super excited about a marvelous grass fed steak from a local rancher who is 30 miles away and it's beautiful cut and then they're coming home and they're cooking it on a frying pan that's a hand-me-down that they couldn't even name the brand of, and it's ruining that steak. So, there is this behavioral disconnect of the beginning part of a process and all the care that went into it with the actual cooking at the end of the day, which was delivering the final product.Chip:So, we wanted to make people care about their cookware in an emotional way as much as they did the ingredient they were grabbing at the farmer's market. For us, that was meshing Jake's family history, that a hundred year old family history, with the craftsmanship approach of the manufacturers and partners that we work with. So, a good example of that is our knives are made from the great-great-great-granddaughter of a French knife maker who invented the modern chef knife in the middle of Central France. This area is the birthplace of cutlery, has so much deep history.Chip:You walk through and everything about this town is dedicated around knives. There's still the old factories with the old windmills that would power the old forges and it's just pure and center all knives. What we wanted to do was make a product and go back to that source and resource and tell that story so that when you pull the knife out to cut the steak that you just fell in love with, you also know all the craftsmanship and all the story that went into that knives.Chip:So, it was this approach of blending love and care on both side, a product to ingredient. So, that was in launch approach, and we carry that ethos through all our product lines. Our bakeware we just launched is from a proprietary recipe that's over 200 years old from the center of France as well, and that's what carries through every single product we make. That actually attracted all these partners. So, most stuff in our industry comes off of a boat oversees in Asia and is nameless and faceless and has a name printed on it, all looks the same, and no one was putting this time and attention and care into the supply chain portion.Chip:As soon as that happened, Tom Colicchio approached us and he said, "Honestly, I've been working in this industry for decades waiting for a company like you guys to come along. I want to partner with you guys," and he invested in us. From there, it was a snowball effect. Tom is just an incredible human being. Everyone respects him. He was able to be the first stamp of approval, along with our supply chain store being the second stamp, that started to attract a lot of amazing shops from around the world to be part of our brand.Chip:I'd say the last point in that, these aren't traditional influencer or endorsement deals. So, every chef we work with, they're authentic customers of ours. They're buying for their restaurants. It's not a pay to play deal. This is a real authentic relationship.Stephanie:That's awesome. Yeah. That's a theme I always hear and I think even for our company as well, that first customer is like the stamp of approval. Once you get the one big whale, then you can just be like, "Well, look. So-and-so is using it," and you can find their network. Yeah. Once you get that first one, I think everything gets easier. How did Tom hear about you? Were you guys doing some marketing tactics to get in front of him?Chip:No, through the grapevine. We approached Danny Meyer's fund as an investment proposal and we were too small. It was too early for them. They write 20 and $30 million checks for growth stage businesses and we hadn't even launched really yet. So, he introduced us. He was like, "Would you like to meet our friend, Tom Colicchio? He writes angel checks, and would that be okay to make the intro?" Obviously, we were trying to play it cool. We were like, "Yeah. I think we'd be okay with that." But obviously, we were ecstatic and super excited.Chip:We emailed Tom and didn't hear back from him for months were like, "All right. That clearly is not going to happen." All of a sudden, we got an email from him two months later out of the blue that was just, "Hey, guys. Landed back from filming Top Chef for two months. So sorry for the delay. Can you meet in New York tomorrow?" I don't know if he thought we were in New York as well. But obviously, we're in Austin, Texas and we were like, "Sure," and booked an immediate flight and more or less had a handshake deal to partner with him and get an investment from him that day. He was just a super awesome guy, super genuine, and believed in what we were doing, most importantly.Stephanie:That's amazing. So, what did that initial startup look like? You have an infusion of cash. What were your next steps? Was it already mapped out, or now you're like, "Whoa. This is really getting us to that next level. We need to change how we were thinking about it"?Chip:I had come from the apparel space, which I was working at a company called Rhone, helping them with digital marketing. So, if you were saying, "Hey, Chip. I need to go buy some stuff right now. I don't even know where to start," is generally the refrain we hear, and that was different from the apparel space because no one is looking at a T-shirt and saying, "I don't know how to use that. I don't know what to use that T-shirt." I put it on my body. We know that, right?Chip:So, the first year is all about learning what people really cared about, how to market our product. Our product is a performance based product. It will fundamentally make the food you cook better tasting, but how to deliver that in a way that makes sense to the normal consumer and it's not too chef-y, especially when we have all the chefs behind us. That was a huge learning process.Stephanie:Yeah. Someone once gave me a really big cast iron skillet and I remember being like, "Thank you so much. What do I do with this? How do I clean it?" And she's telling me, do salt and this and that. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. Can I cook my engineering in here?" I tried a couple times and it just was burning and, okay, education is key around stuff like that. The one thing I was reading that I thought was really interesting too was your post-purchase engagement of basically using that as a training funnel, because you were maybe having people come in and complaining because they didn't really know how to use the cookware, and so you used that as a channel to start training them right after they purchased and maybe were checking in on the shipping and trying to see where their product was, that instead you would guide them to the website to train them. I'd love to hear how you thought about that, and do you still do that today?Chip:Yeah. I think we're very lucky in the sense that we have some of the best chefs in the world that are, again, our authentic partners and using our cookware. So, we thought a lot about and we sat back and we're lucky enough that because we work with these people, we're able to go into a restaurant and then the chefs generally come out and explain exactly how they made the dish they're serving us and there's very personal experience that heightens the entire enjoyment of going to that restaurant.Chip:So, we're sitting there and we actually kind of have a duty as a company, we have this entire group of chef partners and this entire group of home consumers to be the bridge between those so everyone else can have that experience and heighten their enjoyment of the use of the products. So, we work with these chefs. Grant Achatz taught us how to make an omelet, and he's known for this crazy molecular gastronomy. But actually, Grant Achatz grew up cooking in his parents' diner making eggs, and now he can do it the best in the world.Chip:We talk a lot about what can Made In do that no one else can, and we have this two-sided relationship that no one else does. So, how can we bridge that gap between the consumer and the chef in a way that really values and adds value to the consumer's process, and to us, that's education. So, you buy a carbon steel frying pan or you buy a piece of bakeware. Nancy Silverton, the best baker in the world, is going to give you a recipe to enjoy that product. If you buy carbon steel, as you said, carbon steel to us is a better cast iron, but there's a learning curve. The chef [inaudible] in New York is going to teach you how to season it, teaching you how to ... Wait. What the hell is that salt thing that that person was talking about, what that is, and how to use it, and that's coming from a real expert in the space.Stephanie:Oh, that's a really unique and interesting strategy. You're using the chefs as your influencers to train, and I feel like a lot of these chefs know how to speak in a language that'll connect with me so you don't really have to be like, "Wait, wait, wait. You're going too intense here. Let's dumb it down a bit." It seems like a lot of the best chefs have learned how to be the, what's the one, the Chef Ramsays of the world. Or there's another one I follow that's really good too on Instagram. Anyways, he does things in a way where I'm like, "I can do that," and it's just like, it's only five steps, it looks beautiful, but here's the two things that'll really take it to the next level.Chip:Yeah. Tom Colicchio and my co-founder, Jake, they both have the same philosophy, which is that you really get to enjoy cooking once you can just do the fundamentals. As soon as you break free of the recipe, you can actually start to enjoy the creative process [inaudible]. We talked about that a lot too, right? It's like, it's never been easier to order Uber Eats and have any meal you want delivered to your door within 40 minutes at a pretty good price. But people are cooking more and more, and why is that? It's because people actually love the process of the creativity behind it, of the expression behind it, of just the sense of accomplishment, or people do it to destress, or they're doing it for a specific diet.Chip:People are doing it for a very personal reason, and if we can give them the fundamentals of, hey, this is just a technique of how to sear a steak correctly, we don't need to give you, okay, add salt at the end or add a [inaudible] on it. That becomes your personal sense of creativity and your enjoyment for it. So, I'm just taking that to heart as well. If we can give you technique and how-tos as opposed to step by step by step recipes with the chefs who have gone to culinary school, who have done all this technique work for you, then it'll be a really powerful experience for the home consumer.Stephanie:Yeah, that's cool. What are a few of the top maybe cooking tips or tricks where you're like, "Once I learn this one thing, it changed my whole worldview on cooking"?Chip:Yeah. Definitely heat control. I think that is where most home cooks get in trouble. You talked a lot about just burning your eggs, or something like that, and it's not a hard concept, but there's everything flying around the internet of you need high heat to sear, and that's just not true, and low and slow is the best way to cook, etc. It really becomes down to your personal preference and style. You can sear a steak on low heat if you just do it correctly and give it its proper time and you can still have the exact reaction you want.Chip:Tom Colicchio is a low and slow guy and Grant Achatz tends to cook on higher heat. Everyone is doing it in their own way. So, I think for me, and even in my personal journey, understanding heat control and learning it correctly was the biggest unlock because that applies to the most amount of dishes that you cook. I think a good example of that is Tom Colicchio talks a lot about listening to your meal. So, when you have a pan and you heat it up, no oil, because most people will heat it with oil and burn the oil on and have a lot of dishes to do. So, you put a stainless clad piece of cookware on the burner, heat it up to temperature, dumping cold oil, let that heat up quickly, and then put on a cold steak.Chip:What is that cold steak going to do? It's going to drop the temperature in the pan. So, at that point, you need to have more heat into the pan to get that sear. But once everything gets up to rise, if you leave that high heat on, it's going to overcook everything and burn that oil again. So, then lowering it down. Everything on that is done to just paying attention to heat control.Stephanie:Is there any pushback that you guys have felt? You're in an industry that, to me, feels like an older one where people are like, "Oh, I've always used nonstick and it's fine." Now, it does feel like thing are changing where people are like, "These pans are toxic. They're not the best for the environment. There's a lot of things that you should think about." What kind of education around just using the products, but what else are you encountering right now when you're trying to push into this industry?Chip:Yeah. People do have a preference towards nonstick. It's the biggest objective business market to attack, and I think that's why you get the most amount of entrance into the nonstick space. It's also the most just Wild West of marketing as well, which we try and stay out of. The big push right now is "ceramic". I put it in air quotes or visual quotes because it's not actually ceramic. It's a Sol-Gel coating that looks like ceramic, and so the GreenPans of the world a decade ago dubbed it ceramic because it sounded nicer and sounded more premium. But really, it's a Sol-Gel coating.Chip:This was back in the day when DuPont was dumping stuff in water and all this stuff. So, they created this decade long fearmonger marketing tactic that a lot of companies have latched onto over the decades, and now GreenPan's actually in a class action lawsuit about all their face claims.Stephanie:I used to have a GreenPan.Chip:Yeah, exactly.Stephanie:I had to throw it away because I'm like, "I don't this is good to cook on."Chip:The problem with those too is Sol-Gel and "ceramic", which is how the normal person listening to this would hear it as, it doesn't last long. By definition, it's called a self-sacrificing surface. Every time you use it, it removes some surface. It scores four out of 10 on a durability score.Stephanie:That goes in your food, doesn't it?Chip:It does. But it's made out of what makes hair conditioner. So, you can eat your hair conditioner [inaudible]. But whatever. But just in terms of business, we're making performance based tools. We're not making a marketing gimmick company. Our gold standard is would this hold up in a commercial kitchen and would Grant Achatz or Tom Colicchio or Mashama Bailey, would they want to use this piece of cookware in their restaurant? You will never see a ceramic pan, a GreenPan pan in kitchen because that would last one week in a commercial kitchen.Chip:So, then they're making all these claims about better for you, better for the environment. If that thing's ending up in a landfill a week later, two weeks later, a month later, whatever it is, it's up to you to determine if that's actually better for the environment. [crosstalk] Yeah. Exactly. So, we're not in that game. We don't play in that game. We're here to make great tools that the best chefs in the world and the best home cooks and people who love to cook can use.Stephanie:Yeah. So, what kind of marketing are you guys finding most effective right now? When you said a lot of the other cookware brands are maybe using the fearmongering and just making claims that maybe aren't always the most accurate, what are you guys finding success in?Chip:Yeah. So, we love to tell the manufacturing story and the craftsmanship story. So, I'm just talking a lot about bakeware right now because we just launched on April 8th, and we went out to the factory in France and watched ... It goes through 50 people's hands who touch and inspect this and have been doing it for 30 or 40 years and it's such a beautiful process and it's pouring this clay and porcelain that is proprietary to them. I think there's one person who actually only knows the recipe and we're sitting there being like, this seems like a single point of failure as a business owner. You should make sure this person doesn't [crosstalk]-Stephanie:Oh, you're good.Chip:... [crosstalk] something. Like put it on Google Drive with a password protect or something. I don't know. But it's such a intimate, unique process and our customers love to see that, and the customer that appreciates that is our customer. Everything we make in the bakeware space is hand painted, and so we have these white porcelain with blue rims and red rims and every single piece is literally hand painted by brush. That's just so different than a lot of our competitors and what they do where the coolness comes from applying some coating that's powder blue or something like that. It's just totally different.Chip:So, we want to express that and for us on the marketing side, showing that is really beneficial because one, it is all the work we're doing, like scaling and working with these artisans and craftsman, is tough. It's tough business. But it's also really rewarding and our customers see how much care and attention and time goes into each one of their pieces.Stephanie:Yeah. That's great. When I think about, it feels very exclusive, like you have direct access to the person doing this who know the recipe. How do you put a moat around that so maybe other brands can't just come in and be like, "Oh, we know this one style of copper cookware," which is beautiful. I was looking at that like, "Ooh, that would match my one Moscow mule I have." But how do you put a moat around it to make sure that other brands don't just come in and steal your one single person who has the recipe?Chip:Yeah, yeah. It just goes back to Jake's family history and being so authentic in the space. He was working with a lot of people who were friends of friends who connected us to the right people and really, the only reason why we got a foot in the door was because of being in the space for 100 years. Most of our, or all of our competitors do not have any family history or any reason to be in it, other than seeing a white space and a market to go attack kind of thing.Chip:We don't talk too much about moats. To be honest, we have a very familiar relationship with all of our manufacturers, craftsmanship partners, and everything. Go out, spend multiple weeks. Our knife manufacturer told us she loved us and felt like we were her children and kids and sons at the end of it. So, these are real relationships and it's less about, hey, can we sign and exclusive for 10 years to lock out competitors and more how can we treat them like family, how can they treat us like family, and so they wouldn't want to do exactly what you're talking about.Stephanie:Yeah. How do you go about doing that? How do you instill that trust and relationship, and other than just being a nice, friendly person, which obviously you are, what else do you do so they really feel that relationship and you're like, "Yep, I'm not even worried about it because we got that"?Chip:Yeah. Some of them have invested in us. Internally, we have a mantra of hospitality first, and that goes towards everything from treating every customer who walks through our door or walks through our website door, whether they're spent $19 or $900, like we are a three Michelin star restaurant. So, what can we do to make you feel better, to enjoy the experience better, to, if you're having a problem, fix it, to do service recovery if you've had an issue? If UPS failed to deliver, how can we help you get to the answer that you need? All that stuff.Chip:That extends from customers as well as buyers, vendors, and manufacturing partners as well. So, what does that mean? It's treating them fairly on terms. It's treating them fairly on our business growth and practices and being an open book for them and sharing information and in negotiations, dealing with them in a friendly manner, and getting to a result that [inaudible] zero sum game, but it's beneficial for both sides. For us, that is the name of the game because it gets out of a let's solve for the six month term, and this is going to be a business that'll be around for two decades, three decades, forever, we need to make sure that we're treating people correctly.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. So, when thinking about your customer, like you said, they can come in and buy a $1,200 cookware set and it's going to last a long time. It's not something where it's like you'll be back in a month. I'll see you when you need a replacement. How do you think about garnering that passionate customer base where it's like you have a good LTV on them? You're like, "They're going to be around for 10 years," because I've seen that you also are able to get wait lists of 10,000+ people who sign up for new products that you're launching. So, I want to hear how you think about that and keep your customer engaged, even if they ... life cycle of when they need a new product might be a long time from when they buy their first one.Chip:Yeah. So, we've been fortunate enough to have really strong cohort and repeat customer behavior. We're only three years old at this point. Our earliest cohorts have repeated over, on blended average, over 100%. So, industry average is 20%. [inaudible] 5x industry average. It's, again, in a product category that, as you mentioned, our product should last you your entire life. So, that's something we had to solve for and think about. Our first belief is that product quality is the biggest driver of longevity and happiness in cohort behavior.Chip:So, if your product stinks and you're the best marketer in the world, that's a short term gain. [inaudible] you can have actually a subpar experience with an amazing product and that's actually the better trade. Again, we try to solve for a great experience with a great product. But if we have only one chip to put it in, we would always put it into the product category because we believe that is what drives behavior. So, when we're going out, and one of our early investors and main investors had a really great point, which was you don't know how someone's going to find you. It could be a blog article about some tail skew that you just launched or cutting board.Chip:It's not, of course, you, but if that is their first experience with Made In, they are going to believe that everything else is like that cutting board. Right? So, everything you launch needs to be okay in a great experience. Or sorry. No. Everything you launch needs to be a great experience if that is their first product they've ever bought. So, don't launch tail skews that aren't up to the quality standards that you want, that don't have the manufacturer and craftsmanship story that you want, that don't have a good unboxing experience.Chip:So, we've taken that to heart because I think you see a lot of ecommerce companies just launch a whole bunch of stuff really quickly without that thought and attention behind it. Again, you don't know how people are going to find you. You're going to Parachute Home and you need a candle. If that candle doesn't come in an amazing box that represents the Parachute Home brand well, then you're probably not going to come back and buy their sheets. So, when we think about a product line and our offerings and cohort behavior and [inaudible] to answer your question, it all starts with product experience and product quality, and then again, that hospitality first mantra, treating our customers correctly, giving them customer service if they need it, and that will drive longterm behavior.Stephanie:Yeah. Oh, that's great because I think, like you said, a lot of brands do think about what are the loss leaders that you can put out there and just get people in the door, the quick hits? Like you said, I've bought many things for the first time, starting off with smaller price points, just to see, dabble in it a bit, see what it's like, and then be like, "Nope. I'm so glad I didn't buy that expensive $100 item because I just bought a bracelet for $10 and it was horrible. And yes, it was $10, but I'm still mad about it."Chip:Yeah. When I was at the apparel company and I was running analytics for them, we did a lot of basket cart analysis on which product ... taking everyone's first cart and basing out the SKUs that made up that first cart and then which of those SKUs led to [inaudible] second carts. Then we found an interesting mantra, which we've taken to heart, which was the lowest price point product of the most premium category was included in the most baskets that drove the highest repeat. To your point exactly on that, it was people who were trying to figure out, hey, is this material worth this extra amount of money I'm about to spend on it? I'm going to test that out, buy the cheapest one in that category.Chip:So, it was that product that we hadn't spent a lot of time and attention on, and all of a sudden, you're like, "Wow. This actually is the most important product of our entire company," because it's everyone's gateway and it's showing the material, but it's not a tough price point to hit on a first basket, and if we can show well on this first basket with this product, then they'll be great customers over the longterm. So, I think exactly what you mentioned is interesting.Stephanie:That's a good one. It makes you think about maybe adjusting margins on that first lower priced item, give it higher quality, lower your margins if you need to to keep that price lower, get them in the door, and then they'll probably go up from there when they have a really good experience with that cheaper item. I don't know if all brands do that, though. We will find out. Interesting. So, when developing new product lines, you're talking about the quality piece of it. But how quickly can you guys develop products, or are you more slow paced, like we just want to make sure it's perfect and it could take us a year to come up with a new product line because we're working with these artisans in France or knife makers or whatever you're doing?Chip:Yeah. It's been a mixture of both. We've had products that came together very quickly and was a match made in heaven with the craftsman who we reached out to and it just got to market in the way we wanted very quickly. We had a product, cast iron product that we were trying to launch in 2019 that got to the one yard line and we had spent a year and a half on it. We invested $50,000 of tooling and a ton of research and time and effort and all this stuff. It just wasn't up to the quality that we felt represented the brand and we scrapped that project at the one yard line, and now it's been a three year project.Chip:So, I'd say it's very variable. We are very aware that once we put that product out, it reflects on the rest of the products. So, if we put out a bad line and it doesn't carry the same quality and care and attention that the rest of our line does, it could reflect on ... Are they doing everything else half-assed as well? So, I would it's been a mixture.Stephanie:Yeah. How do you ensure that you're going to have enough inventory, especially when it's being handcrafted? We've had quite a few people on this show who have similar stories around ... We had Yellow Leaf Hammocks on in the early days and the women in the villages there were the ones making the hammocks, and of course, that can cause maybe sometimes supply issues. How do you even plan for that when it's like, well, this is one person's recipe and there's 50 people who are touching this product to get it out there, and maybe Joe got sick, so there goes his recipe for a week, we don't know how to create it anymore? Even plan when it's so, yeah, custom, I guess?Chip:Yeah. To be honest, that's been one of the biggest challenges of this business is our unique moat and value prop and everything is also the biggest challenge in the business. I think those naturally go hand in hand together. But you hit the nail on the head. It's about finding these craftsmen that make these amazing products, and they've never seen a company scale 5x year over year. They've never seen a company go this fast and just attack the market in this way.Chip:So, it's about, again, going back to being good partners with them, sharing multiyear forecasts, helping them invest in new tooling and new lines and things like that and working with them directly. It's a huge, huge challenge. But we've seen companies who get to this point and then take it and move everything to an automation facility and hurt everything that they built in the first place. So, we're not doing that. It's more about being great partners and figuring out the challenges with those partners.Stephanie:Yeah. Cool. So, when it comes to an ecommerce perspective, I like your example earlier about how to think about certain metrics and what you use to analyze. What are some other things maybe you pulled in from your past marketing experience into this business where you're like, "We've always relied on these principles, or I always look at these metrics every day to make sure everything's going okay"?Chip:Yeah. We look at star ratings by product line. Those are obviously very important for us. It's what is the benefit of ecommerce? In the early days, it was the cut out the middle man story. That's gone away now. It's, okay, direct relationship with our customer, one to one management of that relationship, and we believe more of that mantra, right? So, it's, at the end of the day, we always say at the end of the day when you buy something from Williams-Sonoma and you walk out of that store, you're never going to hear from that salesperson ever again. Your relationship with Williams-Sonoma and that salesperson who just spent a half hour with you is over.Chip:For us, it always begins at the time of purchase. They've bought from us. We now have a direct line to them, we can provide them content, we can provide them customer service. Our relationship is just beginning, and a lot of that goes into product reviews, a lot of that goes into monitoring return rates and how many customers exchange or return products. For us, that's a proxy for product quality. Then cohort behavior is a huge one as well and those three together give us an idea of how the product into customers viewing the company full circle is behaving and is trending. Those are probably the three we focused on most.Stephanie:Yeah. What are some of the behaviors that you're looking for when you say the cohort behavior is one of the biggest ones? What are you guys looking for and how would you adjust it if it's not going the way that you want?Chip:Yeah. So, cohort behavior, you're looking for trends up and to the right, and home space. When we launched in the home space, what we tend to see in this space is a diminishing marginal curve on cohort behavior. So, after they've bought all the things from you, then they don't ever come back again. So, you see cohort behavior one to six months kicking up to the right and then six to 12, a little bit less, and then flat from 12 on, or whatever it is. Right?Chip:So, we wanted to make sure that we didn't follow that trend because that meant, all right, we no longer have a relationship after 12 months, just out of an example, with that customer. So, what can we do to maintain that customer within our relationship and what can we do to provide value to them, whether that's content and recipes and how to use things better, whether that's new products? So, again, we started with just stainless clad cookware, we've launched carbon steel cookware, knives, wine glasses, plates, silverware, copper bakeware, all from these amazing facilities and stories. If we can treat them right in the beginning, then obviously they'll continue to support us throughout that journey.Stephanie:Yeah. What's some of the most engaging content? Is it the educational stuff? Is it the stories around the artisans making the product? What really pulls people in and then keeps them coming, not just a one off hit of, "Oh, that was heartwarming. I like that," and then you don't see them anymore? What keeps them there longterm?Chip:Definitely the manufacturing and craftsmanship stories. Those get the highest feedback and results from us. To your point on inventory being an issue for companies like ours, have that be a portion of it and then have that portion go through a pandemic where demand is increasing and manufacturers are closed in Europe for months because of COVID outbreaks. It creates a tough dynamic, and with and around those stories, we've generally heard the refrain of, "I don't care when this stuff comes to me. Just make it in the right way," and I think what these videos and this content does is show you that were making it in the right way.Chip:It's not like we're delivering medication that needs to be ... If you don't have your oval baker on Monday, you're not going to be too upset about it. Obviously, we're striving for best in class delivery and fulfillment and have a great team who does so. But we're not delivering life needed items. We are delivering craft products that are going to last you a lifetime, and if that takes an extra week, by showing people that, the care and attention that goes into it, they generally have that refrain of, "Do it the right way and get it to me when you can."Stephanie:Yep. Yep. I definitely feel that. How do you feel about being shown up in marketplaces or Amazon? I know there's a couple artisan marketplaces where they highlight some of the best products. To me, letting someone else tell your story, or even on Amazon, you can only tell it in a certain way. How are you guys approaching that?Chip:Yeah. Amazon's interesting because I think the mentality on Amazon has shifted a bunch over the last five years. The ecommerce space in general five years ago, I think, would have said, "No way. Amazon dilutes my brand. Amazon doesn't let me tell my story. It's going to cannibalize all the marketing efforts I'm doing over here." [inaudible] we're seeing a shift away from that mentality and people and brands racing towards displaying on Amazon. I don't think it means Amazon is still doing a great job of letting brands tell their story. To me, it's still a search engine and people tend to not get to the brand page ever.Chip:So, I don't think it's necessarily an Amazon win and that they're helping perpetuate all this effort and craft that we're going towards. It's more, I think it's becoming just such a necessary evil in terms of [inaudible] and people are growing these brands to get scale and need to find the incremental sales, and where else to go but wholesale and Amazon? So, Amazon's been interesting. We're not on Amazon. Almost 100% of our sales come through our own dotcom. So, we're not really on marketplaces either.Chip:In general, we have a kind of anti view on all of those. I'm not saying that will be forever. Again, each channel has diminishing returns at some sort of scale. Fortunately, we're not at that point. But yeah. We tend to like to tell our own stories and craft a message and own the relationship and provide the value to the customer.Stephanie:So, what's on the radar for you guys for the next couple years? Where are you headed? What are you hoping to do in maybe one to two years?Chip:Yeah. So, we're at the point, and when we launched this, we wanted to "own the kitchen". I realize that's an overused, cheesy phrase and hopefully, all the listeners didn't just roll their eyeballs. I swear-Stephanie:I didn't. [crosstalk] Own it, Chip. They're going to own it, everyone. Come on.Chip:Exactly. But for us, everything comes down to the why and it's not just to sell more things. It's, okay, a kitchen is part of the home and people like aesthetic congruency within their home. So, it doesn't make sense to have a different bakeware company vs. different knives vs. different cookware and pull those all out and now you're serving them all on a table to a dinner party and they all look different and it's not a reflection of what you're trying to do for your home, which again, is very personal to you.Chip:So, with the launch of bakeware, we're actually at the point right now where if you're moving into a new home you can buy almost every main vertical you need off of madeincookware.com. It can all show up in one box and it can look the same and it can feel like part of the same system and you know that everything comes from an amazing backstory with amazing craftsmen.Chip:You don't have to go research do I want [inaudible] vs. Henko vs. Made In knives, then All-Clad vs. Made In Cookware. You don't have to do 500 different pieces of research. It's a seamless process for you to do so. So, that was our main brand goal, and we got there a little bit quicker than we thought we would with the launch of bakeware now. So, we're super excited about this being the first year where you can literally pull out a butcher block and cut a knife and prep your food and then cook it on Made In and then serve it on a Made In dish and serve it with wine and all that stuff and never touch anything but Made In, which is pretty cool.Stephanie:That's cool.Stephanie:Cool. Well, let's move over to the lightning round. The lightning round's brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have [inaudible] or less to answer. Are you ready, Chip?Chip:Yes.Stephanie:All right. So, I'd say you're probably an adventurous guy, from what I've read about you. What's one thing that you would never do?Chip:One thing I would never do. Good question. As of interest, I am, I'm not a huge water lover in terms of ... I do scuba dive, but I would never kite surf [inaudible].Stephanie:No kite surfing?Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:Wow. Okay. But don't you fly planes?Chip:Yes. [crosstalk] I'd rather go up than down, and climb mountains ever.Stephanie:Okay. Okay. What's a crazy story from flying a plane where you're like, "I almost died this one time, but here I am"?Chip:Yeah. My 14th hour, so about a third of the way through the private pilot's license, we had an engine out failure. It was right outside DC and we were descending beneath the DCA airspace, the Reagan airspace to sail out of it. It was with my instructor. It's the first time in the training process that you go and land at a separate airport and come back. The first 10 to 12 hours are just all at your local home base airport doing takeoffs and landings. So, we had just crossed the Potomac. He asked me to descend below the airspace, pulled back the throttle, and the engine just quit.Chip:He said, "Give it more gas. Don't throttle back that much," and I [inaudible] and it didn't kick back in. We declared an emergency, to make a long story short. When you declare an emergency, this is the Reagan now, they give you a dedicated person to help monitor your situation and he told us, "Okay, there's an airport two miles to your left. Can you make it?" "No." We declared a mayday situation. It had just had snowed two feet in the DC area at that time, which was pretty rare and lucky for us, and ended up crashing in a snowbank in someone's backyard.Stephanie:Oh, my gosh. I heard about this. I lived in DC.Chip:Did you?Stephanie:I heard about this. Yeah.Chip:It was probably 9:00 AM maybe. This lady came out in her robe with a coffee cup and just was so confused that there was a plane in her backyard, and we were sitting there kind of dancing-Stephanie:[inaudible].Chip:... because [crosstalk] yeah, we did this. We were safe.Stephanie:Oh, my gosh.Chip:She took us in and gave us hot cocoa. I was in school. I was at Georgetown at the time and I was missing, I had an 11:00 AM exam and emailed the instructor and said, "Hey. I know you said no excuses for missing exams, but here's the story." I ended up making it back around 12:30, three hour exam, walked in the classroom, and he stood up, stopped everyone, and said, "I will never accept any other excuses ever again for missing a thing," except for I was in a plane crash and landed in someone's backyard two hours away from the city.Stephanie:Oh, god.Chip:Which was pretty crazy. He ended up being a former Navy pilot. So, kind of, I think-Stephanie:Felt that.Chip:... touched a good nerve with it. But it was definitely one of the crazier experiences in my life.Stephanie:Wow. What year was that?Chip:2009 or '10.Stephanie:Okay. Yeah. I remember when I lived in Potomac area and I remember hearing about this. I don't know if it was you or not, but I remember a plane landing in someone's backyard and it was in the newspaper for a week.Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:[crosstalk] was you. That's cool. So, you've done four or the seven summits. Which one's been your favorite and why?Chip:Denali in Alaska was by far the most wild experience. That's the only one that's totally unassisted, no porters, no mules, not anything. You take a plane that lands on a glacier with your backpack and a sled and they say, "See you in 14 to 21 days." It was also the toughest. That is 120 pound packs over 14 to 20 days. We got stuck. So, we actually were making amazing time. We got up to the 14,000 foot camp. The mountain's about 21,000. So, it's the last major camp before doing your ascent, and about 10 days of -40 degree weather came in. So, we were stuck there.Chip:It was kind of a weird experience because the days were sunny and nice, but it was absolutely freezing and anyone who left the camp, 100% of them got frostbite and had to be evacuated. So, we sat there. We were running out of food. If we got through the last day of food and things opened back up, then we did a rapid ascent and summited on the last day we were able to. But you're out there in the wilderness. It's absolutely stunning and beautiful. You're kind of with yourself for ... It's quite a different experience than some of the others, which are a lot of tour groups, a lot of assistants, a lot quicker. So, it was a wild experience.Stephanie:That's cool. I mean, below 40. Wow. No, thanks.Chip:Funny story is the kid who actually had a [inaudible] job, he was a friend from earlier, but he was working at Walmart ecommerce at the time. We actually received our first investment via satellite on that climb for Made In.Stephanie:Wow.Chip:He was like, "What is that?" Then two years later, he joined us as our head of logistics. So-Stephanie:Oh, that's cool.Chip:... a lot of things came from that journey.Stephanie:That's a fun story.Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:Man. So many things all coming together. Cool.Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:What's one thing that you don't understand that you wish you did?Chip:All this stuff that's happening with physics right now and how molecules can go through walls and power all that stuff. I don't know. It seems very cool and I wish I got it, and I've had a lot of conversations around it. Every time, I feel like I'm high or something and I don't quite get it. But other people seem to get it and I wish I did.Stephanie:I haven't even really heard about this, or maybe I just don't know what this even is. So, I guess I'm in that same camp of I don't understand and now I'm going to start looking into that.Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:The last thing, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Chip:Probably the mass move to 5G. Everyone is, I would say, still in the camp of mobile as the first touchpoint and then convert on desktop or desktop conversion rates and AOV are still [inaudible] out of mobile, development still is mobile, second in most cases, and even though [inaudible] about mobile first development for the last decade. I think obviously as the more widespread 5G world gets out there, the focus on mobile maybe finally will get through to people. That's the most important meeting of ecommerce.Stephanie:Yep. Cool. Well, thanks so much for joining the show. It's been fun learning about the world of cookware and seeing where you guys are headed. That's, yeah, amazing. Where can people find out more about you and Made In Cookware?Chip:Yeah. Everything is sold through madeincookware.com. That's M-A-D-E-I-N cookware.com. We have everything from full kits if you're moving and need to outfit a full kitchen down to everything is also sold a la carte if you just need to fill around an existing group of cookware. So, we're excited and we have a full team ready to help you out if you have any issues as well.Stephanie:How amazing. Thanks so much, Chip.Chip:Cool. Thank you for having me on.

In this week’s episode the Regular Joes finally take up the topic listeners have been waiting for. Barry’s long delayed decision to purchase a new grill. SPOILER warning the discussion may delve into BTUs and smokers. Next up the Joe’s perform an autopsy on the the Disney+ series Falcon and the Winter Soldier. This one seemed like a no brainer. Just what was it that did it in? Poor writing, predictable plotting or an mostly unintelligible plan by a largely ineffectual villain. (Insert yawn here) Really, most Marvel fans could have guessed everything that would ultimately happen by the end of the first episode. Except for dancing Zemo. No accounting for that. There's also Random Topics ... like a really lot of Random Topics, and a round of Show and Tell, because, well, ... they have stuff. Thanks for Listening!

Podcast #20 War on Poverty and BTUs Welcome back friends to In My Right Mind w/ me, the ever-expressive Russ Andrews. As always, I am joined by the very cogent PJ Jaycox. How goes it PJ? While researching today's show PJ, I ran across a poll from a group called “Law Enforcement Today.” This poll was taken on Feb 25 this year; less than 2 months ago. In the poll, they asked how the respondents viewed themselves ploitically. The choices were: Very Liberal Liberal Moderate Conservative & Very Conservative. Then they asked respondents in each group how many unarmed blacks were killed by cops in 2019. The answer runs from 9-27, depending on the website or news show you visit or watch. The most common answer is 19, so I'll go with that. 19 so-called unarmed blacks killed by police in 2019. THEN, they asked respondents simply “How many unarmed black Americans were shot by police in 2019? Very Liberal:      53% said more than 1,000                              22% said more than 10,000 Just Liberal:       39% 1,000 or more. You see folks…this is what we are dealing with; people who know NOTHING…Complete dipshits who are willfully and dogmatically ignorant….about everything. Yet they are absolutely certain they are right…about all things…because they choose their “truth over actual facts.” And we are supposed to listen to these idiots and subscribe to their truths, regardless of how specious they are, otherwise we are racist, misogynist, deniers. Btw, only 13% of self-identified conservatives in the poll said 1,000 or more unarmed blacks were killed by cops in 2019. Proving once again that it we who are the informed group. THE WAR ON SANITY: With all of that in mind, I want to start off by addressing this ridiculous push by the socialists to insist that if you are white, that you are a racist, and that our whole society is in fact built around the concept of denying black people the ability to climb the American ladder of prosperity. I mean…that's why you wake up every morning isn't it PJ….to deny blacks their civil rights, huh??? Understand that the #1, founding principle of the neo-liberal movement was the eradication of racism…which was certainly a good and noble cause, and by and large has been accomplished. Don't believe me…then I give you as exhibit #1 Barrack Hussein Obama; a black man who was elected to our highest office…twice. Neo-liberals created a monster when they created the welfare state via the so-called “War On Poverty” on January 8, 1964; when Lyndon Johnson stated that "Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it". When in fact, he guaranteed it…poverty.. to continue into perpetuity. The so-called War on Poverty really turned out to be the War On Sanity, as the implied guarantee was that the state could…and in fact should…replace the father as head of household. If any of this sounds familiar, it's because we covered this topic in detail on our second podcast. I just wanted to add some thoughts, and understand folks that for the last 12 yrs I have re-visited this inane topic about every 6 months due to national headline events. The War On Sanity has been an experiment that has led to squallor, crime, mass-incarceration, tens of millions of wasted lives and thousands of murders. My thesis on this topic is that when Lyndon Johnson created the modern welfare state, that he purposely eliminated the father as head of household by essentially paying single women; women of color and white women, in a myriad of ways, to reproduce out of wedlock. The useful idiots whom most people call democrat voters, or whom I call neo-liberals, loved the...

 In some ways, the Yurt is the original tiny house on wheels. If you’ve never seen one, a Yurt is a portable, round tent covered with skins or felt and used as a dwelling by nomadic groups in Central Asia. In America, Yurts have been popular since the ’70s, and I’ve wanted to interview a yurt dweller here on the show for some time. Enter my guest, Kevin Obrien, who lives year-round, off-grid in his yurt in New Hampshire. Kevin will explain why he chose a yurt over other forms of housing and what the benefits and drawbacks are for full-time living. Full show notes and images at thetinyhouse.net.157In This Episode:What is a yurt?Is a yurt appropriate for cold-weather climates?Where to buy and what you can expect to pay for a yurtWind, cold, and heat: the yurt can handle it allKevin's unique sleeping arrangement sounds super comfyNo fridge? Off-grid cooking and food storage solutionsPlans for the interior of the yurtThis Week's Sponsor: PrecisionTempLet’s face it, most Tiny House dwellers want their homes to be small, but not uncomfortable. That means reliable, unlimited, hot water. PrecisionTemp’s propane-fired hot water heaters reliably provide unlimited hot water, and they’re specifically designed with tiny homes in mind.  With their patented VariFlame technology, these are the only gas-fired tankless water heaters approved by RVIA and are ANS certified. Features such as cold weather and wind protection, precise electronic temperature control, and onboard diagnostics are standard. With higher efficiency and 55,000 BTUs of power, these units produce far more hot water than traditional water heaters. And since they don't come on unless you want hot water (or to protect against freezing), you may find that you use as little as half the propane or natural gas as before. So go ahead and take that long, hot shower! PrecisionTemp is offering listeners of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast $100 off plus free shipping using the coupon code THLP. 

Lament as Release A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, March 14, 2021, Lent 4, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.                   Text: Psalm 22 Many things look different today than they did this time last year. One of those things is our basement. In the midst of a major overhaul and repurposing of the space, I’ve learned more about BTUs and the need for outside air than I ever cared to know. Evidently, for someone to safely sleep down there, we need to install an air vent valve. If this isn’t cared for, toxic fumes can build up and do damage to human bodies! This came to mind as I thought about the spiritual practice of lament as “release.” It’s common these days to hear someone say, “I just need to vent!” There are times when we need to get energy or feelings or frustrations out so they don’t do damage to our bodies and spirits! A good “vent” session is appropriately shared with someone trustworthy who understands you need to get something out of your system. And venting is not an edited essay, but rather flows unfiltered right from the place of pain.  Psalm 22 and all Psalms of lament are like that; sharing with God what we need to get out of our system—when something is not right, when there is pain, grief, injustice, fear, persecution. And, as we’ve been learning, the practice of lament invites us to speak freely to God, literally to liberate ourselves from any pretending.  When we speak freely with God, not controlling everything in an attempt to feel, sound, or appear “together,” then our words are no longer held hostage and can begin to name things that shift our trajectory. Perhaps you have experienced something like this; when you let go of your politeness with God and allow your words to flow unhindered, sometimes new insight or forgotten wisdom emerges and you catch at least a glimpse of hope or new life. Some of you may remember a couple of weeks ago when we discovered in Jeremiah 20 one verse of “praise chorus” (verse 13) sandwiched between two absolutely brutal laments of complaint. I suggested that in giving voice to our pain without trying to clean it up, our speech might turn from complaint to praise. And biblical scholars say this is not at all unusual. The lament prayers in scripture consistently make such a turn. Most Psalms of lament include not only complaint and pleas for help but also words of trust and praise.  Psalm 22 may be one of the best-known Psalms of lament, because it’s quoted by Jesus from the cross (Mt 27:46, Mk 15:34): “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The opening complaint in the Psalm is followed in verses 3-5 with words of trust. This pattern of complaint then trust repeats in verses 6-10. In verse 11 we receive a petition for help: “Do not be far from me.” Then back into complaint (verses 12-18) followed by another petition “But you, O Lord, do not be far away!...Deliver my soul…my life…Save me!” (19-21a) Then there is a final turn in the prayer. Beginning in verse 21b, the psalmist breaks into a song of praise that carries the prayer to its ending. Notice that the praise is not because all things have been made well. Most of the language is future oriented—things that “will” happen. And a key word is “remember.” People will remember God’s mighty acts of salvation and “future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.” (Ps 22:30b-31) Memory and hope are intertwined here. Some of you have heard me say before, “in the present we can hope for the future because we know what God has done in the past.” This memory of God’s activity liberates us in the present moment. It keeps us from being bound by despair, from becoming stuck in pain and resentment.  But sometimes we may need to rattle our cage in order to shake loose memory that’s been crusted over with pain, humiliation, or rage. The Psalms of lament show us how. They illustrate that to get free requires the release of what we think we have to keep bottled up. Hiding or holding on to our pain can lead to deep resentment and bitterness in our hearts and spirits. And resentment and bitterness are poison for relationships, for joy, for any hope of newness. There are two options: some kind of release that is intentional and healthy or a blow-up that causes lasting damage. A couple of weeks ago, I was sharing with my friend Randy some of the grief I’ve been feeling—the stacked-up griefs of the past number of years, this last year of pandemics, and the most recent grief over the death of my friend and colleague, Junius. Randy shared with me the story of a woman he came to know when she was his child’s pre-K Montessori teacher. As with most practitioners of the Montessori approach, she is a peaceful presence, careful with her words, patient, and beloved by the little ones she teaches. One day Randy went to visit her at her home. She was going through a painful divorce and was caring for her two children. At one point he went into the backyard and saw a large stack of assorted, brightly colored plates. When he asked one of the kids about them, he was told, “Oh, those are my mom’s plates.” “What are they for?” “Look…” And there, where the fence formed the corner of the back yard, was a pile of shattered shards of brightly colored plates. Randy asked his friend later, “What’s up with the plates?” She said, “Whenever I need to let something go, I come out here, close the door, and throw plates.” She then demonstrated; she really hurled them…really let it rip. Randy said her countenance changed, the act allowed her to access her fire, her pain, her anger and to release it. When he probed further, he learned that she had learned to do this from her mother back in Puerto Rico where she had been raised.  What beauty and power there is in this practice. This woman knows how to identify when her energy is getting toxic and needs some outside air, how to direct and release her difficult and painful emotions in a visceral way that isn’t aimed at others. “Sometimes,” Randy told me, “she will gather shards from the pile and create mosaic art for her yard, making something beautiful from the broken pieces.” For most of my life I struggled with the thought of Jesus being “forsaken” on the cross. In the moment he cried out, quoting Psalm 22, he was indeed experiencing the fullness of human suffering—physical, relational, vocational; he gave voice to that deep pain through lament. But some years ago, I remembered that Jesus knew all the words to the Psalms…he knew that verse 1 isn’t the whole prayer. He knew the movement from despair to hope in Psalm 22. Jesus models for us the importance of crying out to God in our suffering, of naming what is real without trying to pretend the wounds of pain and injustice haven’t landed on our bodies and in our spirits. Jesus, on the brink of death, hurls his voice against the heavens like brightly colored plates hurled against a fence, releasing his words even as he releases his spirit, all the while clinging to the promise that God will yet make of his broken body something beautiful and new. This is the promise from God for all our brokenness and pain. Lament is one way to shake loose that promise in our memory. And so we are invited to pray with Jesus: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?     Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;     and by night, but find no rest. Yet you are holy,     …In you our ancestors trusted;     they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried, and were saved… All the ends of the earth shall remember     and turn to the Lord;…   …and I shall live for him.  (Ps 22:1-5, 29) https://foundryumc.org/

Lindsay Wood is an evangelist for tiny living, and these days she’s as busy as ever. As the pandemic has put economic pressure on a large swath of the country, tiny houses are being increasingly seen as a solution to housing affordability and inequality. But there are some big legal hurdles to get over before we get there, and in this interview, Lindsay helps us explore them.Full Show Notes and Images: https://www.thetinyhouse.net/lindsay-wood-2In This Episode:Could tiny homes be included in the eviction moratorium?Lindsay's affordable housing investment planNew legislation in CA that's great for ADU ownersWhy the ordinances in CA can help legalize tiny homes elsewhereThe reasons that many cities have not allowed tiny housesAdditional expenses that are necessary to ready a site for tiny house parkingAlternatives to trailersThe difference between 'traditional affordable housing' and 'tiny house affordable housing'What is THIA doing to help with the housing crisis?This Week's Sponsor: Let’s face it, most Tiny House dwellers want their homes to be small, but not uncomfortable. That means reliable, unlimited, hot water. Precision Temp’s propane-fired hot water heaters reliably provide unlimited hot water, and they’re specifically designed with tiny homes in mind. In fact, the NSP 550 model was installed in my own tiny home, and the reason I chose it was because it did not require a large hole in the side of my home like other RV hot water heaters. Instead, it mounts discreetly through the floor of the tiny house and works quietly and reliably. With their patented VariFlame technology, these are the only gas-fired tankless water heaters approved by RVIA and are ANS certified. Features such as cold weather and wind protection, precise electronic temperature control, and onboard diagnostics are standard. With higher efficiency and 55,000 BTUs of power, these units produce far more hot water than traditional water heaters. And since they don't come on unless you want hot water (or to protect against freezing), you may find that you use as little as half the propane or natural gas as before. So go ahead and take that long, hot shower! Precisiontemp is offering listeners of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast $100 off plus free shipping using the coupon code THLP. Head over to PrecisionTemp.com and use the coupon code THLP for $100 off any order plus free shipping. That website again is PrecisionTemp.com, coupon code THLP. Thank you so much to PrecisionTemp for sponsoring our show!

Contracts, Evictions, Housing Law. These topics might make your eyes glaze over, but they are becoming big issues for the tiny house movement. My guest today is Jody Gabel, a trial attorney with 25 years of experience in mobile home park law, RV tenancies, landlord/tenant and housing law, and local government issues. On the show, we’ll explore the challenges and solutions facing tiny house dwellers, landlords, and communities. I learned a lot and I know you will too!Full show notes and links at thetinyhouse.net/149In This Episode:Read your contract, read the lease, understand the expectations, and get it in writingWhat to look out for in a contract and what to be cautious ofWhat does "replevin" mean and how might it apply to you?Do you want to rent to tiny house dwellers? Here's what you need in your contractSometimes exceptions are reasonable and appropriateHow to protect yourself and your buildThe obvious and not-so-obvious effects of COVID on the tiny house movementShould your builder have you sign an NDA?What should you do if you have an issue with your builder or landlord?The importance of knowing your rights as a resident and where to find the infoLet’s face it, most Tiny House dwellers want their homes to be small, but not uncomfortable. That means reliable, unlimited, hot water. Precision Temp’s propane-fired hot water heaters reliably provide unlimited hot water, and they’re specifically designed with tiny homes in mind. In fact, the NSP 550 model was installed in my own tiny home, and the reason I chose it was because it did not require a large hole in the side of my home like other RV hot water heaters. Instead, it mounts discreetly through the floor of the tiny house and works quietly and reliably. With their patented VariFlame technology, these are the only gas-fired tankless water heaters approved by RVIA and are ANS certified. Features such as cold weather and wind protection, precise electronic temperature control, and onboard diagnostics are standard. With higher efficiency and 55,000 BTUs of power, these units produce far more hot water than traditional water heaters. And since they don't come on unless you want hot water (or to protect against freezing), you may find that you use as little as half the propane or natural gas as before. So go ahead and take that long, hot shower! Precisiontemp is offering listeners of the Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast $100 off plus free shipping using the coupon code THLP. Head over to PrecisionTemp.com and use the coupon code THLP for $100 off any order plus free shipping. That website again is PrecisionTemp.com, coupon code THLP. Thank you so much to PrecisionTemp for sponsoring our show!

Award-winning author Jeanette Hurt explores culture through the lens of food, drink, and travel. Whether she’s delving into the history of gin and tonics, developing healthy yet tasty cauliflower recipes, or interviewing a distiller on the lochs of Scotland, Jeanette takes readers on a delicious journey that inspires them to create a good life. Jeanette regularly contributes stories to dozens of magazines and websites.  Additionally, she is the main recipe developer for several publications and content companies, and she also is a skilled ghostwriter, who helps coax stories, garner inspiration and hone the words of would-be authors and experts.  www.jeanettehurt.com CAULIFLOWER COMFORT FOOD: DELICIOUS LOW-CARB RECIPES FOR YOUR CRAVEABLE CLASSICS  Jeanette's latest book, Cauliflower Comfort Food: Delicious Low-Carb Recipes for Your Craveable Classics, takes your classic guilty pleasures - from mac and cheese to brownies - and gives then a more nutritious spin thanks to delicious and nutritious cauliflower. Discover what a versatile vegetable this is by boosting your breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and even desserts with delicious cauliflower-based recipes   www.jeanetehurt.com   Roy (00:01): Hello, and welcome to another episode of feeding fatty I'm Roy I'm Terry. So this show was started out basically to bring you our journey, to talk about, uh, you know, our successes and our trials and tribulations. As we go through eating better, trying to exercise and getting more healthy. And as we've said, we want to bring, um, we want to bring guests on to talk to us as well. And we found an awesome young lady to bring on today. Jeanette hurt. She is, uh, an award winning author. She has 14 books that have been published. She had one that came out earlier this year. The one which caught our attention is the cooking comfort food. Uh, excuse me, cauliflower, comfort, food, delicious, low carb recipes for your craveable classics. And then she has another one that will be out, uh, later in the fall of this year. The reason this got our attention is, you know, not only are we looking at ways to substitute cauliflower for rice and other heavy carbs and because of my diabetic condition, but also, you know, we are always trying to find a way to interject more tastes and, uh, make our dishes just because we're trying to eat healthy, everything. Shouldn't be bland. Like the old hospital foods of yesteryear. We need to make everything exciting and palatable and something that you really want to cook again. Terry (01:33): That's right. And Jeanette, she writes on not only culinary issues, but also drink books. And she is known as the ambassador to what the world of Wisconsin cheeses and, um, Jeanette, can you tell us a little bit about how you got started with all of this? I mean, your background, you were also a reporter for the city news Bureau in Chicago and yeah, go ahead. Jeanette (02:04): Yeah. And I will say my journey started, I was a police reporter in Chicago and you wouldn't think there's absolutely any culinary connection there, but every night or morning at 5:00 AM, I would go to the medical examiner's office. And I got to know the guys at the Emmy's office really well. And my editor said, well, why don't you bring them them? Some donuts they'll become better sources. Well, I, of course one up to him and I used to bring homemade brownies. So I had the best sources there ever anytime of day, I would call them and they would get me information because I would bring home baked goods. And eventually I moved up to Milwaukee and I worked at the Milwaukee journal Sentinel and it was there again, police reporter, government reporter, and I would always bring home baked goods to my sources and every chance I got, I would write and test recipes for the food desk. Oh. And then eventually I became a freelance writer because there were no openings on the food desk. And I found, you know, it's a lot more fun writing about homemade spaghetti sauce than it is covering a library board meeting. Oh yeah. Terry (03:16): Oh, I can imagine. Jeanette (03:19): So anyway, I I've taken many cooking classes and I, as you know, I've written more than a dozen books and I, you know, I live in Wisconsin, so I was writing about cheese in terms of freelance articles. And I thought, well, maybe there's a book here and I've written three books on cheese and it's, once you start writing one thing, it leads to other things. And I tend to go down rabbit holes into things that I'm interested in and Kali flora comfort food came about because one of the things I do as a freelance writer is I develop healthy recipes for hospitals and healthcare systems and also health publication. And I started developing several healthy cauliflower recipes, and I had the opportunity to write the book and it was really fun, but I will say my husband and son got a little sick of cauliflower last summer. Jeanette (04:17): Um, because also it's, even though the book has about 75 recipes, I tested more than 75 batches because when you develop a recipe, they don't always turn out well. So you have to rehash things. And, um, that, so that's how that book came about. And it's a natural fit. I'm a mom of a 10 year old boy and he does like vegetables, which is good, but I'm always someone like who is always been interested in, well, how can you make this a little healthier? For example, if you're making a meatloaf, throwing some rice cauliflower or graded carrots or, or strutted zucchini, you throw it in a Turkey or chicken meatloaf. And if you top it with Italian tomato sauce, it's going to taste like meatloaf. It's not going to taste like vegetables. Do the same thing with meatballs. Roy (05:14): Terry has started. Um, she's getting better at that, you know, kinda hiding those vegetables and the different colors of the food in other things where it, cause I don't like vegetables so that they don't stick out so bad with me. And they get me to consume, you know, the healthier foods without having to actually see it on my plate.   Terry He doesn't realize that he's doing it Jeanette (05:40): Well. My dad is someone who, for example, hates onions. And I don't know why because onions add lots of flavor, but what I usually do, if I'm cooking something for him that has onions, I have a food processor. I have a high speed blender. You throw that in the onions, in there with a little bit of white wine, it will make a slurry and you can fold it into whatever you're doing. You can do the same thing with cauliflower or carrots or zucchini. And if you chop it up really find or make more of a slurry. The other thing you can always do is throw things in fruit smoothies. You can always throw in some vegetables. Um, it's, it's little things. And one of the things, because I've done health writing and with a special focus on nutrition, Mo like for example, when I write for Chicago health magazine, I'm usually given a topic and I develop a recipe, but then I also have to do some research about some of the ingredients. Jeanette (06:44): And one of the things that seems to come up over and over again, whether it's health, weight, loss, or other improvement of health studies, if you eat more vegetables and a variety of types of vegetables, you end up healthier. So I think sometimes it's as simple as throwing in some spinach or some kale leaves into your morning smoothie and then having a salad at lunch. And then if you're having meatloaf or meat balls or throwing in the spinach into the spaghetti sauce, now I will say this much, this was not, this was one of my sales. Um, if one of the things I always have on hand in my freezer is frozen spinach, but sometimes it seems too leafy. So again, I throw it in the blender, I will say one time I threw in blended spinach into the pasta sauce and it turned green, it turned into a green color. Roy (07:49): Okay. So at that, while you mentioned that, um, I have heard, you know, we have started using the rice cauliflower for, uh, instead of rice. So it's good. And to put a meat sauce or meat balls or something, you know, Italian like on top of it and we've done some stroganoff type stuff on top, but one thing I've read recently is that I guess you can roll it out or flatten it or somehow make it like the crust of a pizza. Is that, have you tried that? Jeanette (08:22): I have, I believe there are three different peats across in my cauliflower comfort food cookbook. And there are two ways you can go about using cauliflower in pizza. What is the rice cauliflower, the bagged rice cauliflower, which you puree in a blender or a food processor. And then you squeeze out the extra water. The other thing you can do, if you want it to start out with less water to begin with is you cut a fresh cauliflower into florets roasted, and then puree it because the roasting cooks out some of the, the moisture and makes it easier to work with. And then you can either add just cheese and maybe a little corn and come up with a nice pizza CROs, or you can add things like buckwheat flour or even regular flour or flax seed there's there are different ways to do it. And basically what you want to do is you want to cook it on something that you can flip it over easily, which is why I recommend using a silicone baking mat or using something like parchment paper or even aluminum foil, and then flipping it over. So then you get both sides cooked and then you put the pizza ingredients and the sauce on top. Okay. So that will make it a little bit crisp CRISPR because you've eliminate, you've either reduced or eliminated the carbs. And, um, there's also a recipe for cauliflower gnocchi in my cookbook. And that is, I like it better than potato gnocchi. It's just, they're so light and so fluffy. Terry (10:17): I can't wait to try. I mean, I there's so many, my mouth waters, every time I looked down the list of available recipes in your book, but, um, that gnocchi, it looks so good. Jeanette (10:31): It's wonderful. And if you don't have time to cook your own, I will say trader Joe's does sell premade cauliflower, gnocchi. It's not as good as homemade, but if you, if you need something quick and you want more vegetables, that's a good way to go. And that's the other thing. There's no shame in buying frozen or pre chopped vegetables if you don't have time to cock. Okay. And the other thing I would say that's what a food processor is for too. I remember when I first had my son and I was like, well, I can't really chop everything all perfectly the way I learned in my French cooking class, because I have a nine month old that's crawling and he's doing dangerous thing, right. Terry (11:16): You don't have time to do anything, let alone. Jeanette (11:19): Exactly. So if there are shortcuts, you can do buy it already done or use the food processor. That's fine. It doesn't have to be perfect. And that's the other thing, get rid of the idea of perfection, whether it's in trying to eat healthier or making things look exactly perfect. The idea is to do a little bit better than what you were doing, right. And once you have some success, then that throw you on to continue on your road to health or your road to becoming a better coach, Terry (11:58): Anything yeah. Really for everything. Roy (12:01): Right. Well, and you know, we've had a lot of fun. I've never been much to get in the kitchen and, but going through this, that is one thing that I have really enjoyed is that we have been preparing the meals together. I do a little chop in or stern or whatever I can, but you know, it gives us a good time when the TV's not going or when we're not hurrying to try to get out of the house that, you know, we can have an actual conversation like people used to do. And, uh, then you know, the other thing we've talked a little bit about is then we are able to set down with our meal and critique it. And of course there's always things that we would like to do different, but we kind of talk it through like, what would we do next time? Roy (12:46): And, um, you know, like even this morning I was throwing together a, I did a refrigerator clean out and just kind of threw everything in a skillet and, and fluffed it all up. And, you know, I was like putting some other ingredients and I'm thinking, Oh, I don't know how big this is going to end up. So like, I didn't know how much of stuff to put in, but you know what, in the end it worked out, it was at a bull, neither, neither one of us have had to have our stomach pumped as of yet. So I think, you know, it's just, I think it's just getting in there and just trying things and yes, you're going to have some fails, but you know what? We've had fun with some of our fails that we've had. And it's like I said that at the very least there's 25 restaurants just down the street that if we cook something so bad, I don't think we're going to starve to death. We'll always get something to eat and we haven't cooked anything. That's been so bad. We couldn't eat it yet said that, but Terry (13:42): No, and Roy is so generous, you know, he's so thankful that that, you know, both of us are in the kitchen doing anything, you know, making, making these big meals and the chopping and trying to do all the whole foods and all of that. Um, trying new things. He just, he's so nice about all. He's like, oh, it's wonderful. It's the best I've ever had. He always says that. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I have to try. I'm just, Ugh. Roy (14:11): Well, it always is good. And I do appreciate it. I do appreciate her effort. She, you know, she tries to keep it jazzed up. And one more question about cauliflower, and then we can talk about jazz and up, uh, recipes and making things, uh, enlightening. But, so what was the, either the craziest thing that you did with cauliflower or what was something that you thought was going to be a total fail that may be worked out to be, uh, you know, something that was delightful when you, once you call a flower? Jeanette (14:43): Well, the thing that was probably the craziest was as an adding rice cauliflower to chocolate chip cookies. Oh my gosh. Jeanette (14:53): So I ended up making them a bar cookie, cause it was easier than individual one, right? And again, it's taking rice cauliflower, pureeing it in the blender and mixing it with cookie batter. Now I will say these are not healthy. This is not quote unquote healthy cookies because there's chocolate and there's rum. Um, and it's really good cookies, but they they're cookies, but they're healthier than regular cookies because there is cauliflower in it. You're going to get a little vitamin K with your chocolate chips. Interesting. Um, that was pretty crazy, but I figured, well, it it's, it's not a lot of cauliflower, but it's some, and again, it's one of those very hidden kind of things. And one of the things I will say probably the easiest, if you have fresh poly flour, you roast it. And I would say that with almost any vegetables in this can kind of segue way into, how do you make things taste better, a little bit of olive oil. And if you're watching calories, just the olive oil spray, a little bit of sea salt, pepper, maybe some balsamic vinegar, and you roast it in the oven that sort of caramelizes things. It brings out the natural sweetness in the vegetables. And sometimes my son will say, Oh, this tastes like candy. Roy (16:25): Oh, nice. Jeanette (16:27): So, you know, usually like for example, I'll do I, when asparagus is in season, I'll cut off the bottoms of the asparagus, toss it with some olive oil, balsamic, vinegar, salt, and pepper, and pop it in the oven 350 to 375, about 15 to 20 minutes. And it's wonderful. And it's also easy. That's the other thing, once the vegetables are prepared, you throw them in the oven and you can do whatever else you're doing. It's not difficult. It doesn't require turning the vegetables over or salting or watching them. If they're a little bit more caramelized or a little bit less, it doesn't matter if it's not a, you don't have to be perfect. Roy (17:16): Yeah. You know, we've gotten good at recycling because you know, talking about our, my mix I made this morning, she made some Brussels sprouts. I think she roasted them or put them in an air fryer. The air fryer is new. So I'm trying to do things in it. But this morning she had, we had like three or four servings last night. And so we put some in the fridge and this morning when I was making this concoction, I just took a couple of the servings of it, threw it in the skillet and mixed it up. So, you know, had a way, big variety of stuff. But anyway, the point is that if you fix that stuff in quantity, even if you have like the asparagus for a meal this afternoon tomorrow morning, you can chop it up and mix it in with some eggs or ham or whatever. And it makes a really good breakfast meal. Jeanette (18:09): Yes, that's absolutely true. I use that with leftover vegetables. I also sometimes use, you know, even if I don't have fresh veggies, I can throw in a little, a quarter cup to half a cup of salsa into the eggs. And that adds some vegetables. Um, it's, it's what I have on hand. Um, usually I also in warmer weather and through October 24th, that's the last weekend we have our farmer's market in my neighborhood. I usually go to the farmer's market once a week and I buy what I can and I use it up that week. And that's, I think what you're doing also besides preventing food waste, you know, that's the other thing it's it's plant. And it sounds to me like, one of the things you're doing is, is planning your meals because that way you're using up what you have in your refrigerator. You're thinking about it, you're putting some thought into it. And also you're planning things so that you don't cook or go shopping when you're hangry, which I think all of us have been there. Roy (19:23): Yes. Yeah. We are bad about doing that is going well. We'll be out running errands and go by grocery store and then, you know, everything looks good, but you know, for us that the, you know, we use an app to put all of our food in. And so when we first started this, it was like riding history that we would, we could look back at the end of the day and say, Oh, we did this and wish we hadn't had done that. So now we have, we are trying better, not perfect yet, but we're trying to be more predictive to say, okay, these are the things that we have left. You know, the protein or fat, fat and sodium are a couple things that I try to watch because it's easy to go over and carbs for me. I try to stay, uh, you know, I'm a diabetic type two. Roy (20:13): And so, um, you know, trying to stay under about 60 to 90 carbs a day is very important for me. So anyway, being able to use it as a predictor to say, this is what we have left. Now let's try to find a meal that fits into those parameters and we're not great at it. Sometimes we get in a hurry and, you know, we it's like last night, all of a sudden it was like six 30 and we were just now starting to cook. And so we didn't do as good as we could have, but you know, on a good day, we're always trying to look ahead to see, you know, so we don't just blow over something. And then that evening look back and say, well, I really wish we hadn't had done that. Jeanette (20:54): Well, you know, one thing I would say, soups are always good. You can usually buy some healthy, like butternut squash soup or some things like that that are premade that are good, but it's also, you can make and then freeze in the right size portions for two people. That's one thing I usually do with, um, with chili, for example, and again, chili, you can throw cauliflower in, I usually throw carrots and onions and extra beans. If you don't like beans, you can hear Ray the beans and then throw it in with the meat. And you're getting the good legumes, but it doesn't have the texture. Cause I know my dad, one of those who doesn't like the beans, but if my mom's who raise it, he'll eat it. Um, Roy (21:42): Now, you know, being, Oh, sorry. I was going to say being from Texas six months ago, I would have gone ahead and cut this call off, you know, how like a cauliflower? Well, I was just like a, you know, a chili purist that has like a, the chili mix, whatever makes it kind of soupy. And then it has ground beef in it. And that's what chili is. But talking about that the other night, uh, Terry made some, um, it was chili-ish, but it was tofu and black beans and it was amazing. It was totally amazing. That was a good one. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, kind of back to the soup, sorry to be all skipping around, but back to the soups is so, uh, we made a chicken soup not long ago. It was perfectly healthy. It was a great combination of everything. It was just, uh, it lacked a little taste. And so do you have any suggestions or any tricks that may be, you know, that's not too, uh, too bad dietarily for you? That's something that kind of jazz that up? Jeanette (22:50): Well, there are two things, three things I would say the first thing is if you have any fresh herbs sliced up and that's one thing you can also do because usually when I buy fresher, I have a food dehydrator so I can dry it and then reuse. But if not, chop it up and freeze small portions with either water or wine, like in an ice cube tray, put it in a bag. Then you can throw a cube of, let's say some fresh basill and wine cheers to frozen. Um, that would add a pop of flavor. Um, I would also say if, if you do drink alcohol, a tablespoon of wine or a tablespoon of whiskey or rum sometimes thrown into something, perks things up, I'm big on throwing in, you know, a couple of tablespoons of wine into my spaghetti sauce. The other thing there are tricks that chef do. If things don't quite taste right, if they're bland, it means something's not balanced. And one of the tricks, I mean, they often also make things taste better by just throwing an extra butter, which is not the Brockton. Terry (24:04): Yeah. Oh my gosh. I would love to do that. Jeanette (24:08): But what you can do is acid is another thing. So balsamic vinegar, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, Apple cider vinegar. If the soup tastes a little bland, chicken soup, some lemon zest and some lemon juice Durden might just wake it up a little bit. I also love garlic. And so a little bit of garlic, um, can also wake things up sometimes also, if it's just a little planned, just a touch of honey or just a touch of sugar, I'm not talking about a lot and it's not going to taste sweet. But if it's a little bit off, you might want to add just a little bit and that will bring out some of the other flavor. Roy (25:00): It's funny, you mentioned that because this, uh, we do a cooking class through a culinary medicine program once a week for a couple of weeks. And this week we did the zesting of the lemon in something. And it was amazing what, just what flavor that zesting a lemon added to it. But the other thing is there were some, um, it's a virtual cooking class, so there are people all over the U S I guess, and there was a couple that he said exactly what you just said. He's like, there's this balance of what they were cooking was off. And they were sitting there thinking, thinking, and then the instructor said, well, why don't you put a little bit more of that Apple cider vinegar in there? They did. And they said that was all it took. It really brought out the flavor, you know, where they, she was just went through the explanation that in restaurants, the three GoTo things are when, when there's an off balance, they either throw butter, salt, or sugar, you know, and those are the three things that we're trying to stay away from as much as possible. But the Apple cider vinegar was a great solution. Jeanette (26:11): Well, and that's the other thing. The acid, you can throw that in. You're not going to be adding calories. You're not going be adding fat. You're not going to be adding salt, but it will wake up the flavors of the dish. Right. And the secret is not to put too much, just start with like a half a table, a half a teaspoon, and just a little bit or a dash. You can always add more, but it's hard to step back if you add too much. Terry (26:40): Yeah. That's my problem is I think, you know, more, more has got to be better. Jeanette (26:45): So it's just go slow and taste as you go. That's one thing I also learned from the culinary classes I've I took is the chef would always have a fresh spoon to taste me. And then the spoon would go in the dishwasher, but to taste as you go, because you never know what the tomatoes were when they were harvested, right. Different balances of things. And if you're using frozen versus fresh and, and also just your, your own palette and if you like it and it tastes good and it's healthy and who cares if anybody else likes it? I think. And it's, it sounds to me like one of the things that you're learning is the technique. One of their, one of the things that sort of revolutionized my cooking was learning that except for bacon, you heat the pan before you put the oil before you put the food in having the hot pan. Because most of the time when you read recipes, they don't say heat the pan for one minute. That's one thing I've always done with my recipes is include that in the instruction because chefs know that, but the rest of us, unless it's written in the recipe, we're not going to necessarily know. Roy (28:05): Yeah. And I'm the world's worst at that. I put a lot of like this morning, you know, I had a little bit of oil, my onion, and my garlic were, you know, in a coal pan before I ever turned it on. So I'll try that in the morning is to do a little preheat on my skillet, Jeanette (28:21): Heated, then you use less oil and then things will sit up sizzle and it'll be, it'll cook things faster. Now I sometimes forget, and I throw things in and then I'm like, Oh, this is going to take longer to heat it up. Um, and especially if you're searing meat in a pan, you want it nice and hot. Okay. But even vegetables, the get starting with the hot pan, but you don't want to do that with bacon. Right? Roy (28:50): Yeah. He learned that the hard way. So yeah, I'm notorious for cooking everything on, you know, medium high to almost high. Is, is that a technical mistake? Should I try to vary the temperature and maybe cook at a less temperature for a little longer? Or what is the thought on that? Jeanette (29:11): I usually start on high. You can always reduce. Okay. If it seems something is cooking too fast, but I always start on high at the empty pan, take the pan off, spray it with the oil, you don't want to spray the oil on the stove on the pan because sometimes you'll get that little poof flame. So, um, and I'm always, I learned from a class that when you're shopping for a, you want at least 14,000 BTUs, at least on one or two of the burners, and that makes it for a more expensive stove. But now usually they have at least two burners, which usually at most I'm using three. So they, I have on my, I used to have a very expensive stove until, um, it was, if the company stopped making the, the repair part and I was not going to send, like, now I'm just going to see her and I'm getting the Sears model and it doesn't have four BTO burners that are that high, but it has two. Jeanette (30:20): And that works for most of my cooking. Um, it high is especially important, especially if you're boiling water for pasta, or if you're boiling water for certain vegetables. Now that was something else I learned in a classroom, vegetables. It start with cold, cold water in the pot, but other vegetables that are above ground, you boil the water, drop them in and then take them out. Okay. So that was something, you know, potatoes, they start cold carrots, they start cold, but if you're going to boil it, blanche some green beans, and that's another thing you boil it in the water for a minute or two, scoop them out and plunge them into ice, water and ice water bat to stop the cooking process. Hmm. Okay. Terry (31:14): Monday we cooked with some green beans. That's the first time I had ever, well, maybe I'd tried to blanche a long time ago, but it didn't work out, but that's, that was one of, it was like an Apple cider vinegar, a green bean dip. There were some onions too. And, Oh man, it was good. Jeanette (31:34): You can replace the Apple cider vinegar with lemon juice and lemon zest. Um, another thing I like doing, if you like garlic roast the whole head of garlic with the little olive oil in the oven, and then it's more, it's, it's caramelized garlic, it's roasted garlic, which you could spread on bread or add to your vegetables. It's pretty tasty Roy (31:59): For now. I'm a novice. Terry May know the answer to this, but so what do you, do? You break the garlic open? Nope. Nope. You cut it out Jeanette (32:08): Whole garlic cut the top off drizzle some olive oil and wrap it in aluminum foil. Oh, well, okay. Interesting. And then you just squeeze the little garlic out and, and they become soft and you can spread it on bread or add it to things if it's healthier than butter and it tastes delicious. So, Roy (32:33): So what is a, um, speaking of that, what is a kitchen gadget that you couldn't live without? Jeanette (32:41): Probably my zester. That's one of  them I use that, not just for lemons and limes and oranges, but I use it for chocolate. If there's a dessert, you need just a little bit of chocolate on top. I use it for Parmesan for her cheeses and it's, it's one of my favorite things. And also my pampered chef can opener a little thing around and it doesn't leave the sharp edges. So those are probably two things I use besides, you know, regular knives and spoons and, you know, spatula. Roy (33:24): Yeah. That's something I have found in since we started cooking, you know, I was brought up putting the can opener kind of in the top where you cut the center out of it and it popped out, well, you can use the same can opener and just put it on the side and cut it where you don't have. Anyway, I need to talk to my mom about that deficiency and being brought up as a child. It's like, I've been opening cans wrong my whole entire life. Oh, well, Jeanette, that is about all the time that we have for today. I would sure love to have you back. Um, you know, when your next book comes out and tell us a little bit about, you know, where people can find information about yourself, information about your books and if they want to reach out how they could get in contact with you. Jeanette (34:13): Okay. Well, first of all, there's my website, which is w w w dot Jeanette hertz.com. Um, you can contact me through my website. I also my books, except for my latest book, which is, I'll tell you in a minute, are all available on Amazon or through any bookseller. My newest book, which is coming out this fall is called Wisconsin cocktails. It's about the history of how people drink in Wisconsin. Like the Brandy old fashion, the ice cream drinks. Most of it is unhealthy, but I also have a whole chapter on non-alcoholic cocktails because I think that's important as well. Um, and that is only found either through the university of Wisconsin press or through local book sellers, independent booksellers. It's not available on Amazon because it's published through a university press, but everything else you can order it on Amazon or Barnes and noble or your Kindle or your Norfolk, or through an independent book seller, which I also recommend. Okay, so, Roy (35:23): Well, great. Well, we would love to have you back on and learn more about the, uh, both the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic cocktails, drinking, pairing the wines with the low carb, no fat stuff that we're trained to eat. Jeanette (35:40): I would be happy to do that another time. It's been lovely talking with both of you and I hope you and your listeners got some really good ideas from me. Roy (35:49): We certainly did. We it's been a great speaking with you and we will put all of Jeanette's information into the show notes and on the website when we publish the transcript. So never fear, we will let you know how you can get ahold of her and definitely reach out and purchase one of her books.  Terry (36:10): Jeanette, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Jeanette (36:14): Oh, it's been so fun talking with you. I've just loved it. And I just realized, I forgot to say you can also follow me on Twitter at Biogen at Hertz. There you go. Okay. Roy (36:23): And when you say by B that's B Y E Y. Okay. Okay, awesome. We'll be sure. And put that on there as well. Well, that's all the time we have. Thanks again for tuning into the feeding fatty podcast. I'm Roy. I’m Terry, and we will see you next time. Bye bye.    

the history of BlueStar – American made and speak about  the differences of why you would want a pro range (for the home) – touch on  BTUs – open and closed.   Also educate why you cant buy a true commercial range for the home.  (insurance wont  pay for your home if it burns down due to a commercial range) ‘  It would be great to have you show your demonstration on cupping your hands around the burner for a great visual.   Celebrating 140 Years with a special edition of one of their series of ranges that we will talk about in the next segment.   www.homewerkssa.com Subscribe to Homewerks SA TV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQjyiW0T8JIqKZb3AcHMWg See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Home window tinting is a low-cost, high energy-yielding home improvement project often overlooked. When the summer is in full swing, AC units struggle to keep homes cool and comfortable. If and ultimately, when air conditioners kick the bucket, replacing them is costly. Homeowners often overlook the impact house windows have on the downfall of air conditioning units.  Window Tinting reduces the energy load on Air Conditioning units  The average air conditioner in homes is a 3-ton unit; this number equates to 36000 BTUs per hour. Windows that are “low-performing” allow 168+ BTUs per square foot per hour. Meaning the average window can allow upwards of 3025 BTU’s per hour. Furthermore, if a home has just 12 windows, it’s a safe be to assume the AC unit is overworked. Low-performance windows often cause a strain on AC units, increase energy bills, not to mention lead to a steep cost of repair when the A/C unit seizes to work.  House window tinting protects furniture and Floors from fading  Fading furniture and floors is an all to common concern for homeowners and their pocketbooks. Faded hardwood can be expensive to repair and often require homeowners to replace sections of the floor, resulting in forever mismatched colors and even types of flooring. Furniture is just as susceptible to fading as hardwood floors. However, don’t panic too much because unlike glass that only protects against UVB, Window films protect against the more harmful UVA (the major contributor to fading and deterioration). Quality Window tinting films have a unique UV inhibitor embedded into the adhesive (the sticky side of the film) that faces the sun that absorbs harmful UV Rays. Think of window film as SPF for home windows, although you never have to lather up again, because quality window films never need replacing. Learn More Visit : RC Window FIlms Save 15% off the following programs with Discount Code “NOMELT" (limit 100) Home Window Tinting: http://bit.ly/2QaYVWj Commercial Window Tinting: http://bit.ly/35KfDSJ Subscribe to RCWF's channel Here: → http://bit.ly/2EJEZEo TintWiz CRM: http://bit.ly/34GCVrC Veloce Innovation: http://bit.ly/36YdSlq Buy Turf Shield Window Film Shop: → http://bit.ly/2rZUy8y Stay Connected on Social Media Instagram: http://bit.ly/2EEkQzA Facebook: http://bit.ly/2EGodX6 Twitter: http://bit.ly/2QajFgD Pinterest: http://bit.ly/38ZfOMb Yelp: http://bit.ly/392Y16E Gear & Tech: (Recorder) Zoom H6: https://amzn.to/34F7ptP Mic: https://amzn.to/2SeFw9n SD Card: https://amzn.to/2Q8rBiz Headphones: https://amzn.to/2saIgdj

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon On this week's The Energy Show, we're talking about energy — duh. And power. Not just because we're short on both energy and power. But because solar and battery customers need to understand these properties so they can properly size and operate their systems. This show is a bit on the geeky side, so buckle up. Power is the measure of the amount of work that can get done over a period of time. We measure power in units of watts in the metric system, and in units of horsepower in the English system. Even though the English use the metric system and horses are basically just recreational vehicles for rich people. Commonly we refer to the power of a car in horsepower, or the power requirements of an appliance in watts. Energy is the measurement of work, or force over distance, or an amount of heat. Not a watt, but instead a watt hour or kilowatt hour (kwh). Your utility bills you for electrical energy in terms of kilowatt hours, and for natural gas thermal energy in terms of Therms (geeky rhyme). A Therm is 100,000 BTUs, which stand for British Thermal Units — which is a measure of energy in the English system — which only the Americans still use (my high school English teacher would have referred to this sentence as a which hunt). In the solar world, we measure the power output of a solar panel in watts (360 watts per solar panel under ideal conditions), or the total size of a 20 panel system as 7,200 watts. Home battery storage systems are measured in terms of kwh (most commonly a 10 kwh or 13.5 kwh battery), and commercial systems are measured in terms of mwh (megawatt hours). Feel free to download this week's Energy Show for more information about the energy and power terms we use in the solar and storage industry to measure size and performance of solar and battery storage systems.

Derek joins us today from his grow in Massachusetts, just a hop, skip and a jump away from my house. As the owner of Today’s Healthcare MA, he has a passion for growing cannabis the way it should be done since 2014. Starting in 2016 he started growing full time and then started helping others how to grow their own after doing a lot of self-education and sharing of knowledge. Derek’s current grow set up is 2 15x10 grow rooms and consists of all Fluence LED lighting, Quest dehumidifiers, 18k BTUs of cooling with his Daiken mini-split and averages 2-3 plants per light. He likes to stick to 2 to 4 strains per room and grows in Tupur Coco as he’s found the most success with that medium. What’s the one thing that Derek would advise in order to attain the healthiest plants? We’ve heard it before, but here’s another grower saying to focus on your ENVIRONMENT! Clean your rooms and being with your plants every day so you can learn how it grows and when things are going well or if they are not. He also suggests keeping notes or a grow journal so that you can ensure you keep good track of your inputs and results, which we’re huge fans of here at The Homegrown Helpers. I ask Derek to describe what a praying plant looks like, and essentially it’s plants that are reaching up towards the light asking for more of it. This happens because your environment is dialed in, and you’re concerned with VPD which is the balance of the humidity and temperature in your environment. What’s Derek’s tips for increasing yield? High-Stress Training. He believes that the plant should just grow through the veg stage, establish good roots and be a healthy, strong plant before manipulating it. Starting with day 1 of flower he starts a strong de-leaf and lollipop of the bottom third of all branches. He also ties all his vertical shoots to bamboo stakes to spread the plant out further and allow for deeper light penetration. This is an unusual approach, but it works well for Derek! Derek shares his unique grow tip of keeping the rooms hotter with higher humidity than most people might expect while still maintaining VPD. He likes to keep it at 80-82 degrees and 65-68% relative humidity. If you reference the VPD chart, this is almost in the perfect zone. His theory for this difference maker is that the root zone is cooler and the plant doesn’t seem to feed as much as necessary. What characteristics are critical for a grower to succeed. Derek thinks it comes down to the passion for the plant and the medicine that it can provide. If you are just growing for the money, then it’s unlikely that you will produce the best cannabis possible. It takes time and dedication to learn how the plant grows and create a routine to take care of your plants the way they need to be taken care of. We then talk about the impacts that not spending the proper amount of time can have on your plants and the overall health of your room. Tune in starting at 22 minutes for the full conversation and how we both think about it. Derek’s parting words of wisdom: Start with 1 strain and learn how it grows before adding in other varietals. Please take the time to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast if you liked what you heard! If you liked this interview, and want to hear more from this week's Homegrown Helper please head over to http://thehomegrownhelpers.com/bonus and download the rest of the show! If you liked the way Derek talked about growing cannabis, and want to learn more from him you can find Derek at @todayshealthcarema on IG. Are you ready to hire on Derek or another consultant to help you take your grow to the next level? Reach out to us here at rob@thehomegrownhelpers.com and we can ensure you get the best Homegrown Helper for your needs! We have growers all over the country with varying expertise and availability so let us take the work out of it for you, and reach out, we’ll make the best connection possible. Our growpass.com partners for this show are Harvest Mutual Seed Bank, Rooted Lyfe, and Atlas Plant Trainer. Harvest Mutual is our choice seed bank for top-quality genetics from the best breeders in the world. They provide rare novelty birdseed from the best players in the game, and their goal is to provide customer experience and tremendous value through their online store. Their founders have over 30 years of combined experience in the industry in all facets and are happy to help with any questions you have after purchase. Use code GROWCAST to get free shipping on all your see orders at https://harvestmutualseedbank.com/ or get 10% + free shipping as a member of mygrowpass.com. Also, 3 winners in our $5k giveaway will be getting a pack of birdseed from Harvest Mutual. Confused about how to use CBD? Overwhelmed by the number of product choices out there? Rooted Lyfe is here to help! Our mission is to simplify your CBD experience. Why turn to Dr. Google for information when our team of cannabis-specializing advisory doctors oversees our vast educational program? We offer high-quality, third-party lab-tested products that contain minimal ingredients as any wellness supplement should always produced from hemp grown in the US. Don't wait any longer, use code GROWCAST to save 10% today at https://rootedlyfe.com/. 3 winners will receive a prize pack from Rooted Lyfe in our $5k giveaway drawn on the first day of each quarter. How do you win, just become a member where you can also access a 20% coupon code for Rooted Lyfe. Have you ever found yourself a few weeks away from your next harvest and running low on bud? Are you wondering how you can get more out of your plants without replacing your lights or nutrients? I bet you’re tired of bamboo stakes poking you when you’re trying to train and support your plants.  With Atlas Plant Trainer, all of those concerns are wiped away. Connect, click, bend and clip. 4 easy steps to growing the plants of your dreams and never running out of cannabis again. Get 10% off with code GROWCAST at https://atlasplanttrainer.com/ or gain access to 25% off when you become a member at mygrowpass.com.

In this two part interview Moe Hirsch goes deep an wide on buffer tanks and strategies for "parking" btus in hydronic systems

In this two part interview Moe Hirsch goes deep an wide on buffer tanks and strategies for "parking" btus in hydronic systems

The American energy system is in transition away from coal and toward less carbon intensive fuels, such as natural gas and wind. Energy produced by renewables and gas is projected to grow by 10 quadrillion BTUs over the next two decades, while other sources will remain constant or decline. Such a rapid transition requires construction of new facilities for generating and transmitting energy. Stephen Ansolabehere, Professor of Government at Harvard, tells the story of recent energy development efforts across the United States and the lessons for the transition toward a less carbon intensive energy system. Series: "Bren School of Environmental Science & Management" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 34563]

The American energy system is in transition away from coal and toward less carbon intensive fuels, such as natural gas and wind. Energy produced by renewables and gas is projected to grow by 10 quadrillion BTUs over the next two decades, while other sources will remain constant or decline. Such a rapid transition requires construction of new facilities for generating and transmitting energy. Stephen Ansolabehere, Professor of Government at Harvard, tells the story of recent energy development efforts across the United States and the lessons for the transition toward a less carbon intensive energy system. Series: "Bren School of Environmental Science & Management" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 34563]

The American energy system is in transition away from coal and toward less carbon intensive fuels, such as natural gas and wind. Energy produced by renewables and gas is projected to grow by 10 quadrillion BTUs over the next two decades, while other sources will remain constant or decline. Such a rapid transition requires construction of new facilities for generating and transmitting energy. Stephen Ansolabehere, Professor of Government at Harvard, tells the story of recent energy development efforts across the United States and the lessons for the transition toward a less carbon intensive energy system. Series: "Bren School of Environmental Science & Management" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 34563]

The American energy system is in transition away from coal and toward less carbon intensive fuels, such as natural gas and wind. Energy produced by renewables and gas is projected to grow by 10 quadrillion BTUs over the next two decades, while other sources will remain constant or decline. Such a rapid transition requires construction of new facilities for generating and transmitting energy. Stephen Ansolabehere, Professor of Government at Harvard, tells the story of recent energy development efforts across the United States and the lessons for the transition toward a less carbon intensive energy system. Series: "Bren School of Environmental Science & Management" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 34563]

How will Artificial Intelligence Change the Smart Buildings Industry? Dollar Driven Decision-Makers want Data into Insights, Insights into Action, and Action into Revenue. Will AI Deliver? CTN 305 Interviews: Show Notes Eric Stromquist: 00:00:00 Hi. Welcome to Control Talk Now, you’re Smart. Buildings video cast and podcast for the weekend in March 3rd., 2019 . We give you all the Smart Building and HVAC Controls News of the Week. and That’s right. Folks marches here. Episode 305 I am Eric Stromquist. , I am joined as usual by your co host and mine The Man, The Myth, the legend the one, the only Kenny Smyers the control man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Kenny. you’ve been out sunbathing today, right? Ken Smyers: 00:00:26 No, I have not been sounds good. We got another two to four inches of snow again last night. And, February beat us up pretty bad, but we’re looking forward to the break in the weather. Eric Stromquist: 00:00:52 well, listen dude, we don’t have time to talk about that. We don’t have time to talk about much of anything. You know why we got two fabulous guests lined up. So, let’s get right to that. But before we do check out the post on controlled trends this week a big one, our friend Aaron Gorka, another next generation innovation podcasts dropped on Friday,, so be sure to check that out. Alot of good stuff on the on that which we’ll come to. Well you just have to go to the site to read it at controltrends.com Kenny with that, let’s introduce our first guest Ken Smyers: 00:01:27 Our next guest is the one and only Ken Sinclair, owner editor of automated buildings. And this month we’ve got something really interesting because I think Ken is going to help us differentiate between artificial intelligence and automated intelligence. Welcome to the show. Ken Sinclair. Ken Sinclair: 00:01:45 Welcome Ken! Thank you very much. ControllTrends. Always a pleasure to be here I appreciate it. Eric Stromquist: 00:01:51 I guess we should just start with you have to be intelligent before any of that’s relevant. Ken Sinclair: 00:01:59 Actually. Actually you’re quite right on, I’m one of the tweets. They actually picked that up and uh, they just pointed out that the, the, the intelligent part is us. We keep forgetting that we, I think we tried to imitate the artificial piece of artificial intelligence rather than the intelligent part. Uh, and it’s hard. It’s harder to be the intelligence. Ken Smyers: 00:02:20 No, I guess just going to say Ken, you know, it’s another great addition. Uh, just, uh, keep a common and is an amazing benefit to our industry that you’re, you’re able to grab all this new stuff coming out and start to make sense of it because when I read, whereas reading some of your, your, uh, entry, sir, in your first, uh, your editorial, when will we ever see a artificial or automated intelligence come into being? I mean, we close. I mean like when you didn’t have, are like, say Scown foundry and I had mentioned, you know, you know, you got, uh, somebody collecting information data. So we wrote a program, so you’re autonomize or automate the collection data, sends it somewhere Ken Smyers: 00:03:00 where it’s being processed by another basically program. So we took the humans out of the elements is going from, you know, machine information, but that back to computer machine information and it completes it. In your opinion, artificial intelligence or what does that sort of striving for is that we maybe try and redefine that a little better once it’s done and once it works and once it’s successful, I believe what it is is automated intelligence, right? And what we’ve done is we’ve learned how, and we probably did that through augmented intelligence and we may have used a artificial intelligence from computers to create that. But in the final analysis, it’s when it’s done, it’s actually a couple of lines of code in this machine and a couple of lines of code and that machine pushing information back and forth. So really all we’ve done is does that look any different than the DDC? Ken Sinclair: 00:03:59 Looper you know, it’s just, it’s just artificial or pardon me, automated intelligence. I keep getting my words mixed up here. The other thing is, uh, took a look at Wikipedia unwell. They define artificial intelligence and it’s totally clear that they’re confused as well. One of their, one of their best definitions is that they like is that artificial intelligence is what hasn’t been done. And I kind of liked that definition too, is every once in a while we hear somebody thinking about something that’s never been done and they actually believe that they can do it. And uh, once they do it, I think it changes. I think it is no longer artificial. I think it’s either automated and it’s either augmented, uh, it’s uh, you Eric Stromquist: 00:04:49 Ken, you’re going to go down in the history books for this cause Descartes said, I think therefore I am. And now I think you’ve just rephrase that to I think therefore I am artificial. Ken Sinclair: 00:05:00 Well actually there’s a good one. Whoever, whoever chose the acronym for for this, this broad method of having machines out think us and they called it artificial, you know, and it’s like wow, artificial has never been a positive word. I don’t think. I don’t think it’s a, it’s an adjective that we, you know, you look real artificial. I think it’s optimistic thinking on our part. But you’ve told us a story right before we turned the recorder on about the, the two machines and the camera. Will you tell our audience that story? Cause I think that is very interesting now. Okay. What kind of goes along like this is a, as we start to automate intelligence, we, we have two machines. The first machine, uh, is, uh, is uh, a ring. Somebody’s doorbell and it, it sees the person walking up and re prerecorded it. And when they push the button and it sends that prerecording to another machine than the other machine determines whether it’s going to allow that person in. Ken Sinclair: 00:06:02 And there’s all this data going back and forth. But when the artificial intelligence machines, uh, they start to, so the decisions are no longer made by people. The two machines, they get together and they say, these people are so dumb. Why did they bother generating a picture and sending the file when in fact, all we really need is the data. Because we don’t look at, we don’t know what a picture looks like, getting way, we just know what the data looks like. So we see that face. There’s a Pi data pattern. When we see that data pattern, that’s what we let the person in. So all of a sudden this gets really scary because they can do stuff faster, quicker and better than us. Uh, so that’s sort of getting into what I think artificial intelligence is, is when the machines start mocking us. What’s, I think they may be doing a bit now. Eric Stromquist: 00:06:51 Well, but Ken, I mean this is what Ilan Musk and some others have really gotten up in arms about and concerned about and I, and he’s a hell of a lot smarter than I am, but okay, so let’s take that same conversation between the two machines and instead of, they’re so dumb. They got it. You know, why do we don’t need a picture too? They’re so dumb. Why do we need them? So let’s just, we got him in the building over there was talk to our friend, the building automation system and building x, and we’ll tell building automation says to lock all the doors and turn the heat on and override the bypass on the boiler. So blows up. That’s one where we could get rid of, right? I mean, this is Ken Smyers: 00:07:25 Guys, you know, there’s several, there’s several books on this and I’ll tell you what, I’m reading one right now and it’s by a Daniel Sora as it is exactly that. It’s the Damon. So the guy passes away and as he leaves behind a, a giant Damon that runs and competes against the top minds in the world where it’s based on a game. So your concept, can I, I’m digging it and here’s why. I looked up their artificial intelligence and it basically just as anything that’s not human. So you have human intelligence that’s, that’s an eight to us that’s coming out of great minds like yours and Eric’s and, and some of mine. But the, Eric Stromquist: 00:08:01 these are such thing as a dumb ass machine, right? Ken Smyers: 00:08:05 When anything is not human is considered to be non human or artificial. So, but I think what we’re seeing, um, and, and again, I think we move into it because of exactly what you just said there. The data going on so fast with the recognition a week, last week, our big thrust, uh, on controlled trans was we did a shot, a recognition. So you had to ballistic sensors and things that could move so much faster. It makes so quick notifications. They can, human errors couldn’t differentiate between shot a gun or I’m sorry, a bullet being fired versus a backfire from a vehicle where the odd, the sensor could distinguish it immediately threw the ballistics through the, um, the sound acoustics and, and the, um, the flash she gives and notify something in three seconds, which takes a human that they’re not sure what they heard. They don’t know what to do, they’re stymied or whatever. Ken Smyers: 00:08:56 So that disbenefit, uh, is, is exactly, I think too, it’s, it’s an artificially gained intelligence where we did, we don’t have the capabilities in Nate Dar, so I’ll, we, we turn it over to our, our algorithms that are powered by Ip conductivities and Zip. We, did we get the benefit of this artificially, uh, you know, provided intelligence that is, or isn’t the bad guy or is, or is it the good guy? Whatever. So anyhow, great, great, great subject. Eric Stromquist: 00:09:26 No, no, no but, but, but I just want to get one step further. Kenny and Kevin Hart had a chance to listen to last week’s episode, but you know, Roger, even I can Honeywell come up with this sort of, you know, using those centers and then incorporating them so that if something does happen, you know, the first responders know exactly where, where to go and it can save a lot of lives. But Kenny, you know, the next step of this is they’re not going to send first responders. You can just send a drone in there. A drone is going to go into school and track those guys down or are bad people down just like that. So again, it’s very ironic that a one level we get very, very much, much safer and everything has a lot more convenient. But on another level, we’re really open ourselves up to some huge vulnerabilities here. Eric Stromquist: 00:10:11 If Elon Musk and some of these other folks are right, it’s okay. I’m not worried about gas cause I’m already, you know, Elon Musk has got this deal. He’s already started this company where they got the chips for the brains. And I’ve already, I’m on the, I’m on the waiting list for that and if it gets too bad with the machines, I got a ticket tomorrow so I’ll be out of here. But maybe I’ll go back and spinning off of Ken’s comment is that his definition of artificial is anything that doesn’t involve us. And I think, uh, I’m not sure about you, but I’m not sure I want to talk about anything that doesn’t involve us. So that’s what happened back to automated intelligence and action camp. But the other component has to be the self learning aspect of it too, right? I mean that has to filter in whether it’s automated or harder official that he can begin to learn right. With the cell phone in Algorithms. That’s gotta be a piece of it. Ken Sinclair: 00:11:02 Thanks Ken. But I’m not sure that, I don’t see that as a, that’s again, as an automated intelligence is basically, it’s just learning, learning how to better automate cause another perception, the way you look at that. Anyway, it’s early days. Um, the, uh, I don’t know if you caught the end of one of my articles there and then I talked about awful made it buildings and uh, uh, we were, we went through eight, we went through a period, it’s actually a 2002 article that I included a linking to. And uh, what happened with, uh, this was as we hit the web. So we went through the DDS, we went through awful, made it building several times. We went through awful, made it buildings. In the early days of DDC we had all these DDC systems that didn’t really work, but there so exciting that we kept on pursuing the, we actually figured out how to make those things work. And then we hit the web and we started getting a whole bunch of stuff as a web controlling MREs, the DDC controller. We have those. And I don’t see this as any different. We’re exactly in the same spot, except we’ve got this intelligence automation that’s Kinda falling from the sky on us. And, uh, we’re, we’re into another period of awful made it buildings until we get this straightened out. Eric Stromquist: 00:12:21 Hmm. What do you see some of the possible headwinds? I mean in terms of the problems, when you say awful, awful, made it, I mean obviously we went from pneumatics to DDC, there was a learning curve and things sorta had to, to get worked out. Do you see anything different with on the automated Ken Sinclair: 00:12:38 controls now it’s going to go faster if there’s going to be more people involved in it because of the iot industry. And ultimately I think, I think, but the problem is, is the uh, uh, Ben Ben, back to what Ken said, is it artificial is defined as things that don’t involve us. And I think if somebody, if we turn loose a machine, it’s not going to run the building the way we want, whether it, whether it attacks us or, uh, even if it doesn’t attack this as even tries to run it to the best of it’s knowledge, it’s going to need some guidance and what we need to learn. So what I see the, uh, intelligent automation phase era, that’s the year I think we’re in right now is we need to learn more about what we can do with this technology. How much should we can machine learn, uh, because we got to learn how to walk before we can allow AI to run our buildings. Ken Smyers: 00:13:42 Well, I, I agree with you and again, it’s always fun to take things to a, you know, an immediate, uh, you know, the word, the farthest point from, from reality, you know, or likelihood. But, um, in the, um, in your march edition, you also, we have another, a great article and great background to some really heady thought, but actually it gives us the, the nuts and bolts of it from a sit. How young thing again and, and, and how, you know, she takes the example of autonomous vehicle and how it would, it does, it reduces the risk of life. It reduces, you know, allows, it frees humans to do more things. Uh, you know, that the car can do that. It alleviates you from doing work. It’s, you know, it’s like a, the amazing thing the locomotive did versus the horse and buggy thing. So she has a great article in there. Um, what, what, what did she bring to you as far as the, you know, her insight using the autonomous vehicle? A analogy to our buildings. I mean, it’s a great article, but I thought, you know, what was your synopsis of that? Ken Sinclair: 00:14:42 I summarize, summarized it in a, in a tweet this morning and the fact that we were pushing back and forth some stuff and it, uh, I said that, uh, you know, the having your driverless vehicles running into our buildings I think is really good stuff because this whole atonomous side of the automated vehicle has whole bunch of social issues. It has a whole bunch of quick control things you were talking about. There’s no way that you know, that some of this stuff can be controlled so quick, but, and that’s of course, the second part of our theme that we were talking a theme is the automated intelligence with autonomous interactions. I don’t know that we’ve really thought of of it in two pieces like that. Here’s the intelligence of what it is we’re going to do. And then as soon as we do it, there’s a reaction, let’s put in another control loop to control the reaction. Ken Sinclair: 00:15:38 And I think if we look at the auto industry, they’ve got their spending scabs of bucks on this and they’re moving through. So I think we need to kind of try and understand better what they’re doing. Ironically enough for articles this month or right on our nose talking about, uh, what they’re doing in Stanford there. And, uh, the young girl on energy prediction is amazing. It picks up on last month and fills right in and she’s particularly well spoken and she’s speaks to it. I think what we also have to, you know, get used to, as people are going to call it artificial intelligence or call it augmented intelligence or automated intelligence and, uh, we’re going to be getting used to the fact that maybe it’s just best we call it AI and then substitute our own, uh, uh, okay. Okay. Different definition of that connotative definition. Yeah, that’s, that’s, yeah, I think you’re right. Yeah. Well, okay. Got It. Cool. Eric Stromquist: 00:16:41 Let me hop in real quick, if you don’t mind, Kenny, before we get to the next article, I think one of your buddies is responsible for all these annoying phone calls I’m getting from these chat bots. Oh those damn things are talkative as hell. But uh, but speak a bit if you would, because it seems like we might be going from a Gui graphical user interface, you s C U I, which you’ve been talking about for a while. But now I see it in black and white and I connecting the dots are going inadvertently can you’re responsible for all these damn calls. I’m getting Ken Sinclair: 00:17:19 no doubt, no doubt. My only defense is as they all, they all sit that they all come with an autonomous interaction. And the autonomous interaction is as if you don’t ever answer the phone or say hello. They won’t, they don’t do anything. So if you actually can out think them. So if you, uh, when it comes, you get one of these chat bot calls. If you don’t say anything and nobody says anything for about a half minute or something, you can just hang up cause it’s no person. So anyway, uh, the, yeah, the, you see, what do we call it? User interface, text voice. The more, so we’re seeing this, I mean it’s running rampant now with the speakers and all kinds of devices that actually have, uh, these, Ken Sinclair: 00:18:08 the Hay googles and the Alexa’s built right into them. And I think we’re going to see more and more of that. And now what I think the, the, the conversational user interfaces is that now devices, we’ll start talking like that and we can start using whatsapp, WeChat, uh, ims soldier and in some of these things. And actually, uh, the very quick segue is that we could actually, uh, you know, text to turn the lights on. The big advantage of that is it keeps a record of all of the commands you can, you can, you can say to your wife, you turned the heat up. And she said, no, she didn’t. And she says, it shows that Santa Time you put it up five degrees. So how that conversation goes, that damn machine is obviously wrong. Ken, you’re not going to win that argument or call my lawyer. Actually, I was going to bring that up. I was going to bring that up early when, when Ken was talking about how, how carefree these machines, good thinking. I think that was the biggest single thing is that the machines can move without lawyers. So that’s the thing that mobilizes us all. Well there then, you know what, there might be a silver lining after all I’m ever my friend. Eric Stromquist: 00:19:27 Ken do you have any more question for Ken? Ken Smyers: 00:19:30 No, no, no. I just, again, that does so much to talk about every time we were bringing something up. So again, it’s a collection of jewels I think, you know, because uh, you know, going over the march articles and how they come together, like you say, it’s like a phenomenon. You started at subject and all of a sudden something provides, you know, it’s like willing it into being like you get this critical mass and all of a sudden people were also thinking that way and just that part from Sydney. Uh, the article from us sit on a jump. The, that contributions inside that article or immense because it talks about, you know, the, you know, the energy, the automatic provisioning of, of, of, you know, in other words, if we had a limited amount of energy on the grid and we had sustained the most important critical buildings and whatever, uh, you know, we’re going to one day rely on that to be done, you know, through uh, I just watched a presentation on, on a new drive coming from Siemens and this drive is already smart grid ready. Ken Smyers: 00:20:29 In other words, it’s ready to go to the next level, uh, and not go into the network would go right to the cloud and put VFDs on, on an application, uh, and it can alleviate a btu meters because the, the VFD can calculate the flow and see how many BTUs you’re using saving of Dagon. Holy Moly. This is, this is another thing that you were talking about right before we have our session here. I listened to this and I’m thinking this is getting really, really interesting because if you could put this artificial intelligence or augmented intelligence or automated intelligence to work, we are going to become a greener planet quicker. We’re going to be able to use this to make our take the best steps forward. But you know, I think would you said true that if somebody doesn’t answer the phone, guess what? Nothing happens. No, no artificial or augmented intelligence occurs because people don’t start using this technology in buildings. We’re not getting anything done. Eric Stromquist: 00:21:31 Well yeah, but you’re saying it’s reactive now, meaning you have to initiate this step, but Ken Smyers: 00:21:36 pretty easy. Did you have to make this step, you have to take the investment, you have to invest, you have to invest in technology, Eric Stromquist: 00:21:40 right? No, you have to invest in technologies. But would your, your point, which is a very valid one. We like your, Ken’s point about the following. If you just don’t say anything, right, it doesn’t, it doesn’t activate, you know, the program. Yeah. But, and I think that’s kind of a very calm, you know, good thought. But then eventually it will be where they’ll just be proactive. They’ll figure it out, west cans and clear again. I’m just going to start damn talking cause I know he’s not going to answer first and then, uh, then we’ll start sending pictures or something to you. That’d be crazy. But Ken Sinclair: 00:22:13 I think this might be the, the edge of the automated automated buildings and automated interfaces and stuff that we need to work out. And I think that’s why we have to be involved in this too, as I, yeah, I’m not sure that artificial intelligence is going to be able to figure that out and come up with any better solution. Uh, what it would say is it’s a solution we don’t want to hear is don’t ever talk to a human. They’re just, they’re just impossible. Only talk to machines. You know? It’s funny you say that because, Eric Stromquist: 00:22:45 you know, I was thinking while you were talking about what’s the definition of artificial intelligence, you know, Kenny had a good one. You had a good one. And I was going to say that, well, uh, you’d have to have an original thought to not be artificial intelligence, but then I think about it, I’m not sure. Most humans have many original thoughts either. You know, there’s some of us who do, but it’s a, it really is fascinating. And then what I’m really interested, forget the buildings. I am serious about this, putting the brain, the chip and the brain. I mean, have an augmented intelligence on board connected to your mind. And Musk has been working on that. So it’s literally, you know, you’re not gonna have to go to school and, and what are you just going to buy the, uh, the chip for American history and you’ll know everything you need to know about it? Ken Sinclair: 00:23:30 Actually, uh, I think, uh, as, I was really pleased with Theresa’s article this month, and, uh, I think it came partly from her going up and spending some time with the folks at bedrock and in Detroit and watching what they’re doing up there. She, she came out and she’s picked up on this theme and she calls it the community of practice in building automation. Uh, you can actually even drop the building automation because it’s basically, I hadn’t seen it so clearly as she depicts it, that we all belong to a community of practice and both of your supply companies are, they are communities of practice and basically that’s what you’re selling. Then that’s your, you’re really your value and automated buildings is a community of practice. People who actually believe in somewhat a common belief of, you know, of how we might automate buildings. We also have things like backnet, which is a community of practice. Ken Sinclair: 00:24:27 We have Niagra and basically what’s happening is they’re becoming the building blocks of our industry. And this is how we build stuff is uh, when you find a community of practice that you haven’t, haven’t been exposed to, you guys are all excited and then you figure out how can we make that community of practice part of our community of practice and that increases your value. That’s a lot of what I, I think we all do is, is basically share this information. The advantage of attaching yourself to a community of practice is it comes complete with resources. People, people who understand that and we need to keep creating those and, and basically distributing that information. So anyway, I think that’s going to be our next direction. That’ll not, that won’t be the theme for, um, April because the theme for April is going to be cybersecurity. Speaker 4: 00:25:25 But halfway through it I’m going to write an article on the community of practice and just kind of tie all of these communities together. And if you just let your mind role and think how important, how important are all those things to your business, your everyday business. I mean, you could say you could, you could almost go down your drawers there, your La Aisles, and you say this belongs in the back net. This is a Nagra. This is a Johnson. This is a, you know, all of them are communities of practice that you’re doing it. What’s your big claim to fame? One of your big claims to fame is that you crossover many lines of a communities of practice. Ken Smyers: 00:26:04 Hmm. Not sure when I read that I had this word Papa, they kept coming up with that was, or your collaboratorium. In other words, you know, the, the thing that I think I’ve witnessed or we’ve all witnessed, but in particular is how quickly certain things get done when there’s that collaboration or does community of practice where you overlay all these experts and all this, all these, you know, leading, uh, you know, uh, pioneers because we’re talking about three things right there that we’re are all articles, project haystack, biennial, haystack connects conferences coming up from San Diego, mid May, uh, Co controls con con a skull, Scott Cochran. He’s got a great spring Ken Smyers: 00:26:44 conference coming up where the, uh, you know, Cochran is going to share a great deal of information, um, you know, regarding new technologies and things that the, uh, you know, it’s very important. So yeah, I did that community practice. It makes total sense what you’re saying would tree says, but um, can you see it? I’ve shared it that she went back to this Nydia and got approval to reproduce this graphic. But if you Kinda, if you kind of just read all the little, uh, you know, things that are written around there, that’s what you do every day, right? Listening, challenging buildings, sharing everything that’s on that thing is basically what your companies do to pull together your community, give and get support. Yup. Yup. So, uh, you know, just it’s, it’s kind of, I dunno, we used to, you know how you have to filter because there’s so much out there. Uh, the malty general generational engagement. So there’s our young guns. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s kind of amazing that, that this is kind of a map of who we are and where we came from. Um, and I think we need to work more on this map so we can better understand what I might be talking about. Cause I probably don’t understand what automated intelligence might be. I think what we have to do is kind of maybe do an intelligence inventory. Eric Stromquist: 00:28:14 You know, Ken, listen, listen, you’re missing the whole point here. Look, I’ll have my machine, my machine call, uterine machine and they a lunch and figure all this stuff out. We’re not going to have to communicate anymore. We just have the machines. We’ll have the community of practice. That’s, that’s where you’re going with this, right? Ken Sinclair: 00:28:30 Uh, well I dunno, look, look at, look at all the touchy feely things on the, on the docket there. Yeah. That’s one thing that machines aren’t y’all like, you know, like you’re saying caring, healing and listening or new superpowers. Yeah. Eric Stromquist: 00:28:46 I’m going to tell you some, most of it you have to ask yourself a question is empathy, which is what all those things are. Is that a learned skill? Cause I told you this on a show before when I was in southern California about two years ago, the debate on the radio, because they just come out with the sex Bot and they were teaching them artificial intelligence that can be more empathetic and the debate on the radio as a view if you had sex with the sex bot where you cheating and so it’s, you know, it’s, I maybe you think about it. I think empathy is learned. We teach our children how to be empathetic. I think I’m at least, I think that we could debate that. Whether that’s an innate human quality or dress up. We just learn when we get culturized by growing up by our parents and going to school. It is the question, then we’ll be able to program it into the machines and there’ll be more empathetic than we are. Ken Smyers: 00:29:36 Well, to Ken’s point, I think that’s both. I think that’s what you can’t put inside the artificial intelligence or machines is you can’t put Ken Smyers: 00:29:42 that inate stuff. And you know, you have different psychologists saying different things, but we all come from the same well of consciousness. You know, we pass through a w what’s his name, your different Freud. Another colleague came through with young where we all with this guy, Joe Campbell travels the world, hundred 50 countries and how 150 different countries come with the same basic belief system. You know, about how you got here and where you’re going afterwards, you know. But to your point, I think, um, the, uh, subjects that we’re talking about is, is that this thing almost looks like a 1970. Remember how we did the we generation iGeneration we generation or the me Generation Innovation is almost looks like our whole concepts or taken a different direction where it used to be individuals, there were the major players in the industry and they dictated science stuff and now we’re seeing all this technology come in and it’s just dumping all these new possibilities. Ken Smyers: 00:30:41 And so this community of practice to me is an extension of of basically the thing you did with the collaboratorium. I’ve never seen so many people be willing to share so much what used to be like a sensitive information or proprietary information, but they want to get something done in order for them to get their agenda done quicker. They collaborate with somebody that’s also doing something better than they are and instead of each trying to create your own wheel, they’re putting together a, you know, this, this, this community and it’s an amazing thing because Hastac is it? We’re going to talk about haystack some at some point and, and we just have to celebrate what they did because that’s what they did. They did this, this amazing linkage of, of a lot of people that couldn’t really define how they were going to get there. Somebody laid down a map and then people contributed to it. And next thing you know, you’ve got a yellow brick road. Eric Stromquist: 00:31:29 Well listen, I want to, Ken, I want to follow up, uh, on your last episode, uh, El or semi last, last month’s edition because you know what, you had become quite a cult hero amongst the young young guns in our industry for, for numerous reasons. But the big one is a, and I’m going to ask you to expand on this is, you know, when you become, when you’re disrupted disruption. And so one of the questions we got from our community has asked, can you know, talk about the process of disrupting disruption. I mean, how would I do that? Because you know, you’ve seriously the young, I mean we were bringing in it kind of like a hero to these folks. Now again, how do we disrupt disruption? Well, I think it’s interesting once you learn how to grow younger, which is a, is a skill that takes a bit and you basically, Ken Sinclair: 00:32:27 yeah, Ken Sinclair: 00:32:27 bring these guys on his trusted advisors and start to understand and try to get inside their heads are at least closer to it. You understand this whole what the significance Ken Sinclair: 00:32:40 of being a digital native is. I mean, we’re looking at this from such a wrong way. You know, all our, we keep going off on these tangents. They don’t even think about that. They grew up with all this stuff falling on them and they understand they had been, don’t have the fear of the machine that we do because they understand the machine, they understand data that give it the data. We take the data away, you know, and uh, I think they just see it in a completely different light. So for them disrupting disruption, although they do it to themselves as well because they’re there a way ahead on the front. Some of the stuff they’re disrupting is totally amazing. I barely understand. But our disruption is easy. It’s easy to disrupt us and to disrupt the disruption is, is uh, is easy as well because our industry is slow to move. Ken Sinclair: 00:33:32 And, uh, we’re actually starting to see some of this stuff coming. We’re actually seeing, uh, you know, wifi sensors. We’re seeing the wire disappearing in our buildings and more, more devices, more it devices starting to appear. So that’s, that’s very disruptive. But it inside of it comes a gazillion opportunities and we’re getting where we had a, like a very small slice of the industry, things that were involving, now we’re involving integrator piece of the industry. So yeah, I don’t know. That answer wasn’t very good answer. I was kinda hoping you’d say something like, we know we got to kill the machines or something like that. You know, that’s what I was going for, Matt. Ken Smyers: 00:34:20 Well, I’ll tell you that again. You got an amazing job to kill the kids first day. Cause that’s the, they’re, they’re, they’re becoming closer and closer to these machines and they’d rather talk to the machines and us. I saw somebody put a, uh, I don’t know where it was, linkedin or somewhere, but it had all these kids in this beautiful museum in front of one of the most classic art and they’re all single child was looking up at the art, uh, and they were on their phones, iPhones or smart devices or whatever. And it just really caught it. Oh know to be in the middle of it, you know, our world thinking that we had, we had put these things on the wall to the epitomize the highlights of humankind and our loftiest, you know, artists and these kids just totally not interested. And so we’ll accept it. It’s funny cause sometimes the guys looking at it and what they’ll tell you is that’s not really the original. The original is in Spain, in the small town, this is a copy. Ken Sinclair: 00:35:21 We’re always checking facts. You assume that sometimes they’re, you know, they’re doing something different, but sometimes they’re just, they’re just way ahead of you. And lucky. Now, I’ll tell you what I learned my lesson and I, when we were talking about an old timer, walks into the office, a Johnson controls had a uh, a, a couple years ago, Eric and I were at it and they explained the mistake. They’d invested so much money in recruiting the top a young guns that could possibly get their hands on. Uh, and, and then they were losing them after the second year and it all boiled down to their boss and, and the one classic example they gave through where they had the outbrief thing and the people had to, could, could hear what they were being accused of or the bosses criticism from the young person’s perspective. And here it was that the guy who thought they were all screwing around on their smartphones and they were actually doing work and research because the companies that their, their, their, their computer system was so slow and lagging and they had so many security still at that they couldn’t get the information they needed to complete the project that was due. Ken Smyers: 00:36:20 So they were actually doing double time using their own device to get some information that the computers that they were given to is their work. Computers couldn’t perform and be, he looked outside, he said, everybody’s playing with their phones or playing games. There was an assumption that they were screwing off and here they were very, you know, professionally you’re trying to get the Dang job done. And they were being, you know, uh, there were being hindered by, anyhow, we, you’ve got a couple of good articles, this thing by Marc p talk and it’s got a picture and it says, you know, the built environment has been changing drastically, but what, what does mark say he says is two nights, 2019 the year of truth for the built environment. And he has all these questions. He has, well, two nights, 2019 be the truth that our dialogue senators around the proven technologies. So what’d you think about that? And it’s like the 10 commandments of, of the built space. Ken Smyers: 00:37:14 Yeah, that’s good. I’ve been, I’ve included in my article a link to it. Uh, it’s super mark. Mark always is very succinct and being able to kind of pull out around, uh, and it’s okay. So maybe this is the truth of artificial intelligence that I’m talking about is that I’m saying maybe, maybe we don’t want to call it that. Maybe we want to call it art or a automated intelligence. And I don’t know, sometimes by just calling something different, you start to discussions and I think that’s what I really want to do is start the discussion. We can, I think you’ve got an add on. Your name needs to be automated buildings and intelligence. How’s that? That’s right. Well the other problem is if I didn’t call it automated intelligence yeah then that’d be obsolete. I’d have to, I’d have to, how I got it. There was two choices. I either had to change automated buildings.to artificial buildings.com and I don’t think I would’ve sold with it after 20 years. Automated building Sterns to artificial buildings. So we had to, had to go to automated intelligence. I like that. I do automated versus our, I don’t like artificial either. Not to think about it cause you know, it always meant something unnecessarily sinister but not necessarily Ken Smyers: 00:38:31 as, as as you know, as firing as it could be. Artificial means that’s made up and, and, and not genuine. And so maybe we will help the mate, the next group of solution providers change it from artificial intelligence to automated intelligence. Eric Stromquist: 00:38:46 So Ken, uh, listen to about march of March issue is out automatedbuildings.com, be sure to check the I can, would you be able to hang around a bit longer and talk with us with our next guest?. Okay. Ken. So where are you going to be traveling this spring where it looks like we might be crossing paths a little bit. Okay. Well we’re off to Detroit and early May to control con we was just before this conference call, I was talking with Scott and the bedrock, a Joe from bedrock and uh, exciting stuff happening there. Actually. He, he just come back from Korea and some going to be some amazing stuff. I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you, but don’t, don’t, don’t do that. We’re going to be there too. So it’s going to, okay, I told you today I’d have to kill you. But Scott was Scott. Speaker 4: 00:39:32 It was Scott in Korea or a the gift. Actually, Scott Scott was a fighting icebergs and a theory coming out of the lake or something like that. He was driving in his car, asked for video, and he took his phone and held it up against the windshield and told me I was driving. So, so listen to, you can still go there. Are there links both on automated buildings.com site and control trends, uh, hey, be get a chance to go to this conference is fantastic. And uh, the next big conference had coming up is haystack and our next guest is going to be able to talk a bit about that, Kenny. So how about introducing him? Ken Smyers: 00:40:07 I’d love to, in fact, um, I’d like to introduce Ruairi Barnwell. He is a group principal at d l r and the DLR group, uh, was recently recognized that the controlled trends awards because they won the project haystack award. And that’s a very, very exciting thing. And, uh, we’re very happy to welcome to the show, Rory Barnwell. Welcome to show Roy everyone. Good to see you again, buddy. Ruairi Barwell: 00:40:32 Hey guys, how’s it going? Great to be here. Eric Stromquist: 00:40:34 Good to see you too. You were on episode 222 and uh, I’ll always remember that it was great, lively conversation and, uh, could you give a sort of a refresher and an update on what’s going on with DLR group? Ruairi Barwell: 00:40:48 Sure. Well, thanks again guys. Really excited to be back on again. Um, I guess just to recap on DLR group who we are and what we do. And so we’re a large design firm. Um, you know, 1200 people, 30 offices around the, around the globe, um, architects and engineers, um, you know, our core American sectors or education, workplace justice and civic, uh, hospitality. We’re actually the largest education design firm in the world. So that leads us down some pretty interesting paths. Um, so yeah, that’s kind of a, we’re busy. I’m sitting here in Chicago right now and looking out the window and, uh, all the cranes and all new construction going on. So, yeah, Ruairi Barwell: 00:41:32 we’re trying to make it, Ken Smyers: 00:41:36 yeah. Good stuff. All right, well, we’re really happy to see you down in Atlanta and, uh, recognize you right away. And we have to say hello before the show actually gotten underway. But, uh, you wonder, pretty impressive. Tell us about the project Haystack Award and how you guys won that. Ruairi Barwell: 00:41:54 Well, it was quite an honor. We’ve obviously been big believers in haystack and you know, practitioners, the haystack methodology and what we do and how we, you know, collect and, uh, organize and analyze data to our, our smart building a praxis are amongst monitoring based commissioning. Uh, you know, how we, what we call building optimization. That’s the practice I lead. Um, so yeah, it was quite an honor, right? I mean, well, the night that was a controlled times Lord. Eric Stromquist: 00:42:36 Yeah. So an engineer and designer standpoint as well as a, you know, an energy optimizer and buildings for our community might not know. What do you see the advantage is to project haystack? Ruairi Barwell: 00:42:49 Um, well, again, for us, you know, a large part of what we do within DLR group, uh, our building optimization practice is, I mean, it’s just dealing with data and at the end of the day, um, we’re answering the try to answer the same questions as everyone else in our community is what do we do with that data? How do we make it actionable? How do we organize it, you know, create some actionable insights from that data. So what are, we’re trying to optimize the energy use of a million square foot commercial office in downtown Chicago or, you know, a college campus in the suburbs. MMM. It’s, you know, it’s the same drive trying to answer the same questions as everyone else. Ken Smyers: 00:43:35 What are your clients asking for now? What are your types of clients and what do they ask? So you’re the largest provider of services to the education world. What are they asking for? Ruairi Barwell: 00:43:46 Yeah, I mean, as an example, you know, we’re working with large school districts here in Chicago across the country. Um, you know, going and getting ready to go out for a large bond referendums, you know, they’re trying to answer some big questions like, are we, uh, you know, how are we, you know, here in Chicago, we’ve got a couple of districts going out for $180 million contract for, and then down in Texas, they don’t, they’re close to a billion. I mean, figuring out Texas, right? But we’re all trying to answer the same questions. You know, are we, should we build new versus renovation, throwing good money after bad, you know, how are the buildings performing and should we invest in these existing buildings? Should we decommission them, build a new, know you were high performing buildings and, um, you know, they’re, they’re asking the same questions. You know, how, you know, how do we benchmark buildings? Ruairi Barwell: 00:44:40 You know, I think we’re, we’re recognized as a, as an industry and this community in particular that, you know, energy benchmarking alone. There’s not a, it’s not a good indicator of how well, or poorly performing. So we’re starting to look at the other key performance indicators that, you know, how is, how, how, how well a building is performing. I in indoor environmental quality tracking, indoor air quality and thermal comfort of occupants, Acoustic Comfort, visual comfort, your user functionality. Now these are, these are things that we’re trying to tie real data to versus, you know, we’ve, we’ve talked about him, I think this conversation has been pretty mainstream for the last couple of Ken Smyers: 00:45:22 the metrics. Are you able to provide additional metrics to improve the understanding of how important those, those things that you had mentioned, lighting, acoustics, I mean, does that, does that really have a profound impact on the educational environment or is that more, is that hard? Ruairi Barwell: 00:45:38 No, no, absolutely. I think we’re getting past, we’ve made a very focused decision to kind of try and there’s so much noise and marketing, you know, yeah. Spills everyone to call them. Um, we’ve already focused on trying to get some good case studies and trying to, you know, for example, in a couple of cool projects you’re working on right now we’re doing a large project with the GSA. We’re part of the Harvard School of Public Health. Um, it’s doctor Joe Allen’s group, um, where we’re trying to evolve their post occupancy evaluation process. Um, really tried to add another dimension to, um, to their, you know, what they’re, they’re trying to fill it up and evidence based design library so they can continually iterate there. We’re working directly with their workplace, um, uh, workplace global workspace leader and um, you know, adding in that realtime indoor air quality, indoor environmental quality is more than just the air quality and all the occupants satisfaction. Ruairi Barwell: 00:46:44 Um, putting real metrics to that and tying that back to work or productivity. So that’s again, I think that’s been a manager in conversation now for, for a couple of years where I’m, I’m pretty excited with the crossover between, you know, worker productivity, the workplace, um, you know, getting some proper metrics for that to education. So now we’re starting to see equal amounts of research being done and if not a little more now at the moment with, um, you know, students, you know, student achievement, you know, how does the, out of the class, how did the before, how does the performance of the built environment, the classroom impacts a student’s learning ability, you know, the cognitive of a, of a child brain. How that, um, how, you know, is is the classroom ventilated enough? Is it too hot, too cold or the acoustics poor, the lights too harsh or too damn, you know, we’re working in a school districts that have, you know, kind of okay lighting retrofits that were driven by energy, not so much the, you know, the function of the classroom. Um, and, and again, and try and tie that back to, you know, how engaged the student is and ultimately student achievement. And I think we’re looking at more or less the same ties as a, as far as on the workplace side and an office and productivity. Ruairi Barwell: 00:48:11 Okay. Well, uh, honestly we’re in the middle of, uh, of working on this GSA project is ongoing. It’s on the boards right now. That’s why it’s top of my mind. But he’s kind of, well, I’m, I’m excited about. Um, so I would say look for the, I think this would be the third iteration of the cog effect study from Harvard School of Public Health. Um, and so that, you know, that’s only going to get, there’s just going to be more iterations of that until, you know, I think, okay, we’ve withdrawn it’s common sense, you know. Um, I think that we’re just trying to put real data to it. Um, you know, another project I’m really excited about, we’re working with Chicago public schools and the third largest school district in the country where, you know, there, uh, there, uh, exploring an initiative for a lot of textile and that’s zero school and you know, we can have a, it’s really easy. You haven’t that Sarah School, right? Turn off the light board up the windows, tell the kids the worst, some colts and light some candles. You know, we want a second, but Marcy sophisticated approach than that. Um, so we’re, uh, you know, using the same data gathering, collecting, collecting data, organizing it, analyzing it, modeling it for future retrofits, you know, trying to show, uh, I’m not, uh, basically a roadmap for how can we get to the zero? What is it feasible? I mean, that’s the question we’re trying to answer. Ken Smyers: 00:49:51 Amazing work bringing our, bringing emotions to buildings. In other words, we’re taking the things like comfy that began way back when, where it was giving people with smart devices the opportunity to interface with building automation system to get some kind of an immediate response if they needed air conditioning or heating, whatever. And as soon as they were company, they hit a button, say coffee. So Ken has done a lot of studies and a lot of work on it. Can, I know you got to have a good question for Rory regarding these, these exact studies because isn’t this the chance that they, the, the emotional side of a building can be exposed through these new retrofit new programs? Ken Sinclair: 00:50:29 I think he has an excellent start. And actually I’d like to start by applauding what, uh, what he’s doing. And his company is certainly for a major consultant to embrace haystack and, uh, the other health parameters of buildings and put them in their lead is, is significant than I think he is definitely an example to, oh, a lot of consultants who are, are kind of hiding, hiding their head from all of this. And uh, so he’s well on his way and as the exposes all his data, he is going to be able to interpret the emotion of a building. I’ll be better than anybody. And uh, the fact it’s going to be in haystack standards, uh, is also exciting, uh, because that means that when we do analytics and we start to use a voice interface and device lifts interfaces and the autonomous interactions, uh, I think he’s ahead of the game and even even to speak to our, uh, our march theme, the Automated Intelligence, uh, I think he’s well on his way to achieving that as well. So I would probably just start with a whole bunch of Kudos. Ruairi Barwell: 00:51:51 Thank you. Ken Sinclair: 00:51:54 No, actually the question I would like to ask you is how do we get a string of consultants like you? I mean that’s our problem as an industry is really have traditional consultants that are controlled by lawyers that are immobilized and they’re putting in their 1956 system because they worried that they’re going to get sued if they try anything new. So you guys somehow, uh, moved over into risk management. They’re looking at changing world. How’d you do that? Ruairi Barwell: 00:52:31 We’re talking about energy or whatever we’re talking about indoor air quality, indoor environmental quality in general. The level of transparency. We’re at the tip of the iceberg there. Um, you know, the sensors are becoming cheaper and more available. You know, we can, where we can practically do realtime indoor air quality monitoring. We’re working because you know, a friend of the show, Albert, he’s on it, you know, how is already working on a real time. We’re going to be using his sensors for, to, to track this real time. It’s very affordable sensors that are high quality that are going to still meet the well building standards for accuracy. The problem with answers as you got what you pay for. So if you can get, you know, the correct, mmm, Ruairi Barwell: 00:53:26 nope. We’re tracking typically CO2, that’s the one we all kind of default to, but also PLCs, how the material selection impacts the environments. Um, pm 2.5, you know, how the, how to particulate matter in the air stream, you know, how well are we still trading the air, how clean was the air. A lot of this technology comes from China, I believe it or not because the outdoor air so poor over there. This is kind of initiatives, you know, the badge of honor in China is to show that, hey, it’s not necessarily I got to lead platinum building , I’ve got to building with clean air.. You start to see initiatives like, uh, you know, the recess, uh, certification reset in the certification. That’s primarily based on just, uh, it’s only based on indoor air quality, you know, so, Speaker 6: 00:54:19 right. Ruairi Barwell: 00:54:25 Well, you know, it, it’s, it’s, it’s a fun vibe, you know, practice a little bit. You know, scary time, you know, for, for uh, when we disclosed this amount of information to a building operators, we work with property management firms. We work with a nutshell reads, um, ourselves as a design firm. Now our level of transparency, our post postdoc, the evaluation for our own designs, it’s become a lot more rigorous. So, you know, not only are we focused on energy and the outcomes and okay, are we know we got to hit this Gui for the building. What now? What are we going to hit this threshold for co two levels for particulate matter or you know, for um, the materials that were, that, you know, everything from them at the carpet that’s been selected impacts the indoor air quality impacts. Ken Sinclair: 00:55:16 Go ahead. No, I was just wanting to pick, pick up on that. That’s another interesting side of it is as the devices and the things are starting to talk to us, I just came off a conference call with getting ready for the control con event in Detroit and Joe from bedrock had just come back from Korea and he’d been talking to the LG folks and the LG folks on their units are absolutely prepared to provide complete open all of the information they have internal to their units and so all of a sudden pick up. That’s like a whole new world to us was where the OEM always kind of kept everything and you bought it and you know he never really knew what it does now into your transparency of data. You’re having this, these machines and as a consultant you can control that in the fact that you say, I want devices that are more transparent and that they give me new data. If they don’t give me my data, I’m going to buy product B, not product day because Ken Sinclair: 00:56:24 this guy gives me more data every week. Gives me the most data, maybe the product as long as it gets Ruairi Barwell: 00:56:32 after your original question. And how do we get more people on board? I think the really nice thing about working with an entity like the GSA is that they’re doing this to be the, to be a leader. Everything we’re doing is going to be published publicly available. There’s no secret there. You know, everything. We’re going to be doing this completely open and we’re kind of share best practices super. And that’s why, you know, so we’ve teamed with Harvard, uh, there they’re just going to continue to do great things and change the industry. Um, uh, we’re starting to see, you know, Lawrence Berkeley national labs and the Department of Energy got on board with these, you know, these same metrics and uh, um, ourselves and, uh, four or five or order pure group, uh, your, um, companies are, are currently work in the early stages with the national labs and Department of Energy to, to kind of just a roadmap out how prevalent types of analytics that we’re doing. Ken Smyers: 00:57:34 A couple of things, you just came back from an important trip this morning, didn’t you? You were in Minneapolis, Minnesota this morning and you came back. Ruairi Barwell: 00:57:41 Yeah. Minneapolis is a near and dear to my heart. That’s where if my second city, so I grew up in Ireland. If you can’t tell from my accent, cargo is my city. Been here for 20 years now, but my wife is from Minneapolis, are on Minneapolis office. Nope. We’re kind of tied at the hip with, with, uh, with them how we’re structured regionally, our CEO, it’s up there. Um, so yeah, I came back from probably the only place right now do any major city that’s colored in Chicago at the mall. I didn’t, I wasn’t very sure if I’d make it out with the smell. Um, but I was up there. Yeah. For a, a very special read them. We were actually taken off, well, don’t kick it off. My good friend, uh, broad culture over at Hga, uh, has, uh, has over the past a year, 18 months. It’s been very successful with a couple of more teammates that heads up there and getting the big TC, uh, group going up at the building intelligence group, twin cities. And um, so we had a great, uh, meeting. We thought I had some great meetings over the past couple of months and that’s really, uh, so last night there was maybe 60, 70 people. Um, kind of the same cross section of card that you’d see at real calm. I’d be gone, you know, systems integrators, vendors, you know, some more proactive, um, design consultants, you know. MMM. Usual Xbox, you know. Um, Ruairi Barwell: 00:59:22 but everyone comment that, um, there’s really no outlet for smart. There’s really no smoking. We got USG, we see receive, got Ashrae for the engineers, but there’s really no local connection point or you know, people in the smart building industry. I was amazed. I had done a fantastic job up there. In fact, I should probably got him on Eric Stromquist: 00:59:46 right. It’s very dynamic individual. Ruairi Barwell: 00:59:50 Oh yeah. It’s fantastic. And uh, he’s done a great job with that. So, um, as a result of the success of a big building intelligence group, twin cities, we’re going to start a big shy here, April. So we’re saying we’re going to basically start the Chicago franchise here for anyone out there that’s in the Chicago area. Hit me up and I’ll give you the details on the first meeting. It’s going to be on April 11th year. We’re going to host the first one at our office, uh, looking for volunteers and Geneva, our committee members and everything else. So we’re looking to get a good group here. It’s a kickoff. The, uh, the first one, Ken Smyers: 01:00:30 critical. How’s the soccer program going? I understand. Last time we talked to you, you are, and your soccer outfit because you were heading down practice, Ruairi Barwell: 01:00:39 right? You know, uh, I got one thing I have in mind for soccer. I have plenty of sad. Ken Smyers: 01:00:45 Yeah. Ruairi Barwell: 01:00:47 Liverpool happened to have my liver big Liverpool Fan, so nervous times at the moment that we got them to every run in here for the Premiere League. Hopefully. Uh, the first year [inaudible] 92 I think so, Eric Stromquist: 01:01:07 yeah. We’ve got a pretty good soccer team down in Atlanta now that make us do Ruairi Barwell: 01:01:12 awesome. Yeah, no, I’m a, I’m a big Chicago fire power as well. They were doing nearly as good as your guys are doing. Ken Smyers: 01:01:21 Yeah, you can pay more money. Eric Stromquist: 01:01:31 You know, I wanted to sort of ask and sort of cycled back around to, it seems like you’re doing things and getting things done that, you know, we treat very few consultants sort of getting the traction. You aren’t terms of changing how people are doing, building automation controls and, and making a more emotional and all that stuff. You know, for our audience in mind, I know you guys have all of the offices I think in 30 countries or there abouts. Ruairi Barwell: 01:01:57 Well it’s, it’s 30 location. The majority of those are in the Norton in North America. We’ve got an office in Shanghai, Dubai in Nairobi stuff. The kind of global reach it. Yeah. Yeah. Ken Smyers: 01:02:09 So I was just curious if, if you see things differently or done differently in different countries and is it part of how you guys are sort of being innovative, the fact that you sort of have a global perspective instead of a just a North American history Ruairi Barwell: 01:02:23 perspective? I think it’s definitely an advantage. You know, I think myself personally, we have a lot of interactions with my, my old college buddies are working across the world and uh, your fellows kind of been a front runner, but I truly believe we’re in the right place here and not there. There’s so much exciting things going on here in North America. I think the change that’s going to happen from here, there’s so much innovation, so much, uh, so much, okay, it’s mainstream now. You know, we’re not talking about someone, not something on the periphery. You know, when you see big players like the GSA, you know, when you see people like Chicago public schools, you know, I’ve mentioned there their public sector. I think I actually Ma personally got most enjoyable working with developers that I, you know, I enjoy the fast paced nature of a working with developers. Ruairi Barwell: 01:03:16 And you know, when you start to see, you know, the people who are typically focused on dollars and cents and bottom line and that’s it gotta be like that when they start to focus on wellness and amenities. But you know, again, it’s still dollars and cents. Attracting and retaining the best tenants in your building is still attracting and retaining the best talent for those tenants. So when you start to see, you know, a smart building, uh, strategies start to filtrate into the, into the mainstream because it makes sense for these dollars are the developers to do it. You know, that that’s a woodwind. Eric Stromquist: 01:03:55 Yeah. Cause it seems like the buildings are going to be more competitive as Ken Saint Claire, who’s our resident millennial here has pointed out that, uh, you know, you better have a nice space if you want me to come into the office and work. So, so I think, you know, there’s a lot of awareness about wanting to have a great space and energy efficient space and obviously a space that leads to productivity. So it seems like that conversation is shifting. Where will you say developers and owners are more open to having that versus just being driven by energy or low cost when so hopefully that trend will Ruairi Barwell: 01:04:25 absolutely. Yeah. I mean one of the most progressive developers we’re working with here locally in Chicago, Sterling Bay, you know, they uh, they, uh, Google’s Midwest headquarters, Mcdonald’s global headquarters, moved downtown from suburbs group on Gogo, go down the list. And uh, you know, we’re doing a lot of work with them on their existing building side. But also we’re, we’re really lucky in Chicago. We’ve got a very progressive utility as well. So we’ve got combat in Chicago and we’ve got some legislation at the state level, like the future and jobs act, that kind of mine bass. But these guys have to invest in energy efficiency programs. But we’ve got the monitoring based commissioning program here in Chicago, which is really a, you know, it’s a fantastic

Riding our segues into oblivion, we switch between talking about BTUs, people hogging DDR machines, advanced gungeoneering, and light gun games of all shapes and sizes. Ancient food mascots are coming back in force, and we find out what games everyone feels the strongest about so far this year. Games include The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, Yo! Noid II: Enter the Void, Trials Fusion, Enter the Gungeon, Spider Ponds, Butterfly Soup, Splatoon 2, Tetris, Mario Bros., Battletoads, Killer Instinct, NFL Blitz 2000, Time Crisis III, Frogger, Galak-Z: Variant S, Caves of Qud, and Overwhelm. Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord or email us at contact@ward-games.com!

Riding our segues into oblivion, we switch between talking about BTUs, people hogging DDR machines, advanced gungeoneering, and light gun games of all shapes and sizes. Ancient food mascots are […]

We explore the untapped potential of trash, and how a small project in Africa could bring dramatic change to people’s lives. For pictures and additional info, visit http://www.energy-cast.com/28-terrastar.html

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com with a market update for May 5th. Coming into 2017, we were slightly over-weighted in precious metals, energies, and short coffee. Both seasonal factors and fundamental factors that we’ve been following, especially a slight weakening out of China, has caused these trades to go quite well for portfolios, so far, in the beginning of 2017. We have a bit of a rotation right now. As you look at your accounts and your positions that we send you once a month, you’re going to notice that our precious metal position has now dwindled because of a great decay on options that we were hoping for. Likewise in crude oil and in coffee. The rotation in May and June is going to be more of a short position in grains. Anyone who has followed seasonal factors that we talk about from time to time, the grain market usually rallies in May and June only to look at plentiful supplies in September and October. Argentina and Brazil are in the process of producing record amounts of soybeans and, here in the United States, we’re going to be doing the same. We recently rotated out of some of our positions that have done extremely well for us so far in 2017. Into a short position in soybeans, we think that there will be plentiful supplies come this fall and we think that the calls we’ve sold quite highly recently are going to do very well. Natural gas is another market that we’ve been rotating into. Natural gas, of course, the supplies are plentiful. The market right now is trading around $3.00-$3.50. Here in the United States, the Permian Basin is producing record amounts of natural gas each and every single month. They’re producing natural gas for about $0.90 per million BTUs. We are short that market from approximately $6.50. We think we rotated into the correct market. We hope to see good returns both in the second and third quarter of this year. We see very good opportunities that we’re into right now and expected to be in coming in the next 30-60 days. We hope to see nice profits and potential return from the positions we’re in going through the rest of the second and third quarter. Anyone wanting more information from OptionSellers.com can visit our website. If you’re not already a client and wish to become one, you can contact Rosemary at our headquarters in Tampa about becoming one. As always, it’s a pleasure speaking with you and looking forward to doing so again in 2 weeks. Thank you.

Michael: Hello, everyone. This is Michael Gross, Director of Research here at OptionSellers.com. I’m here with Head Trader, James Cordier, with your monthly Option Sellers Audio/Video Podcast. James, welcome to the show. James: Thank you, Michael. As always, it’s a pleasure. Michael: we are going to talk a little bit about what’s going on in the world right now and we are going to get into some of our key markets for this month. James, obviously anybody watching the news this month has had quite a bit to look at. We have North Korean missile test, we have Russian bombers flying over the Alaskan Coast, so there’s a lot of geo-political things going on in the world right now. It’s bringing a lot of instability into a lot of people’s thoughts about what may be going on over the next several months in the markets. The VIX and the S&P is up 24% in one week here in April as a result of a lot of this. So, just overall, what’s your take on the month of April as far as the markets go? James: It’s interesting, Michael. Over the last 6-8 years we’ve had very little of the news that we’re looking at recently. There’s a lot of muscle flexing going on by both Russia and the United States, and maybe China coming up soon. It does have Wall Street a little bit jittery. As you said, the VIX is up some 24% recently and, actually, I think the VIX was testing multi-year lows. So, it always seems that something comes down the pipe to give everyone jitters and I saw the stock markets sold off here recently on some of the concerns going on around the Middle East and throughout Syria and North Korea. I think that’s a necessity to keep traders on their toes and to make sure the stock market and other markets aren’t always on a one-way street. A lot of the traders like the hustle and bustle of the markets going up and down and I guess we do, too. Michael: Well, we’ll see what happens. I know there’s been a lot of articles as of late. Ron Insana of CNBC, they recently had an article on their website talking about the two things that most often start bear markets and one of them was rising interest rates and the other one was the onset of war. So, let’s hope we don’t have anything like that, but something to keep in mind as you’re planning your stock portfolio or stock option portfolio for the spring and summer months here. Over on this side, we’re going to get into some of the commodities that we feel may be offering some opportunity this month. First on our list is we’re going to talk about the natural gas market. Obviously energy markets is some of the most seasonal markets in commodities. Natural gas, during the month of May, can be a very seasonal commodity. James, you want to give your take on that right now and what you see happening there? James: Michael, thank you. It’s very interesting throughout the year of the 12 commodities we follow. There will be certain times, sometimes the 1st quarter and sometimes the 2nd quarter of the year, that a certain commodity has the propensity to go up or down based on seasonality. Natural gas is certainly one of those. Generally, natural gas prices will rally during the months of March, April, and May, and then we start building supplies for summer cooling needs. What a lot of people are not familiar with is the fact that to cool vs. to hear requires only 10% of the natural gas that it does during the winter months. So, quite often, natural gas has a rally going into spring and summer thinking, “Well, it might be a hot summer” and it turns out that natural gas usage to cool homes and businesses in the winter is like 10% of what it takes to heat homes and businesses in the winter. Subsequently, the rallies in spring and summer do falter. Supplies of natural gas coincide this year with the seasonality of the market falling. We’re approximately 16% here in the United States over the 5-year average. What’s so interesting right now, Michael, is areas like the Permian Basin, which has new drilling for oil, new production for oil, and a lot of people talk about energy that way. The Permian Basin has supplied new production records for the first 5 months of this year. That’s expected to continue. Natural gas production in the United States to pull a million BTUs cost approximately $1. We have natural gas prices trading around $3-$3.50 per million BTUs. That’s a whole lot of anchor pulling this market down when you can produce something for 1/3rd of what you can sell it for. That’s a lot of downward pressure. We think that natural gas at around $3.50 right now per million BTUs is probably fair value for this time of the year. Going on to summer and fall, we probably expect natural gas to tweak down to around $3, and for seasonality traders and for what we’re doing for our clients right now is we’re positioning for weaker natural gas prices for the fall and winter of this year. We are selling natural gas options, right now, double the price of the current value. This is one of our favorite seasonal plays for 2017. We just started walking into it recently and, I think, later this fall and winter, a lot of these natural gas calls that we’re selling will likely be worthless and should definitely add to one’s portfolio this year. Michael: James, that’s a good point. You’re talking about those contract months that are going a little bit further out and you’re already looking at winter 2017-2018. When we’re looking at the supplies right now, as you talked about, we are 14-16% above the 5 year average for natural gas supplies, and when you’re talking about the seasonal and you have a situation right now where this winter is over, supply is starting to build again. As the supplies start to build, obviously that means you have higher supply in storage that also coincides with lower prices because as supply rises price often goes down. So, what you’re saying is we’ll go to the back contract months and take advantage of what we expect to be lower summer prices. That doesn’t mean we’re going to be getting those options all the way to December or January. If we do get to that decline, we could get out of these quite a bit sooner. James: Exactly, Michael. A lot of our clients, and some of the people following us today, are very familiar with what we call the early buy-back. Generally speaking, if you are writing options in a portfolio, of course, if you have a portfolio with us you’re familiar with this, if you’re selling options for $700-$800 per contract and you see them trading 6 months later at $70-$80 per contract, that’s a perfect candidate for an early buy-back. We will very unlikely hold these options until they mature this December and January. Of course, they mature or expire, should I say, a month before they’re named. Odds probably in October or November, a lot of the options that we’re selling now will probably be worth 10% of their initial price-- very good candidates for early buy-backs. A lot of investors who sell options in their portfolio, they are talking about selling 60-90 day options. We feel that the sweet spot for selling options if further out than that. The small movements that happen in the market, technical buying, technical selling, if you sell too short period of time, these small moves can knock you out of your position. We don’t want a headline to knock us out of our position, and that’s why we sell further out in time and price. If the sweet spot for selling options was a tighter amount of days, like 30 or 60 days, that’s what we would do. We feel that the opportunities for very high probability option selling is further out in time. We’re paid to wait and that’s what we do. Patience is the name of the game. When you’re selling based on fundamentals, it gives you the patience to stay into a market. When you’re selling an option simply because, “Well, the decay is supposed to be the quickest between 60 and 90 days” and the market goes against you, you don’t know why you’re in that position and that makes it very difficult to have patience and the wherewithal to stay with a market. If you’re selling options based on fundamentals like this position would be, when the market goes against you a little bit, it allows you to hang onto the position. Quite often, they’re going to expire worthless. You need to be patient. As long as the fundamental is on your side, you don’t mind waiting. Michael: Okay. Let’s talk a little bit more about that buy-back. We were going to do this at the end, but since you got into it now let’s go ahead and talk about it now. It’s an important point a lot of people, when they’re first getting into selling options, especially commodity options, they’re thinking that same point you brought up—“Oh, I need to sell 30-60 days.” Obviously, we prefer to sell longer than that because, often times, you’ll get a primarily portion of that decay long before those options are every scheduled to expire. So, a question I often get is, “Well, how do you know when to buy it back? What level do you wait for before you buy it back?” That’s probably a good question for you to answer. What do you look for? James: Sure. Once an option has decayed 85-90%, the majority of that premium is pure risk. When you’re collecting $700, the option is trading at $70, you really need to do very little homework after that. You’ve collected 90% of the potential premium. Buying back an option with 90 or 100 days still remaining on it, we do this, as you know, quite often. If the option is trading at 60 or 70 and there’s 100 days left on it, that option’s going to sit at that price for a long time. At that point, you’re really not getting paid to keep that risk involved in your account by holding that position. 9 times out of 10 that option is going to go to zero. 9 times out of 10 it would have been an okay idea to hang onto it. When managing portfolios, the risk/reward is always what you base all of your ideas on. You’ve collected 90% of the premium, you no longer have to watch the weather, you don’t have to watch the supplies, you don’t have to look at the calendar, you just need to place the order and buy the option back. Michael: Yeah, that’s a good question. Before the show here today we actually had a client visit. One of the things he was asking was, he was looking at his account saying, “Boy, I see we have a lot of expirations scheduled for September, October, November. Will it be then I can expect to realize the profits on these options?” That was the exact point I was explaining to him- no, not necessarily. You could be taking profits on these things in June, July, August if everything is going well. That was a point, especially if you’re new to commodities option selling or option selling in general, it’s a big point to realize- we’re not always holding these things to expiration. In fact, most of the time, you probably can buy them back early and cut that risk and put that capital into a different investment. If you’d like to learn more about the early buy-backs and looking at the fundamentals in some of these markets, the best resource we can recommend is our book, The Complete Guide to Option Selling: Third Edition. You can get it on our website at a little bit less than you’re going to pay at a bookstore or on Amazon. The link is www.optionsellers.com/book if you’d like to get your copy there. James, let’s move into our second market for this month. One of your all-time favorite markets: the coffee market. Right now, we’re at a key point in time where we’re right ahead of the Brazilian harvest. That can bring a very interesting seasonal into play, one that option sellers can use to their advantage. James, you want to give the overall synopsis of that market right now? James: Certainly, Michael. In 2016, parts of Brazilian’s coffee belt did experience extremely dry conditions and here’s where you need to do your homework just a little bit. Brazil is basically just a ginormous farm, whether it’s cocoa or soybeans or coffee or sugar, basically that’s what the Brazilian nation is made of. The coffee belt is enormous. In 2016, there were dry conditions in a lot of the coffee growing regions. It was primarily in the Robusta region of Brazil. We trade primarily Arabica coffee. The Arabica crop was doing extremely well last year, but all you heard about was the driest conditions in 15 years in Brazil. It primarily was hurting the Robusta crop. The Arabica crop did receive plenty of rain. That volatility and that news headlines that coffee was getting last year pumped up, especially coffee calls, giving it historic volatility that will now create extremely expensive coffee options this year, next year, and probably 3-4 years out. Believe it or not, it does hang on that long. This year, 2017-2018 crop, is the off-cycle year; however, Brazil is expected to produce nearly 50 million bags of coffee this year. Next year, the on-cycle for production would be approximately 60 million bags. This type of production doesn’t mean that coffee will never rise in price. Sometimes it will fall and sometimes it will go up. This prevents the really large move in a certain direction. When you’re able to make coffee beans to that extent, to kind of give you a focus idea, not that long ago Columbia was the largest producer of coffee, producing 10 or 20 million bags of coffee. Everyone counted on Columbian beans to supply the world. Brazil is now making 50 and 60 million bags of coffee. This year’s expected to be an off-cycle crop record year. Next year will likely be a record production year in Brazilian coffee. That is production that we see coming down the pike. How are supplies now? In the United States, it was just broadcast this past Monday that coffee supplies in the United States are at the largest level since they’ve been counting coffee beans starting in 2002. So, supplies here in the United States are at all-time highs. Production in the next 2-3 years is expected to be a record. Seasonality for coffee, as it normally rallies in April or May, the Brazilian starts in earnest in June, July, and August, these coffee beans then are looking for a home. That’s when prices tend to fall. Coffee recently has rallied up to 140-145 level. Selling coffee calls for late this year, beginning of next year, is just a sweet spot and an ideal candidate for option selling going forward for this year. The natural gas looks like a very good opportunity. Coffee is just a great way to diversify your account. We really love the aspects for coffee to be having probably an overabundance supply over the next year or two. We’ll be looking at selling coffee calls this year and next. Generally, you sell them in March and April and the market starts to fall as Brazilian products come in June and July. This year looks like it’s a good setup, as well. Michael: James, we’ve already had a pretty good downward move in coffee and I know you’ve been selling these most of the month. One thing I noticed is even with that downward move in prices, that volatility that we got from the drought you talked about back in the fall, that’s still in the market. So, you can see, even though you’ve had a downward move in prices, you can still sell coffee calls so much further above the market. That’s just the added value of that volatility that’s still working in there. James: The volatility is something, as we were discussing earlier, the VIX on Wall Street rallied some 24%. Volatility allows someone who maybe has missed a position or I missed a buy or I missed a sell on options, or basically anything else. On commodity options, that volatility allows the person who did get in on the low and the market’s rallying, you still have time to sell puts. A market that’s falling and you didn’t get in on the sell on gold calls or coffee calls or whatever it happened to be, that volatility allows you to not have to be in on the high or low day. The volatility still stays there and really gives the person the ability to take their fundamental analysis, put the position on even though you didn’t catch the low, you didn’t catch the high. The coffee market did weaken recently, just like we expected it to. We think that selling calls in coffee on subsequent rallies is still going to be a very good idea. Michael: So, the market’s over sold right now and we get a little bump, that might be an opportunity for some people that are watching this that might want to look to enter. That might be a good opportunity for doing that. James: We’ve been selling coffee calls with both hands here recently and it did just slide over the last week or so. The months of May usually has some up-turns in coffee, so we’re not expecting that coffee is going to be down and out for the rest of the year. We would expect some higher priced days in the coming month of May. We will be looking at that to add into our short position in coffee, yes. Michael: So, much like in the grain market, as the harvest begins supply start to rise and as supply rises that often contributes to an overall lower gravitational pull of prices. That’s what James is talking about taking advantage of here. If you would like to learn more about this trade and the coffee market, you can look at our blog post on coffee that was posted earlier this month. That is available on the blog. If you’re interested in learning more about the natural gas market, that is going to be the feature in our upcoming May Newsletter. You can certainly take a look at that. That should be in your mailbox and e-mail box somewhere on or around May 1st. Keep a look out for that. We also have a good feature in there this month on proper diversification and some of the best ways high-net-worth investors can use to diversify into alternative investments. Keep an eye out for that. James, I believe we’ve covered the topics we wanted to cover this month. For those of you who are interested in a potential managed portfolio with our firm, we do have no openings left available in May. We do have a handful still remaining for June, so if you’re interested in one of those remaining openings in June feel free to call the office this month. You can call Rosemary at 800-346-1949. She will schedule you a free consultation. Those will take place during the month of May for June openings, so if you’re interested in that please feel free to give her a call. James, any last words on the markets this month? James: Diversification really seems to be the word of the year right now. So many investors that seek our guidance and seek accounts with us, that is the word that everyone is using. No one is really quite sure what’s going to happen with the stock market or the economy, for that matter, and diversifying away from stocks is something, I think, a lot of investors are doing. We’re not sure if this economy is a 4% economy or a 1% economy. Lately, it’s going to be the latter, and it’s interesting to see how the stock market’s going to continue its ascent while that’s the case if the economy is slowing. Maybe demand for stocks and certain real estate and such might be waning. This is certainly a sweet spot for us and we certainly enjoy what a lot of investors are seeking right now. Michael: Well, it should be an interesting summer for stocks. Here in commodities, though, I think it’s business as usual and I think we’ll just keep doing what we are doing. Well, everybody, we’ve appreciated you watching this month and we will be back in 30 days. Have a great month of premium collection. We will talk to you in June.

What's your favorite sweat bath?  "The one I just took, and the one i'm going to take next."  Into sweat bathing and all the variations underneath. Defining what a sweat bath is:  Some kind of a chamber where the air is heated, purpose to induce sweat for bathing. A Finnish style sauna as part of the neighborhood swimming complex at a public space in San Francisco.  North Beach Pool.  It helps create neighborhood and community.  Interacting in a positive, life affirming way. Getting the (neighborhood) block into the sauna instead of the best sauna on the block. Lived and travelled extensively.  Prague, Washington DC, Norway, San Francisco. Sweat in the '70s.  An exciting time for counter cultural views of the world.  Renewed interest in bathing.  Hot Tubs, sweat lodges, saunas.  Wet Magazine.  The tragic tale:  AIDS epidemic.  Shut down public bathing almost overnight.  Mini dark ages of public bathing culture. Today: we are back into the renaissance.  Mikkel had started receiving calls from all over.  A whole gamut of people wanting to create their own sweat facilities.  People are doing what they're talking about.  Today is the most exciting time in bathing and sweat bathing he can ever imagine. Temascal and Sauna: centuries old traditions, developed separately, thousands of years ago. The epiphany for the book Sweat:  At the Finnish Sauna Society in Helsinki.  A worldwide phenomena.  Initially they were dots wanting to be connected.  Sweat bathing is as natural to humans as the baking of bread and the fermenting of grape. Cultures create their own type of sweat bath.  But no sweat bathing culture around the equator.  You just go outside and you can sweat. Sweat creates an altered consciousness state:  You go someplace else outside of your normal everyday life.  You are altering yourself.  A basic human need. The Dolphin Club:  Sauna and swim in the San Francisco Bay.  Sauna Talk. Different saunas have different rhythms and rituals. Spending time in the hot room:  He stays until he gets a good sweat.  He's learned to listen to his body.  It's not tied to a timer.  It's really important to get tuned into your body. The Sweat Summit.  Greg Moga made it happen.  Gathering folks to San Francisco to Mikhail Brodsky, founder and visionary for Archimedes Banya Put the BTUs into the banya.  Turkish bath, Finnish sauna, and a great restaurant/cafe with Russian style foods and beers. Brings people together that normally don't get together, in that very healthy way. Minneapolis:  Credit to the Sweat Summit, but Minneapolis has an emerging group of folks who are bringing forth the concept of sauna in the public realm.  612 Sauna Society. North American culture was missing this.  What is it about North American culture that misses.  We're getting closer to flipping the switch towards a time when there can be a public sauna in every block everywhere. Urban sauna revival.  Yoga, brew pubs.  A plan that makes sense economically, that can be applied in a wide scale. Mobile sauna akin to food trucks. Silicon Valley mobile sauna society.  A bunch of Finns.  Mikkel is the mascot. Infrared light bulb closets.  "I just don't get it." There are so many bad saunas in America.  We need to make it known that these are not good saunas and we need to change that. $50,000 to sponsor Sweat Summit 2.0.  Who'se in? The best part of a sauna session?  A collection of small moments that all add up to something wonderful. Water on the rocks is something that is so important, yet so many people are scared of doing that. No lecturing in the sauna.  Try to be diplomatic afterwards, but sauna is your own experience.  No ringing out your swimsuit onto the sauna rocks!  Not being preachy, yet understanding good sauna ethic. Read more about Mikkel Aaland here.

Good afternoon. This is James Cordier of OptionSellers.com, with a market update for March 28th. I thought we’d do something slightly different today. We’re going to talk about history, and then we’re going to talk about doing some very good option selling in 2016. Several years ago, many of you may remember Rita and Katrina slamming into the Gulf of Mexico and ripping out natural gas and crude oil platforms. At the time, natural gas prices starting to soar and people thinking “How are we ever going to find any natural gas? How are we ever going to get any more crude oil?” Prices spike. They go up some 40, 50, 60 percent basically overnight, and investors scramble to cover their shorts and go long commodities like natural gas. The entire time people are thinking “Well, natural gas will never come back down to the original price, certainly because of all the supply that has now come off of line. Two years later, of course, natural gas is trading below the price prior to the storms that hit, and now, in 2016, natural gas is trading at $1 per million BTUs, roughly one quarter of what the price was prior to the storms. History tells us a lot that supply and demand will change, based on prices and based on consumer consumption. What we’re looking at right now is we’re looking at coffee. Coffee market, several years ago, changed drastically, as Brazil at the time with the number one producer in the world received a freeze in southern portions of the growing regions. Coffee prices soar, one third of the coffee crop is demolished from the cold temperatures, and everyone scrambles to buy coffee and expecting it to never go back down to the original level. One year later, coffee prices are trading below the pre-freeze price, and once again, supply is irredundant. This year, 2016, coffee prices start rallying because of dry conditions. In some of the northern Robusta regions of Brazil, at the same time we have something called the mealybug, which is eating some of the coffee cherries, as well. Coffee prices start rallying from 115 up to 135, investors scramble to buy coffee and, low and behold, everyone’s worried about the weather again this year. 2016, Brazil is going to produce approximately 56 to 57 million bags, the largest crop ever in history, and we feel that October, November, and December of this year, prices will once again below the price that originally took place when the mealybug was announced and when dry conditions happened. With coffee now rallying, approximately 135 to 140 per pound, we’re looking at call selling opportunities going forward. We’re looking at the December contract, we’re looking at 220, 230, and 240 dollars per pound strike prices, roughly double the price of coffee. Coffee usually has its largest demand in the winter season, January, February, and March. A lot of consumers of coffee in the United States feel that they drink coffee daily year round, but actually we consume about 20% more coffee during the winter season, and then people go to summer drinks as it starts to warm in April and May. During April and May is when Brazil starts harvesting their crop, and this year is expected to be a record. April and May is the time to be short coffee. We’re going to start doing that this coming week, and we expect coffee prices to be far below current levels where they are right now. Selling 220 and 230 coffee calls is going to look like a very good investment, I think, this fall. We expect coffee prices to be roughly half of what the strike prices are. This is how you trade history, this is how you trade commodity options, and this is an opportunity to sell coffee calls in 2016. We expect this to be a great opportunity, and low hanging fruit, as we like to say. Anyone wanting more information from OptionSellers.com can visit our website. We’d be happy to get something right out to you. Feel free to contact Rosie and she can set you up with your own account, if you like. As always, it’s great chatting with you. I’m looking forward to doing so again in two weeks. Thank you.

Part I is a review of the “automotive stack” and note how there is no singular event that seems to affect disruptive change. From changing jobs to be done, modular design and manufacturing processes, powertrain evolution, urbanization, environmental interests, regulation and taxation. Part II is a review of a framework of analysis based on sources and uses of energy. Inputs, efficiency/losses, network effects and inertia, what can change and what can’t change. For a shot of theory, Horace reflects on the dichotomy of efficiency vs. efficacy when it comes to predicting change in the sector.

Chuck Frost, and Erin Fenley of the UCB Energy Office talk about their efforts to drive down electricity use on the Berkeley campus. This program will shift the onus for electricity use on each of the 28 Operating Units on Campus. Mypower.berkeley.eduTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 3: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, [00:00:30] a biweekly 30 minute program, bringing you interviews, featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 4: Hello and good afternoon. My name is Renee Rao and I'll be hosting today's show. Did you know UC Berkeley has an energy office and an energy incentive program? Our guest on spectrum this week are Chuck Frost, the first ever energy manager of the UC Berkeley campus and Aaron family, the energy office communication specialist. [00:01:00] They talked with Brad swift about the programs the energy office has launched to drive down electricity use on the Berkeley campus. Here's the interview, Speaker 1: Chuck Frost and Aaron Fenley. Welcome to spectrum. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. You work at the University of California Berkeley Energy Office. How did that come into being? Speaker 5: Well, the university hired a consultant to look at ways to save money on the campus. One of the things they came up with was to reestablish the energy [00:01:30] office. Speaker 1: Yeah. And that was about three or four years ago when bane consulting came in to check out what areas we could save money, um, on campus. And that was everything from payroll to energy management. So we dove in from there and it's part of operational excellence program. Actually through the energy management initiative we have created the energy office. We have also created an extensive outreach program which has its own goals and energy incentive program, which [00:02:00] has financial goals and then an energy policy which provides a framework. Speaker 5: Might there be, while the energy office actually tracks and monitors and assist the campus in reducing energy and we try to improve the building performance also. Is there anything that's really different the way your energy office is doing it that distinguishes you from other places? I think it's the number of dashboards we're using. We've got [00:02:30] almost a hundred installed on the smart meters and then also the incentive program or you could put the bill out into the campus. So the 28 operating units, if they beat their baseline or you will give them money. And this year we're giving them about $170,000 back to the campus, but it can go the other way starting next year and they could owe us two so it can go either way. It's a carrot in a stick. But out of the 28 opportunities this year, 20 received [00:03:00] money and two what Ellis and our goal is really to have no one, no HOAs and put the money back into the campus. Speaker 6: And how is it that you tie into the dashboard? Would the data, where do you collect the data? How do you tie it in? Speaker 5: Each building has a meter that monitors the incoming power to the building and that goes to an obvious is the name of the system. And then the pulse energy pulls off the obvious server to populate the dashboards [00:03:30] and kind of throws the bells and whistles on it. Speaker 6: Now are you able to use the data to reflect on the buildings efficiency its system? Speaker 5: It's actually can be used as a tool to identify when you have problems in the building. It's a, it'll throw up a flag. If you're doing too much energy after it learns you're building, it really knows how you'll drop. However, on a certain day and the weather and things like that, that's the model that is actually forms. It takes a few months to learn the building and actually it really a full seat, you know, a year. [00:04:00] And then once it identifies and learns and models who are building, then you can actually have threshold or limits that will flag your attention. If you have drawing too much or not enough, it can go either way. But that's a good indication. It's a lot better to have sub-metering in a building, but it's, it's very powerful just to have, you know, a smart meter in a building. And is there a move afoot to go to this sub-metering? Absolutely unfortunate. It just comes with a price and so it's very expensive. [00:04:30] But with the technology changing and wireless and things like that are being used a little bit more and I think it's coming down. So probably doable in the future. If you look at all the utilities on campus, we average between 30 and 35 million. That's for water, steam, gas and electricity. Speaker 1: And the electricity itself is about 17 yeah, Speaker 5: that's what he paid last year. Speaker 6: And so year to year as units start to save, you're able to give what back to them Speaker 5: when the, [00:05:00] the main meter at the campus drops down. That that's how we really determine and then we break it down into buildings, how much each of the buildings. But we actually look at the main meter also and then we are showing for the first time in a number of years where we actually did reduce and that an average of 2% creep was what we saw since the 90s Speaker 1: so so we can really avoid that creep by keeping the engineers in buildings. They've been divided into zones to work [00:05:30] in specific areas on the campus in order to understand the buildings, know what's going on there, work with the building managers in order to keep them tuned up so that the creep doesn't happen. Speaker 6: And that's the front line? Yes, it's the building engineers and building managers. Speaker 1: Well through the energy office there are stationary engineers, electrical engineers that are working in the zones with building managers in order to make that work happen. Speaker 5: So even though the skilled trades, Speaker 1: our goal goals a little bit different [00:06:00] than a traditional stationary engineer example where we're looking at kilowatts and BTUs, we want to help in any way we can and improve the building. But our focus is really energy. So we work with the shops but we have a different spin on it. So this past year a lot of the work that was very significant in reducing energy use was through variable fan drives. Yeah. Speaker 5: Both frequency drive. So anytime you can vary the flow on a large motor, whether it's pumping water pumping here you can [00:06:30] actually, once you reduce that substantial savings. So we saw a lot of opportunities and repairing dries, putting in new drives and things like that. Speaker 1: You kind of have more of a consultant role Speaker 5: in a sense. We like to say we're looking and um, some people will call it low hanging fruit. They don't cost a lot of money to invest in, but it could be scheduled changes. You could be heating and cooling at the same time. There's a lot, actually a lot of savings in those two areas and really don't have to spend a lot. You [00:07:00] just have to identify what I'm an example in this building we're in right now, it was a while ago, they actually had a painting project, so they wanted the fans to run 24 seven and it was one of the professors at notice will look at the dashboard and how come the energy use went up and it didn't go back down. So by him asking that question, we investigated and we found out that they had put all the fans in hand. There was no schedule to shut down at night so that that was about a $45,000 [00:07:30] avoidance would have been allowed to run the rest of the year. So those kinds of things, that's what the dashboard really helps a lot of people a lot of highest looking. So you can see what's going on and start asking the questions, why do I have this little blip of power? Why does it jump up like this? And the energy officer will go out and investigate it and sometimes it's just interviewing people. Sometimes it's walking through mechanical rooms and every building has a story. So you have to kind of dig into it. Speaker 7: [inaudible] mm, Speaker 4: [00:08:00] you're all sitting just spectrum on k a Alex Berkley. Our guests today are chuck frost and Aaron finally from the UC Berkeley Energy Office. In the next segment they talk about changing behavior to save energy Speaker 1: and what sort of outreach programs are you operating to try to just drum up support and awareness. We do have a energy management resource center right here in Barrows Hall Room One 92 [00:08:30] and people can stop by and pick up posters and flyers and light switch stickers can get information about saving energy, specifically in labs, residence halls and office spaces. You can also come there or email us@mypoweratberkeley.edu and set up a time to have our student team and we have an amazing student team who conduct surveys in offices, labs. We come in and take a nice observational survey [00:09:00] of what's going on in the spaces, um, leave stickers and materials to help that area find out more about what they can do. People here on campus are already doing so much to save energy, but there hasn't been a single place that we've gone to that we haven't found a few recommendations, uh, to give. So we provide personalized recommendations to that area. Then we post those on our website so they can be downloaded by the whole office or whole lab. And Speaker 5: would someone get involved if they're interested in becoming part of [00:09:30] the student team? Speaker 1: We just hired our student team for the semester, so all of our positions are filled currently. However you can stay in touch with us through our website and through Facebook where I post different internships that are available and they come up each semester. Yeah. Speaker 5: On the maintenance and new building side of things, there's obviously an ongoing maintenance that's required by all the buildings and are you folks involved in specifying improvements that could be [00:10:00] integrated into that maintenance process? We actually try to help with the maintenance too, but again we are looking at, everything we do has to be related to energy savings, so things like just clean filters. We'll save energy because there's less draw on the fans. It's an ongoing challenge, you know with the funding and things like that for an adequate maintenance, but it's improving and it's starting to turn, which is really good. It really needs to campus because of the age does [00:10:30] require a lot of maintenance on the different systems and things like that. And with new construction, do you get involved in decisions that are being made about what to put in the various buildings? That would be the policy that Aaron was mentioning earlier. We actually, with the new energy policy, we tried to insert ourselves pretty early into the design phases of the project. Actually in the very early design conception is where we want to be inserted. So we can talk about that. And are there [00:11:00] other sort of stakeholders, groups like yours that get drawn into that process Speaker 1: about energy efficiency or other things? Oh, other things? Well, I mean you could relate it to accessibility issues in a building. It's a very similar type of thing. You're going to build that in in the beginning too. Campus buildings these days, it's not going to be an afterthought and we want energy efficiency to be seen the same way. Speaker 5: And Are you, you're pretty much limited to off the shelf kind of technology at this point. There's no way for you to really work with anyone on campus [00:11:30] on creating some new technology that might, aren't working with certain groups. The Center for built environment, they're doing a research project right now on personal comfort units, which the focus is right at your desk and not a zone, the whole room. And they actually having some pretty amazing results. They have also a heating and cooling chair. So you actually heat the whole building just there as you need. And so the goal is to try to get people to trade in their heaters [00:12:00] that they've got underneath the desk that they bring in from home and they don't want anybody to know about that draw 1500 watts of power with one of these more efficient, uh, personal comfort units, which draw about 40 watts. So they're actually, I had one in my office and I, I hated to give it up, but they had to use it for the research, but it really works good. It's very interesting some of the work they're doing. Speaker 1: I also worked with some students in computer science in order to help us develop a mobile available [00:12:30] site for our dashboards because right now in pulse dashboards or flash and they don't display on mobile devices or tablets. So some of our computer science students help to develop an html version where we're showcasing about half the buildings that are available on pulse. However, you can access those through your mobile device now. And is it just a matter of time before you get them all hauled? The building's done that way. I certainly hope so. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it is. An ongoing project. Speaker 5: [00:13:00] There is opportunity for innovation that you're finding within absolutely. The campus people are coming to you with ideas which you encourage them. Yes, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. That's exciting. That's the best part of my job actually is meeting some of the people I'd never get to meet otherwise are doing some really neat research and it's cutting edge and to look at the campus as a lab. It really is because of the diversity in buildings and we've got some buildings that are a hundred years old and [00:13:30] on the behavioral side, what sort of push do you make there and how successful is that? Speaker 1: We have been developing a lot of elements for our behavior change campaign, the my power campaign, reaching out to all of campus saying that everyone has a role to play in reducing energy use. We can all turn the lights off, we can all unplug things when we're done with them. We've put out about 10,000 stickers around [00:14:00] campus reminding people to shut the lights off, reminding people to turn their monitors off and those had been put up through student teams. They've also been put up through our power agent team, which is a group of very committed champions of energy efficiency here on campus. Most of them staff members, a few students. And they are also along with our engineers, some eyes and ears of the buildings on campus and they can keep us updated on things that are happening in those areas where they work and study. Speaker 5: [00:14:30] Oh, I'd like to say that we value anybody's input. And you know, I've had people that are gardeners or browns and I've had custodians and various groups that will say, you know, the light was on and you know, the buildings lights are on and things like that and brought it to her attention. So it's just everybody's health. We can do this. It's going to a group effort. Everybody's working together. Speaker 1: Absolutely. And anyone who wants to report any type of oddities [00:15:00] or anomalies and energy use, sending an email to my power@berkeley.edu gets our whole team's attention and we get back to everyone within 48 hours and get on the problem. So those types of reports have really helped us resolve some issues Speaker 6: other than electricity. You deal with natural gas. Steam is a big part of the campus as well. And how does water fit into that as issues? Speaker 5: Right now we're just focused on electricity, [00:15:30] they initial phase, but we will expand into it, you know, working closely with the sustainability office and, and water is very important in steam and yeah, Speaker 1: our dashboards even have capabilities of showing water usage and steam usage. But right now we're pretty single minded in our focus on energy efficiency and reducing permanently reducing the amount of energy we use on campus. But the campus does have a goal of reducing potable water use to 10% below 2008 levels by 2020 [00:16:00] and you can find out all about that@sustainabilitydotberkeley.eduSpeaker 3: [inaudible]Speaker 8: spectrum is a public affairs show on k a Alex Berkeley. Our guest are chuck frost and Aaron Penley in the UC Berkeley Energy Office. In the next segment they talk about new technologies and surprising collaborations. Speaker 6: And how does the steam system [00:16:30] here interact? It's shared, right? It's across a large group of the buildings or not because not all the buildings are on the steam [inaudible] Speaker 5: on the core, you know you have some remote buildings that have boilers and things like that and so you're not using electricity at all to develop the steam. Oh, that is correct. So it's just all, it's usually natural gas or gas to do that. Speaker 1: But isn't the steam a byproduct of the electricity production? Speaker 5: You're absolutely right. We have a cogent plant that does cause of the [00:17:00] turbine generate steam that we traditionally use and then we have on boilers that are kind of a backup to that now. Speaker 6: So that's then on top of the power you draw from PGNE the cogeneration. Speaker 1: We actually produce that energy and then sell it back to BJ to PGNE and then we buy it back. Speaker 5: We give 10 cents is the number we typically give because it's kind of a blend, an average of what we pay Speaker 6: [inaudible] I'm interested in the new technology that you're looking [00:17:30] at. Speaker 5: I think fault detection has actually been around for awhile with your control systems. You trended in the building and then you traditionally would analyze it, an engineer or somebody would look in and analyze it. So you automate that. And so what is really changed, and I think it's really good for the industry, the HVAC industry, is you've got people like Google and Microsoft and people that were never in the game before. Now I want to start mining the data from the buildings, analyzing that data for a fee and helping [00:18:00] with the fault detection. So it's a game changer at the industry. Probably in the last five years has changed more than it did 25 years before that. It's amazing. So we got new players in the game and wireless as well. Wireless is very big too. Yeah. The technology, Speaker 6: is it proving to be as reliable as copper wire? Speaker 5: I think it is. It's starting to be embraced by everybody. You have different technologies, ones that require repeaters and then you have mo technology, then self networking [00:18:30] and things like that. So even now we've got pilots going on that are pneumatic thermostats that are really wireless electronic thermostats that go back to a server and the pneumatic combined. And so that allows us to get down to the zone level to really control a building and really look for the energy. A zone would be like the room we're in now and then with the new wireless lighting that actually it looks at occupancy, it looks at a temperature. Also you can start pulling and really getting a good profile or [00:19:00] you're building when the energy is and when it's occupied and things like that. So those newer technologies are very promising. Speaker 6: Obviously you're going to drive the use and drive efficiency at cow and it's going to get harder and harder to reduce the use. Your Delta is going to get smaller and smaller. Where do you find new efficiencies? Speaker 5: We like to call it mining for Golden Nuggets and the nuggets are harder and they're deeper to find as you move forward, [00:19:30] that's for sure. But we've been working with a Berkeley national lab and also the Pacific Northwest National Lab and PGNE Energy Center and facility dynamics on ways to train our technicians to, to find those golden nuggets. So we're putting the technicians out in the field as we mentioned in zones in the learn the buildings and then they'll get the deeper look at the buildings once they understand the buildings, get more familiar with it. So that's where we're hoping to continue the process. But it is it, you're absolutely right. It's harder. You keep going in [00:20:00] whether you call a golden eye, gets her low hanging fruit, there's less and less. This orchard has been picked over pretty good. Speaker 6: This is what's the legacy of your data collection and distribution at this point? Speaker 1: Oh, right now we started April, 2011 and we are just now finishing up our first annual report that contains all of our, our data from the initiative since the inception, so that will be released as soon as it is approved. It is in its final [00:20:30] draft stage. Speaker 5: What was the biggest surprise for you when you started this process? I don't know if it was a surprise, but I was just amazed at how much of the small little pockets of research that are going on than it actually looking people coming forward. And I'd never heard of the before the center for built environment and just amazing what they had been doing for 20 years and they were a great group and they really understand building comfort and the looking at new technologies and things like that. So this personal comfort unit and [00:21:00] again David Color and computer science students, that was just an early surprised me. And then it would be looking at energy and buildings and some of the tools they've shown savings with lighting and just the smart apps they were developing and where they could track you through a building. They knew what you liked in lighting and and the environment and they could actually start to modify the building and the interface with the control system at the building over citrus in the Er. It was just amazing to me. It was a surprise. Okay. Speaker 9: And the biggest challenge going forward [00:21:30] in near term Speaker 1: for you guys is what? I think for me it's to keep reminding people that we're not done and we still have to keep remembering to incorporate energy efficiency into our daily actions. One of the most surprising and interesting things in this work has been seeing what people's attitudes towards energy efficiency are and some people believe that they're doing everything that they possibly can and we continually find that there's probably even more that [00:22:00] you could do somehow or another. So continuing to incorporate that into your daily work routine or your daily coming to school routine is very important. Speaker 9: Chuck Frost and Aaron Fendley, thanks very much for being on spectrum. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much and good luck with saving energy. Thank you. Speaker 8: [00:22:30] If you're interested in reducing energy use at cau, visit the website, my power.berkeley.edu there you'll find building dashboards and strategies for taking action. Speaker 3: [inaudible]Speaker 8: spectrum shows are also archived on iTunes university. We've created a simple link for you. The link is tiny url.com/cadillacs [00:23:00] spectrum here at spectrum. We like to highlight a few of the sides to technology events happening locally. Over the next few weeks. Brad swift and I Speaker 9: present the calendar. The last few days of the bay area science festival are this weekend tonight in San Francisco, science improv blitz where comics and phd students synthesize laughs for the sake of amusement and learning. This is happening at the south of Market Street Food Park [00:23:30] four 28 11th street from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM this is a festival event and free discovery days at at and t park. A T and t park will become a science wonder and when Bay Area Science Festival Speaker 4: concludes again with the Free Science Extravaganza last year, more than 30,000 people enjoyed a nonstop program chock full of interactive exhibits, experiments, games, and shows all meant to entertain and inspire [00:24:00] with more than 150 exhibits or something for everyone to unleash their inner scientist. This festival grand finale is Saturday, November 2nd at the home of the San Francisco baseball giants at 24 Willie Mays plaza in San Francisco. It opens at 11:00 AM and runs until 4:00 PM Speaker 9: the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Berkeley City College will host a free public talk on verifying greenhouse gas emissions by Dr Inez Fung as part of the lecture series, not on the [00:24:30] test, the pleasures and uses of mathematics. Dr Inez Fung is a contributing author to the assessment reports of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, a scientific body under the auspices of the United Nations. Dr Fung will discuss how we measure and verify claims about emissions related to global warming. Dr Fung is a professor of atmospheric science at UC Berkeley where she has studied climate change for 20 years and has created mathematical models that represent [00:25:00] CO2 sources and sinks around the globe. The event will be held in Berkeley City College Auditorium on Wednesday, November six from 7:00 PM to 8:15 PM RSVP for the free event online@msri.org Speaker 4: the November installation of the monthly lecture series. Science of cow will focus on art inspired by science and mathematics. You see Berkeley Professor Carlos equin will speak about how math and computers [00:25:30] are being used to create new artwork every day. He will also try to answer the nearly insoluble question of whether art or science came. First. Professor sequined began his career at bell labs as part of the group that created the first solid state image sensor compatible with American broadcast television. He later joined the faculty at UC Berkeley where he eventually focused on the development of computer aided design tools for architects and mechanical engineers. Professor sequent has also collaborated with many artists over the years to make the most of computers [00:26:00] and the emerging rapid prototyping tools to create geometrical sculptures and a wide range of scales and materials. The lecture will be held at 11:00 AM on Saturday, November 16th in room 100 of the genetics and plant biology building on the UC Berkeley campus. The lecture is free and open to the public haired spectrum. We like to share our favorite stories about science. Brad Swift joins me for the news Speaker 9: science daily reports that scientists at the University of Wisconsin Madison [00:26:30] have constructed a three dimensional model of the so-called missing link, cold virus, Rhino virus c Rhino Virus C is believed to be responsible for up to half of all childhood colds and is a serious complicating factor for respiratory conditions such as asthma. Together with Rhino viruses, a n B. The recently discovered virus is responsible for millions of illnesses yearly at an estimated annual cost of more than $40 billion in the United States alone. [00:27:00] Because of the three cold virus strains all contribute to the common cold drug. Candidates that focused on rhinoviruses a and B failed antiviral drugs work by attaching to and modifying surface features of the virus. This highly detailed three dimensional structure for rhinovirus c will give pharmaceutical companies new targets for designing cold thwarting drugs. Speaker 4: UC Berkeley scientists have designed a satellite [00:27:30] that could detect large fires across the western United States by snapping a constant stream of photos of the earth below. Then scanning them for new hotspots that could indicate wildfires. The UC Berkeley teen described their plans for the satellite known as the fire urgency estimate or in geosynchronous orbit or flags. In the October 17th issue of the Journal. Remote Sensing Lego works by analyzing its infrared photos using a computer algorithm to detect differences in the land, especially bright lights [00:28:00] that may be fledgling fires. The program can analyze the entire west in minutes. Creators hope that the early detection of wildfires help to prevent loss of life and widespread damage that usually occur as a result of extensive wildfires. Researchers hope to raise the several hundred million dollars required to build the satellite through a combination of public and private means. Speaker 9: The Northern California chapter of the Society of professional journalists has awarded greater good science center editor in chief [00:28:30] Jason Marsh, uh, 2013, excellence in journalism award for his story. Why inequality is bad for the 1% a gripping look at how income disparity can negatively impact both the wealthy and the poor. Relying on cutting edge research. Jason's story illustrates the ways in which having wealth may adversely affect an individual's ability to be compassionate, understand social cues, and trust others. Those deficiencies can hinder social connection, a key part [00:29:00] of our happiness and our physical health. To read the article, go to the website. Greater good.berkeley.edu Speaker 7: [inaudible].Speaker 9: The music heard during the show was written and produced by Alex Simon Speaker 7: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments [00:29:30] about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum dot klx@yahoo.com join us in two at this Speaker 2: time. [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chuck Frost, and Erin Fenley of the UCB Energy Office talk about their efforts to drive down electricity use on the Berkeley campus. This program will shift the onus for electricity use on each of the 28 Operating Units on Campus. Mypower.berkeley.eduTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 3: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, [00:00:30] a biweekly 30 minute program, bringing you interviews, featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 4: Hello and good afternoon. My name is Renee Rao and I'll be hosting today's show. Did you know UC Berkeley has an energy office and an energy incentive program? Our guest on spectrum this week are Chuck Frost, the first ever energy manager of the UC Berkeley campus and Aaron family, the energy office communication specialist. [00:01:00] They talked with Brad swift about the programs the energy office has launched to drive down electricity use on the Berkeley campus. Here's the interview, Speaker 1: Chuck Frost and Aaron Fenley. Welcome to spectrum. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. You work at the University of California Berkeley Energy Office. How did that come into being? Speaker 5: Well, the university hired a consultant to look at ways to save money on the campus. One of the things they came up with was to reestablish the energy [00:01:30] office. Speaker 1: Yeah. And that was about three or four years ago when bane consulting came in to check out what areas we could save money, um, on campus. And that was everything from payroll to energy management. So we dove in from there and it's part of operational excellence program. Actually through the energy management initiative we have created the energy office. We have also created an extensive outreach program which has its own goals and energy incentive program, which [00:02:00] has financial goals and then an energy policy which provides a framework. Speaker 5: Might there be, while the energy office actually tracks and monitors and assist the campus in reducing energy and we try to improve the building performance also. Is there anything that's really different the way your energy office is doing it that distinguishes you from other places? I think it's the number of dashboards we're using. We've got [00:02:30] almost a hundred installed on the smart meters and then also the incentive program or you could put the bill out into the campus. So the 28 operating units, if they beat their baseline or you will give them money. And this year we're giving them about $170,000 back to the campus, but it can go the other way starting next year and they could owe us two so it can go either way. It's a carrot in a stick. But out of the 28 opportunities this year, 20 received [00:03:00] money and two what Ellis and our goal is really to have no one, no HOAs and put the money back into the campus. Speaker 6: And how is it that you tie into the dashboard? Would the data, where do you collect the data? How do you tie it in? Speaker 5: Each building has a meter that monitors the incoming power to the building and that goes to an obvious is the name of the system. And then the pulse energy pulls off the obvious server to populate the dashboards [00:03:30] and kind of throws the bells and whistles on it. Speaker 6: Now are you able to use the data to reflect on the buildings efficiency its system? Speaker 5: It's actually can be used as a tool to identify when you have problems in the building. It's a, it'll throw up a flag. If you're doing too much energy after it learns you're building, it really knows how you'll drop. However, on a certain day and the weather and things like that, that's the model that is actually forms. It takes a few months to learn the building and actually it really a full seat, you know, a year. [00:04:00] And then once it identifies and learns and models who are building, then you can actually have threshold or limits that will flag your attention. If you have drawing too much or not enough, it can go either way. But that's a good indication. It's a lot better to have sub-metering in a building, but it's, it's very powerful just to have, you know, a smart meter in a building. And is there a move afoot to go to this sub-metering? Absolutely unfortunate. It just comes with a price and so it's very expensive. [00:04:30] But with the technology changing and wireless and things like that are being used a little bit more and I think it's coming down. So probably doable in the future. If you look at all the utilities on campus, we average between 30 and 35 million. That's for water, steam, gas and electricity. Speaker 1: And the electricity itself is about 17 yeah, Speaker 5: that's what he paid last year. Speaker 6: And so year to year as units start to save, you're able to give what back to them Speaker 5: when the, [00:05:00] the main meter at the campus drops down. That that's how we really determine and then we break it down into buildings, how much each of the buildings. But we actually look at the main meter also and then we are showing for the first time in a number of years where we actually did reduce and that an average of 2% creep was what we saw since the 90s Speaker 1: so so we can really avoid that creep by keeping the engineers in buildings. They've been divided into zones to work [00:05:30] in specific areas on the campus in order to understand the buildings, know what's going on there, work with the building managers in order to keep them tuned up so that the creep doesn't happen. Speaker 6: And that's the front line? Yes, it's the building engineers and building managers. Speaker 1: Well through the energy office there are stationary engineers, electrical engineers that are working in the zones with building managers in order to make that work happen. Speaker 5: So even though the skilled trades, Speaker 1: our goal goals a little bit different [00:06:00] than a traditional stationary engineer example where we're looking at kilowatts and BTUs, we want to help in any way we can and improve the building. But our focus is really energy. So we work with the shops but we have a different spin on it. So this past year a lot of the work that was very significant in reducing energy use was through variable fan drives. Yeah. Speaker 5: Both frequency drive. So anytime you can vary the flow on a large motor, whether it's pumping water pumping here you can [00:06:30] actually, once you reduce that substantial savings. So we saw a lot of opportunities and repairing dries, putting in new drives and things like that. Speaker 1: You kind of have more of a consultant role Speaker 5: in a sense. We like to say we're looking and um, some people will call it low hanging fruit. They don't cost a lot of money to invest in, but it could be scheduled changes. You could be heating and cooling at the same time. There's a lot, actually a lot of savings in those two areas and really don't have to spend a lot. You [00:07:00] just have to identify what I'm an example in this building we're in right now, it was a while ago, they actually had a painting project, so they wanted the fans to run 24 seven and it was one of the professors at notice will look at the dashboard and how come the energy use went up and it didn't go back down. So by him asking that question, we investigated and we found out that they had put all the fans in hand. There was no schedule to shut down at night so that that was about a $45,000 [00:07:30] avoidance would have been allowed to run the rest of the year. So those kinds of things, that's what the dashboard really helps a lot of people a lot of highest looking. So you can see what's going on and start asking the questions, why do I have this little blip of power? Why does it jump up like this? And the energy officer will go out and investigate it and sometimes it's just interviewing people. Sometimes it's walking through mechanical rooms and every building has a story. So you have to kind of dig into it. Speaker 7: [inaudible] mm, Speaker 4: [00:08:00] you're all sitting just spectrum on k a Alex Berkley. Our guests today are chuck frost and Aaron finally from the UC Berkeley Energy Office. In the next segment they talk about changing behavior to save energy Speaker 1: and what sort of outreach programs are you operating to try to just drum up support and awareness. We do have a energy management resource center right here in Barrows Hall Room One 92 [00:08:30] and people can stop by and pick up posters and flyers and light switch stickers can get information about saving energy, specifically in labs, residence halls and office spaces. You can also come there or email us@mypoweratberkeley.edu and set up a time to have our student team and we have an amazing student team who conduct surveys in offices, labs. We come in and take a nice observational survey [00:09:00] of what's going on in the spaces, um, leave stickers and materials to help that area find out more about what they can do. People here on campus are already doing so much to save energy, but there hasn't been a single place that we've gone to that we haven't found a few recommendations, uh, to give. So we provide personalized recommendations to that area. Then we post those on our website so they can be downloaded by the whole office or whole lab. And Speaker 5: would someone get involved if they're interested in becoming part of [00:09:30] the student team? Speaker 1: We just hired our student team for the semester, so all of our positions are filled currently. However you can stay in touch with us through our website and through Facebook where I post different internships that are available and they come up each semester. Yeah. Speaker 5: On the maintenance and new building side of things, there's obviously an ongoing maintenance that's required by all the buildings and are you folks involved in specifying improvements that could be [00:10:00] integrated into that maintenance process? We actually try to help with the maintenance too, but again we are looking at, everything we do has to be related to energy savings, so things like just clean filters. We'll save energy because there's less draw on the fans. It's an ongoing challenge, you know with the funding and things like that for an adequate maintenance, but it's improving and it's starting to turn, which is really good. It really needs to campus because of the age does [00:10:30] require a lot of maintenance on the different systems and things like that. And with new construction, do you get involved in decisions that are being made about what to put in the various buildings? That would be the policy that Aaron was mentioning earlier. We actually, with the new energy policy, we tried to insert ourselves pretty early into the design phases of the project. Actually in the very early design conception is where we want to be inserted. So we can talk about that. And are there [00:11:00] other sort of stakeholders, groups like yours that get drawn into that process Speaker 1: about energy efficiency or other things? Oh, other things? Well, I mean you could relate it to accessibility issues in a building. It's a very similar type of thing. You're going to build that in in the beginning too. Campus buildings these days, it's not going to be an afterthought and we want energy efficiency to be seen the same way. Speaker 5: And Are you, you're pretty much limited to off the shelf kind of technology at this point. There's no way for you to really work with anyone on campus [00:11:30] on creating some new technology that might, aren't working with certain groups. The Center for built environment, they're doing a research project right now on personal comfort units, which the focus is right at your desk and not a zone, the whole room. And they actually having some pretty amazing results. They have also a heating and cooling chair. So you actually heat the whole building just there as you need. And so the goal is to try to get people to trade in their heaters [00:12:00] that they've got underneath the desk that they bring in from home and they don't want anybody to know about that draw 1500 watts of power with one of these more efficient, uh, personal comfort units, which draw about 40 watts. So they're actually, I had one in my office and I, I hated to give it up, but they had to use it for the research, but it really works good. It's very interesting some of the work they're doing. Speaker 1: I also worked with some students in computer science in order to help us develop a mobile available [00:12:30] site for our dashboards because right now in pulse dashboards or flash and they don't display on mobile devices or tablets. So some of our computer science students help to develop an html version where we're showcasing about half the buildings that are available on pulse. However, you can access those through your mobile device now. And is it just a matter of time before you get them all hauled? The building's done that way. I certainly hope so. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it is. An ongoing project. Speaker 5: [00:13:00] There is opportunity for innovation that you're finding within absolutely. The campus people are coming to you with ideas which you encourage them. Yes, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. That's exciting. That's the best part of my job actually is meeting some of the people I'd never get to meet otherwise are doing some really neat research and it's cutting edge and to look at the campus as a lab. It really is because of the diversity in buildings and we've got some buildings that are a hundred years old and [00:13:30] on the behavioral side, what sort of push do you make there and how successful is that? Speaker 1: We have been developing a lot of elements for our behavior change campaign, the my power campaign, reaching out to all of campus saying that everyone has a role to play in reducing energy use. We can all turn the lights off, we can all unplug things when we're done with them. We've put out about 10,000 stickers around [00:14:00] campus reminding people to shut the lights off, reminding people to turn their monitors off and those had been put up through student teams. They've also been put up through our power agent team, which is a group of very committed champions of energy efficiency here on campus. Most of them staff members, a few students. And they are also along with our engineers, some eyes and ears of the buildings on campus and they can keep us updated on things that are happening in those areas where they work and study. Speaker 5: [00:14:30] Oh, I'd like to say that we value anybody's input. And you know, I've had people that are gardeners or browns and I've had custodians and various groups that will say, you know, the light was on and you know, the buildings lights are on and things like that and brought it to her attention. So it's just everybody's health. We can do this. It's going to a group effort. Everybody's working together. Speaker 1: Absolutely. And anyone who wants to report any type of oddities [00:15:00] or anomalies and energy use, sending an email to my power@berkeley.edu gets our whole team's attention and we get back to everyone within 48 hours and get on the problem. So those types of reports have really helped us resolve some issues Speaker 6: other than electricity. You deal with natural gas. Steam is a big part of the campus as well. And how does water fit into that as issues? Speaker 5: Right now we're just focused on electricity, [00:15:30] they initial phase, but we will expand into it, you know, working closely with the sustainability office and, and water is very important in steam and yeah, Speaker 1: our dashboards even have capabilities of showing water usage and steam usage. But right now we're pretty single minded in our focus on energy efficiency and reducing permanently reducing the amount of energy we use on campus. But the campus does have a goal of reducing potable water use to 10% below 2008 levels by 2020 [00:16:00] and you can find out all about that@sustainabilitydotberkeley.eduSpeaker 3: [inaudible]Speaker 8: spectrum is a public affairs show on k a Alex Berkeley. Our guest are chuck frost and Aaron Penley in the UC Berkeley Energy Office. In the next segment they talk about new technologies and surprising collaborations. Speaker 6: And how does the steam system [00:16:30] here interact? It's shared, right? It's across a large group of the buildings or not because not all the buildings are on the steam [inaudible] Speaker 5: on the core, you know you have some remote buildings that have boilers and things like that and so you're not using electricity at all to develop the steam. Oh, that is correct. So it's just all, it's usually natural gas or gas to do that. Speaker 1: But isn't the steam a byproduct of the electricity production? Speaker 5: You're absolutely right. We have a cogent plant that does cause of the [00:17:00] turbine generate steam that we traditionally use and then we have on boilers that are kind of a backup to that now. Speaker 6: So that's then on top of the power you draw from PGNE the cogeneration. Speaker 1: We actually produce that energy and then sell it back to BJ to PGNE and then we buy it back. Speaker 5: We give 10 cents is the number we typically give because it's kind of a blend, an average of what we pay Speaker 6: [inaudible] I'm interested in the new technology that you're looking [00:17:30] at. Speaker 5: I think fault detection has actually been around for awhile with your control systems. You trended in the building and then you traditionally would analyze it, an engineer or somebody would look in and analyze it. So you automate that. And so what is really changed, and I think it's really good for the industry, the HVAC industry, is you've got people like Google and Microsoft and people that were never in the game before. Now I want to start mining the data from the buildings, analyzing that data for a fee and helping [00:18:00] with the fault detection. So it's a game changer at the industry. Probably in the last five years has changed more than it did 25 years before that. It's amazing. So we got new players in the game and wireless as well. Wireless is very big too. Yeah. The technology, Speaker 6: is it proving to be as reliable as copper wire? Speaker 5: I think it is. It's starting to be embraced by everybody. You have different technologies, ones that require repeaters and then you have mo technology, then self networking [00:18:30] and things like that. So even now we've got pilots going on that are pneumatic thermostats that are really wireless electronic thermostats that go back to a server and the pneumatic combined. And so that allows us to get down to the zone level to really control a building and really look for the energy. A zone would be like the room we're in now and then with the new wireless lighting that actually it looks at occupancy, it looks at a temperature. Also you can start pulling and really getting a good profile or [00:19:00] you're building when the energy is and when it's occupied and things like that. So those newer technologies are very promising. Speaker 6: Obviously you're going to drive the use and drive efficiency at cow and it's going to get harder and harder to reduce the use. Your Delta is going to get smaller and smaller. Where do you find new efficiencies? Speaker 5: We like to call it mining for Golden Nuggets and the nuggets are harder and they're deeper to find as you move forward, [00:19:30] that's for sure. But we've been working with a Berkeley national lab and also the Pacific Northwest National Lab and PGNE Energy Center and facility dynamics on ways to train our technicians to, to find those golden nuggets. So we're putting the technicians out in the field as we mentioned in zones in the learn the buildings and then they'll get the deeper look at the buildings once they understand the buildings, get more familiar with it. So that's where we're hoping to continue the process. But it is it, you're absolutely right. It's harder. You keep going in [00:20:00] whether you call a golden eye, gets her low hanging fruit, there's less and less. This orchard has been picked over pretty good. Speaker 6: This is what's the legacy of your data collection and distribution at this point? Speaker 1: Oh, right now we started April, 2011 and we are just now finishing up our first annual report that contains all of our, our data from the initiative since the inception, so that will be released as soon as it is approved. It is in its final [00:20:30] draft stage. Speaker 5: What was the biggest surprise for you when you started this process? I don't know if it was a surprise, but I was just amazed at how much of the small little pockets of research that are going on than it actually looking people coming forward. And I'd never heard of the before the center for built environment and just amazing what they had been doing for 20 years and they were a great group and they really understand building comfort and the looking at new technologies and things like that. So this personal comfort unit and [00:21:00] again David Color and computer science students, that was just an early surprised me. And then it would be looking at energy and buildings and some of the tools they've shown savings with lighting and just the smart apps they were developing and where they could track you through a building. They knew what you liked in lighting and and the environment and they could actually start to modify the building and the interface with the control system at the building over citrus in the Er. It was just amazing to me. It was a surprise. Okay. Speaker 9: And the biggest challenge going forward [00:21:30] in near term Speaker 1: for you guys is what? I think for me it's to keep reminding people that we're not done and we still have to keep remembering to incorporate energy efficiency into our daily actions. One of the most surprising and interesting things in this work has been seeing what people's attitudes towards energy efficiency are and some people believe that they're doing everything that they possibly can and we continually find that there's probably even more that [00:22:00] you could do somehow or another. So continuing to incorporate that into your daily work routine or your daily coming to school routine is very important. Speaker 9: Chuck Frost and Aaron Fendley, thanks very much for being on spectrum. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much and good luck with saving energy. Thank you. Speaker 8: [00:22:30] If you're interested in reducing energy use at cau, visit the website, my power.berkeley.edu there you'll find building dashboards and strategies for taking action. Speaker 3: [inaudible]Speaker 8: spectrum shows are also archived on iTunes university. We've created a simple link for you. The link is tiny url.com/cadillacs [00:23:00] spectrum here at spectrum. We like to highlight a few of the sides to technology events happening locally. Over the next few weeks. Brad swift and I Speaker 9: present the calendar. The last few days of the bay area science festival are this weekend tonight in San Francisco, science improv blitz where comics and phd students synthesize laughs for the sake of amusement and learning. This is happening at the south of Market Street Food Park [00:23:30] four 28 11th street from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM this is a festival event and free discovery days at at and t park. A T and t park will become a science wonder and when Bay Area Science Festival Speaker 4: concludes again with the Free Science Extravaganza last year, more than 30,000 people enjoyed a nonstop program chock full of interactive exhibits, experiments, games, and shows all meant to entertain and inspire [00:24:00] with more than 150 exhibits or something for everyone to unleash their inner scientist. This festival grand finale is Saturday, November 2nd at the home of the San Francisco baseball giants at 24 Willie Mays plaza in San Francisco. It opens at 11:00 AM and runs until 4:00 PM Speaker 9: the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Berkeley City College will host a free public talk on verifying greenhouse gas emissions by Dr Inez Fung as part of the lecture series, not on the [00:24:30] test, the pleasures and uses of mathematics. Dr Inez Fung is a contributing author to the assessment reports of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, a scientific body under the auspices of the United Nations. Dr Fung will discuss how we measure and verify claims about emissions related to global warming. Dr Fung is a professor of atmospheric science at UC Berkeley where she has studied climate change for 20 years and has created mathematical models that represent [00:25:00] CO2 sources and sinks around the globe. The event will be held in Berkeley City College Auditorium on Wednesday, November six from 7:00 PM to 8:15 PM RSVP for the free event online@msri.org Speaker 4: the November installation of the monthly lecture series. Science of cow will focus on art inspired by science and mathematics. You see Berkeley Professor Carlos equin will speak about how math and computers [00:25:30] are being used to create new artwork every day. He will also try to answer the nearly insoluble question of whether art or science came. First. Professor sequined began his career at bell labs as part of the group that created the first solid state image sensor compatible with American broadcast television. He later joined the faculty at UC Berkeley where he eventually focused on the development of computer aided design tools for architects and mechanical engineers. Professor sequent has also collaborated with many artists over the years to make the most of computers [00:26:00] and the emerging rapid prototyping tools to create geometrical sculptures and a wide range of scales and materials. The lecture will be held at 11:00 AM on Saturday, November 16th in room 100 of the genetics and plant biology building on the UC Berkeley campus. The lecture is free and open to the public haired spectrum. We like to share our favorite stories about science. Brad Swift joins me for the news Speaker 9: science daily reports that scientists at the University of Wisconsin Madison [00:26:30] have constructed a three dimensional model of the so-called missing link, cold virus, Rhino virus c Rhino Virus C is believed to be responsible for up to half of all childhood colds and is a serious complicating factor for respiratory conditions such as asthma. Together with Rhino viruses, a n B. The recently discovered virus is responsible for millions of illnesses yearly at an estimated annual cost of more than $40 billion in the United States alone. [00:27:00] Because of the three cold virus strains all contribute to the common cold drug. Candidates that focused on rhinoviruses a and B failed antiviral drugs work by attaching to and modifying surface features of the virus. This highly detailed three dimensional structure for rhinovirus c will give pharmaceutical companies new targets for designing cold thwarting drugs. Speaker 4: UC Berkeley scientists have designed a satellite [00:27:30] that could detect large fires across the western United States by snapping a constant stream of photos of the earth below. Then scanning them for new hotspots that could indicate wildfires. The UC Berkeley teen described their plans for the satellite known as the fire urgency estimate or in geosynchronous orbit or flags. In the October 17th issue of the Journal. Remote Sensing Lego works by analyzing its infrared photos using a computer algorithm to detect differences in the land, especially bright lights [00:28:00] that may be fledgling fires. The program can analyze the entire west in minutes. Creators hope that the early detection of wildfires help to prevent loss of life and widespread damage that usually occur as a result of extensive wildfires. Researchers hope to raise the several hundred million dollars required to build the satellite through a combination of public and private means. Speaker 9: The Northern California chapter of the Society of professional journalists has awarded greater good science center editor in chief [00:28:30] Jason Marsh, uh, 2013, excellence in journalism award for his story. Why inequality is bad for the 1% a gripping look at how income disparity can negatively impact both the wealthy and the poor. Relying on cutting edge research. Jason's story illustrates the ways in which having wealth may adversely affect an individual's ability to be compassionate, understand social cues, and trust others. Those deficiencies can hinder social connection, a key part [00:29:00] of our happiness and our physical health. To read the article, go to the website. Greater good.berkeley.edu Speaker 7: [inaudible].Speaker 9: The music heard during the show was written and produced by Alex Simon Speaker 7: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments [00:29:30] about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum dot klx@yahoo.com join us in two at this Speaker 2: time. [inaudible]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maggie Koerth-Baker, the science editor for boingboing.net, discusses her book "Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before it Conquers Us" and talks about the past, present, and future of energy infrastructure. www.maggiekb.com/booksTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome [00:00:30] to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists. Speaker 3: Good afternoon. I'm Rick Karnofsky, Brad swift and I are the hosts of today's show. I'd like to thank past spectrum guests and director of the Bay Area Science Festival Kashara Hari for helping to coordinate this interview. We're speaking with Maggie, Chris Baker, science editor for the hugely [00:01:00] popular blog, [inaudible] dot net and the author of the recent book before the lights go out, conquering the energy crisis before it conquers us. Maggie, welcome to the spectrum. Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. So why this book? This book came about because I'm married to a guy who actually works in the energy industry. My husband is an energy efficiency analyst, which means that he basically uses software algorithms to figure out how to make buildings as energy efficient as possible for the least amount of money. [00:01:30] And so when he got that job, he started coming home and talking to me a lot about how energy worked and how electricity worked. And it started to occur to me that there was this big disconnect between what the experts knew about our energy infrastructure and what everybody else, you know, not just lay people that government and business and you know, everybody actually has to make decisions about energy. What they knew, and there was all these details that were, you know, just basic information [00:02:00] to my husband to the point that he didn't even talk about them to people, but that void not basic information at all outside this niche. And so I really wanted to try to bridge that gap in education between the experts and everyone else. You cover Speaker 3: both sort of energy infrastructure and energy generation in use as well as some of the environmental issues that are Speaker 1: of concern to this. Yeah, I really wanted to have a book that kind of explains sort of a behind the scenes look at [00:02:30] w you know, where our electricity comes from and why it comes to us in the way that it comes to us and how this current infrastructure that we have affects what we can and can't do to solve our energy crisis problems over the next 30 or 40 years. People are familiar with gasoline in a way that they're not familiar with electricity. You know, I spill gas on my shoes on a monthly basis and it's right there at the pump every day. Electricity's different, you know, it's kind of has this [00:03:00] sort of feeling of like magical elves in the wall that make my lights turn on and I don't, I don't know what happens. It's a black box and that was really interesting to me is kind of going inside that black box and helping people understand what's going on behind is incredibly important part of their daily lives that they depend upon for everything. Speaker 1: So what is going on and how do we get here? Yeah, so we have a really imperfect system. This is I think something that is hard for people [00:03:30] to understand sometimes that when we're talking about changing the energy system, we're not talking about going from something that works really well to something that's risky. We're talking about taking this thing that wasn't designed by anybody. It just evolved piecemeal, like a little patchwork quilt made up by 50 or 60 or 70 different quilters and trying to make it something that can work for the future. Right now we have a system that is surprisingly precarious. There are, you know, centers all over the u s where these people called grid controllers [00:04:00] have to manually balance electric supply and electric demand on a minute by minute basis, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You know that process have to be manual basically because we've never made it anything else. Speaker 1: There are technologies. Some of the things that we talk about, we talk about smart grids that could make this more automated, but we've never bought those, so we just have these guys. It would also be a lot easier if we had more storage on our electric grid, but we don't really have any storage on our electric grid because [00:04:30] it's always been cheaper to just have these guys and that puts us at risk, not just in terms of how we integrate wind and solar onto our grid, but it also puts us at risk in terms of blackouts. There have been a lot of times, particularly as you get more extreme weather events where this old manual grid can't respond fast enough to changes that are happening and people lose power. I'm interested about the blackouts that have happened historically. [00:05:00] Did you find in your research that there lessons learned from all the blackouts that have happened? Speaker 1: Some yes and some no. We have learned a lot more about interconnecting parts of the grid to kind of help people get past some of these blackouts. Up until the 1970s even a lot of our grids were just these completely separate islands where a town would be its own grid and another town would be its own grid and there'd be no connection between the two. But [00:05:30] there were a lot of rolling blackouts that happened because you had this constantly increasing electric demand that this small grid couldn't actually keep up with in terms of creating more generation. So one of the things that we found is that it made more sense to start connecting these things to one another and now we have this completely national system where places that don't have enough electricity can get it from somewhere else. And that's a really important thing. Speaker 1: That's a important change that has happened and has made the system more reliable. [00:06:00] There are better things we could do with that interconnection. One of the things that would really help is to have a little bit more distributed generation. So you know, generation, instead of being on the scale of millions of homes being powered by one power plant, hundreds or thousands of homes being powered by one power plant, and those things can be scattered around in a lot more places and they can allow us to access natural resources like gas from landfills or hydroelectric power that we can't get to at [00:06:30] a really large scale right now. And would also then strengthen the system up. Because if you have your power coming from a lot of places, shutting down, one of them doesn't shut down power to millions of people. And that's a big deal. Kind of a resilience thing. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Is there any reason I shouldn't just build a solar farm in my backyard? There's not a reason why you shouldn't build a solar farm in your backyard, but there is a good reason to think [00:07:00] that you're not going to supply all the energy you need for yourself. You know, this isn't, when I talk about de-centralization, I'm not talking about everybody going off the grid and everybody becoming, you know, their own self-sufficient farm basically. That's not a really realistic way to think about the world. I could make this great garden in my backyard, but my chances of feeding my entire family for a full year based only in what's in that garden are pretty slim, but at the same time, I might not like the choices that I have at the giant supermarket in the suburbs. [00:07:30] So this is where I kind of like to talk about decentralization as being a lot like a farmer's market. It's kind of somewhere in the middle. It's got enough diversity of choices that it's better than the really large scale that way, but it also still enables you to share resources among multiple people and make use of these shared networks of energy use and energy, a production that we really need to have a reliable system. You're not going to have [00:08:00] a reliable system. You're not going to have a 21st century system if you're trying to have everybody be off the grid. It just won't work. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 3: you are listening to spectrum the science and technology show on k l x Berkeley. I'm Rick Karnofsky. Brad swift and I are interviewing Maggie. Chris Baker about our energy infrastructure Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 1: [00:08:30] so how much energy do we produce and consume in this country? Here we used 98 quadrillion BTUs of energy in 2010 which is enough energy to take something decide is the great salt lake and boil it dry twice. So that's a lot of energy. It's, it's kind of hard to wrap your head around, it's just that massive. [00:09:00] But if you think about boiling away a lake, the size of the Great Salt Lake, twice in a year, you kind of get an idea of how much energy we're using and what's the trend of our energy usage. It generally goes up, it goes, it fluctuates a lot. We've had some dips in the past eight or nine, eight or seven years because of recession issues. But if you look at like the overall trend, what you see as it going up. So one of the things that would be really helpful is if we can kind [00:09:30] of find ways to stabilize energy use and not grow at this constant growth rate without having to be in a recession to do that. Speaker 1: What are some of the surprising things you found when researching the book? One of the biggest surprises for me was that we don't have storage on the electric grid. I honestly thought just had not even ever considered that. That wasn't there until I found out that it wasn't, you know, batteries [00:10:00] are just such this huge part of our lives. They're in everything we use there in our cars. They're in laptops, they're, you know, just all over the place. It just made sense that there would be batteries on the grid and there really aren't not enough to actually make a difference. And that's because they're much bigger and much more expensive and we don't necessarily have battery technology worked out in a way that can make it cheap and make it big. And that's something that we really need a lot more r and D on. Speaker 1: But [00:10:30] there are other ways to store energy and I just was really surprised to find out that we weren't using them. Can you give examples? One of the things is called compressed air energy storage, which is one of the most cost effective ways that we can store energy at a grid scale. And it basically involves how you bring electricity potentials from overnight when there's not a lot of demand for it into the day when there is on the great plains where get most of our wind power from wind [00:11:00] actually blows more at night in a lot of those places, but there's no demand for that electricity. So you just can't use it, which is a problem because we have, you know, these wind farms built and they're not getting us all of the power they could be giving us. So one of the things you can do is have your wind farm hooked up to an air compressor and at night when the wind is blowing and there's not demand, you use that wind power to power the air compressor, which pumps compressed air into porous rock underground. Speaker 1: Basically use the earth as a giant battery [00:11:30] and then the next day you just run the system backwards and that compressed air comes out and helps to run a natural gas generator that produces electricity for far, far less energy than we'd otherwise need. So in addition to making our system smarter and putting storage on the grid, what other improvements can be made to the system? We need a lot more ways people to use energy efficiency better than we do today. There's a big difference between energy efficiency and conservation. [00:12:00] Conservation is great, but conservation is all about not doing something. Whereas energy efficiency is about finding ways to do it better. So you can get the services you need and want. You can get these things that make our lives clean and comfortable and convenient. But you can do that for less energy. And a lot of that has to do with making it easy for energy efficiency to happen. Speaker 1: You do make the case that individual consumer contribution is great, but we do need to make these system level changes. How do we actually start to do that? [00:12:30] Yeah. So that's, that's a tough thing. One of the things that I've learned in the course of this research is that energy isn't just our choices. It's not just the sources we're using, it's the systems and the infrastructure that kind of control how we use energy. You know, I've been telling people that the average American uses twice as much energy as the average European, but that's not because they're better people than us. That's because they have infrastructures that allow them to do that without becoming energy experts or without agonizing over every single choice they make every day. And I think [00:13:00] a big part of it has to start with making the case for this. In terms of practicality. Speaker 1: I think the places where I've seen that kind of top down infrastructure change happen, particularly the u s military or things where it started with the people who wanted to make individual changes, going to the people in charge and making a practical case for what benefits we're going to get if we make a couple of these changes and then those changes started influencing the way that everybody [00:13:30] else at the bottom of this chain of command thought about how they used energy and they became more aware of it in their lives and they became smarter about what they were doing. And then that led to pressure. That led to more changes at the top, which led to more cultural changes at the bottom. And you kind of get this nice feedback loop, but I think it has to start with what kind of pressures we put on our government, not just in terms of you need to do this because it's good for the environment, but here are these really good practical things we're going to get out [00:14:00] of making these changes. Speaker 1: We're going to make our system more stable. We're going to make us better able to deal with weather, with terrorism, with all these different things that can affect the grid. And I think that that's a good place to start. How vulnerable is the grid to attack either physically or software wise? Software wise it's not very much right now. It will be more when we have a smart grid and I think this is something that worries people a lot and I think it's reasonable cause it's a reasonable risk, but we have [00:14:30] to kind of consider the balance between benefits and detriments. You know the analogy I ended up using in the book was my dad's typewriter from 1986 was a lot less vulnerable to cyber attack and identity theft than his internet enabled computer now. But I don't think he'd ever go back to that typewriter because their stuff he gets from that Internet enabled computer that he could never possibly get otherwise. And I think that we [00:15:00] need to be cautious in how we set things up. We need to be intelligent in how we set up our security systems and we need to know that we're not ever going to have anything set up perfectly and there's going to be failures, but that the benefits are going to outweigh the risks. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 1: you're listening to spectrum on k a l ex Maggie. Chris Baker is discussing [00:15:30] her recent book before the lights go out. Speaker 1: Do you think dynamic pricing of energy has any role? Definitely does. This is another one of those aspects of how you reduce demand and reduce the need to build new power plants has to do a lot with reducing those peak loads. When we build power plants, we don't just build power plants for the amount of energy that is used. Most of the time we have to [00:16:00] build power plants for the theoretical peak in energy that we might hit at any given point, which means we have a lot of power plants in the u s that aren't actually producing much electricity and it just kind of sitting in idle for most of the year because we need them in the middle of summer, in the afternoon. And if we can cut those peak loads down, that means that we don't have to have as many of those things. They don't have to be on, they don't have to be idling because idling is not a really efficient way to use those fuels. Speaker 1: [00:16:30] So that's where the dynamic pricing thing comes in because right now if you are a business, you are charged for electricity in a really different way than individuals are. As a business, your electricity costs more when people want more of it and costs less when people want less of it so that you're kind of incentivized to not use electricity during that peak time. We don't charge people in residential areas like that and [00:17:00] I think that there could be a big benefit. It would take also implementing systems so people know what's going on because if you don't know that the cost changes throughout the day, there's really nothing you can do about it. But there's some really cool technologies, like a, an orb that sits on your table and changes color based on the price of electricity or you know what demand for electricity is like. And so you can look at that and know, well, the orb is red. Speaker 1: I shouldn't run the dishwasher right now, and that's the kind [00:17:30] of thing that you need built in if you're going to make dynamic pricing work, don't to swap out all of your appliances. Right. Which is a nice thing. Also, one of the things I found interesting about the book is that you get a lot of evidence for climate change, but then you also say even if you don't believe in climate change, energy efficiency is still very important. Yeah. This is one of those things that I was really surprised by when I was doing the research was the idea that I don't have to convince people that climate change is real in order to convince them that we need energy change. This [00:18:00] is something people are willing to sign on for for a whole host of reasons. There was a really great story that ended up opening the book with where a nonprofit in Kansas was doing these focus groups to kind of find out what people thought about climate and energy and kind of get a good idea of, you know, how they would develop their programs. Speaker 1: And they kept running over and over into these situations where you'd have some guy talking about how climate change is a socialist plot. It's going to destroy us all. And then you'd ask him, you know, [00:18:30] what are you doing about energy? And the same guy would have switched out all of his light bulb to cfls and he'd owned a Prius and he was excited about wind power because he was excited about those things for different reasons. To save a lot of money. He gets to save money, he gets to be part of this Apollo project, kind of USA, USA kind of thing. And you know, there's lots of different reasons why people care about this stuff. There are opportunities we're missing to communicate with people in their language, their cultural language instead [00:19:00] of trying to convince them to be part of our cultural language. And I think that's a mistake that we make a lot as you know, communicators of sustainability and of environmentalism is that we don't make a big enough effort to talk to people in different cultural languages. Speaker 3: I would like to say I really like your footnotes in the book. They're not only like useful links that were, you know, I was able to fall on my kindle. I don't know how useful they are in the hard backwards. I don't know about that either. The uh, [00:19:30] just the stories that are hitting back there are, are absolutely fantastic. So what sort of motivated you to put all that in? Speaker 1: Not being able to cut out great stories that didn't quite have a place in the main text. You know, there's just so many cool things that I learned that didn't quite fit with the narrative of the story and I needed a place to put them. And then I had all these footnotes and now there's like 50 pages of footnotes, but one like one of my favorites was the [00:20:00] story of Thomas Edison when he was developing the grid system in New York City, which was the first grid system in the world. And they had this faulty junction box under a street corner that when it rained and the ground got saturated that you had kind of an electric connection up to the street. And that ended up leading to everybody in New York crowded around the street corner watching horses and buggies go by and then the horses hitting this electrified patch of ground and like rearing [00:20:30] and freaking out and kind of got to the point apparently where people sort of like urging them on like, no, no, there's no problem here and bring your horse through. Speaker 1: Um, and so they finally called down Edison's staff bowsers. Yeah, exactly. Basically giant joy buzzer. And they finally down Edison staff to get this thing fixed. And so they get it fixed and everything's fine. But then the next day, this used horse salesman shows up at Edison's office asking him to install an intentionally faulty junction box under [00:21:00] his used horse paddock to make the horses look more energetic than they actually are. And that's really where the story ends in the Edison archives. There's no record of whether or not he took the guy up on that offer. Has the way you use energy actually changed at all? Definitely. It's changed not because of the book. It changed when my husband got the job that he has. Uh, we've done a lot to make our house more energy efficient. We have a 1920s bungalow in Minneapolis that, you know, it's, [00:21:30] it's not going to be something where we can like reorient it on the site and make it save energy. Speaker 1: But there's a lot of things that were already done because of how they used to design buildings that involved that, you know, we have a 40 foot wide lot and our house is not right in the middle of it. Our House is set so that the north side of our lot is extremely small. Like is basically the smallest setback you can possibly have while the south side of our lot is much wider. And that was done in old Minneapolis neighborhoods [00:22:00] specifically. So you got more light coming in during the winter and more warmth and we're able to capture some of that energy that you wouldn't be able to capture otherwise if your house didn't have that kind of setback. So, I mean there's a lot of that kind of stuff that was built into how our house was built. And we've since gone through and my husband has like an expanding foam addiction and took it through the entire house and basically patched up everything that could possibly be construed as a, uh, leak in the house. [00:22:30] So we're, we're held up now with our, uh, with stucco and expanding foam. Oh, make it bigger. Thanks for joining. Yes, thank you so much. Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Now for some science news headlines, here's Brad swift and Lisa Katovich Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 4: [00:23:00] The California condors returned to flying free in the wild after a close brush with extinction, maybe an illusory recovery. The hundred plus condors soaring over California swallow so much led shot as they scavenge carcasses that the population can't sustain itself without steady medical care and continual resupply from captive populations. Toxicologist Myra Finkelstein of UC Santa Cruz described analyses of lead [00:23:30] in blood and feathers in the June 25th proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Each year about 20% of the state's monitored birds flunk their lead tests badly enough to need detox. This grim paper supplies the data to confirm the toll of lead ammunition on condors in the wild, regional or species. Specific regulations do restrict ammunition in California and Arizona, the two states where condos live, but those rules don't seem to be solving the problem without a politically difficult nationwide ban [00:24:00] on lead ammunition. California condors will exist in the wild only due to costly extensive human intervention. Essentially in an outdoor zoo state Speaker 5: science news reports that quantum information has leaped through the air about 100 kilometers in two new experiments further and with greater fidelity than ever before. The research brings truly long distance quantum communication networks in which satellites could beam encrypted information around the globe closer to reality. [00:24:30] Both studies involve quantum teleportation, which transports the quantum state of one particle to another. This star trek like feet is possible because of a phenomenon called entanglement in which pairs of particles become linked in such a way that measuring a certain property in one instantly determines the same property for the other, even if separated by large distances. In the first experiment, Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna and his colleagues used a pair of entangled photons [00:25:00] to transmit a piece of quantum information over 143 kilometers between two of the Canary Islands. In the second experiment, John Way Pawn of the University of Science and technology of China in Shanghai and his colleagues and tangled many protons together and teleported information 97 kilometers across the lake in China. These experiments are a milestone towards future satellite based quantum teleportation. Speaker 4: In the July issue of [00:25:30] the Journal cell, researchers from Stanford University reported the world's first complete computer model of an organism, the bacteria, Mycoplasma genitalium, a humble parasitic bacterium known mainly for showing up uninvited in the human urogenital and respiratory tracks. Its distinction is that it contains the smallest genome of any free living organism, only 525 genes as opposed to the 4,288 genes of eco lie. [00:26:00] The final model made use of more than 1900 experimentally determined parameters to integrate these disparate data points into a unified machine. Researchers modeled individual biological processes at 28 separate modules each governed by its own algorithm. These modules communicated to each other after every step making for a unified whole that closely matched the bacteria as real world behavior models like this could bring rational design to biology, allowing for computer guided experimental regimes and wholesale [00:26:30] creation of new micro organisms. Speaker 3: Irregular feature of spectrum is a calendar of science related events happening in the bay area over the next two weeks. Here's Lisa Katovich and Brad's swift, Speaker 4: the coming century war against your computers. The title of the August long now foundation seminar, Tuesday, July 31st Cory Doctorow, the night Speaker contend set the war against computer freedom will just keep escalating. Copyright wars, net neutrality and stop [00:27:00] online piracy act. We're early samples of what's to come. Victories in those battles were temporary and conflict in the decades ahead. We'll feature even higher stakes, more convoluted issues, and far more powerful technology. The debate is how civilization decides to conduct itself and in whose interests. Cory Doctorow writes contemporary science fiction. Recent books include for the win makers and little brother. The seminar will be held Tuesday, July 31st seven 30 to 9:00 PM at the Yerba Buena Center, Novellus Theater [00:27:30] 700 Howard Street, San Francisco admission is $10 [inaudible] Speaker 5: cosmos reconsidered. Alex Philapannco, UC Berkeley astronomy professor will present key video excerpts from Carl Sagans, legendary Cosmos Television series, offer uptodate commentary and invite audience questions. This event is presented by wonder fest and ask a scientist. The presentation will be held at the California Institute of Integral Studies. 1453 [00:28:00] mission street in San Francisco, July 31st 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM and mission is free. Speaker 4: The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is nearing the end of its eight month voyage to Mars to deliver the newest Mars rover. August 5th there will be two events featuring live feeds of the attempt to land the rover called curiosity on the Martian surface at Ames research center in mountain view, a public gathering to view the landing will take place from five to midnight. For details go to the NASA Ames research [00:28:30] center site, nasa.gov/centers/ames this event is free. The Chabot science center in Oakland will also have a live feed from 6:00 PM to 11 o'clock along with other presentations about the mission and landing. These events are included in the general admission to the center Speaker 2: [inaudible] the music you [00:29:00] heard during say show. We'll spend the Stein and David from his album book and Acoustic [inaudible]. It is released under a creative Commons license version 3.0 spectrum was recorded and edited by me, Rick [inaudible], and by Brad Swift. Thank you for listening to spectrum. We are happy to hear from listeners. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum [00:29:30] dot k a l x@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. [inaudible] [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Maggie Koerth-Baker, the science editor for boingboing.net, discusses her book "Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before it Conquers Us" and talks about the past, present, and future of energy infrastructure. www.maggiekb.com/booksTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome [00:00:30] to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists. Speaker 3: Good afternoon. I'm Rick Karnofsky, Brad swift and I are the hosts of today's show. I'd like to thank past spectrum guests and director of the Bay Area Science Festival Kashara Hari for helping to coordinate this interview. We're speaking with Maggie, Chris Baker, science editor for the hugely [00:01:00] popular blog, [inaudible] dot net and the author of the recent book before the lights go out, conquering the energy crisis before it conquers us. Maggie, welcome to the spectrum. Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. So why this book? This book came about because I'm married to a guy who actually works in the energy industry. My husband is an energy efficiency analyst, which means that he basically uses software algorithms to figure out how to make buildings as energy efficient as possible for the least amount of money. [00:01:30] And so when he got that job, he started coming home and talking to me a lot about how energy worked and how electricity worked. And it started to occur to me that there was this big disconnect between what the experts knew about our energy infrastructure and what everybody else, you know, not just lay people that government and business and you know, everybody actually has to make decisions about energy. What they knew, and there was all these details that were, you know, just basic information [00:02:00] to my husband to the point that he didn't even talk about them to people, but that void not basic information at all outside this niche. And so I really wanted to try to bridge that gap in education between the experts and everyone else. You cover Speaker 3: both sort of energy infrastructure and energy generation in use as well as some of the environmental issues that are Speaker 1: of concern to this. Yeah, I really wanted to have a book that kind of explains sort of a behind the scenes look at [00:02:30] w you know, where our electricity comes from and why it comes to us in the way that it comes to us and how this current infrastructure that we have affects what we can and can't do to solve our energy crisis problems over the next 30 or 40 years. People are familiar with gasoline in a way that they're not familiar with electricity. You know, I spill gas on my shoes on a monthly basis and it's right there at the pump every day. Electricity's different, you know, it's kind of has this [00:03:00] sort of feeling of like magical elves in the wall that make my lights turn on and I don't, I don't know what happens. It's a black box and that was really interesting to me is kind of going inside that black box and helping people understand what's going on behind is incredibly important part of their daily lives that they depend upon for everything. Speaker 1: So what is going on and how do we get here? Yeah, so we have a really imperfect system. This is I think something that is hard for people [00:03:30] to understand sometimes that when we're talking about changing the energy system, we're not talking about going from something that works really well to something that's risky. We're talking about taking this thing that wasn't designed by anybody. It just evolved piecemeal, like a little patchwork quilt made up by 50 or 60 or 70 different quilters and trying to make it something that can work for the future. Right now we have a system that is surprisingly precarious. There are, you know, centers all over the u s where these people called grid controllers [00:04:00] have to manually balance electric supply and electric demand on a minute by minute basis, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You know that process have to be manual basically because we've never made it anything else. Speaker 1: There are technologies. Some of the things that we talk about, we talk about smart grids that could make this more automated, but we've never bought those, so we just have these guys. It would also be a lot easier if we had more storage on our electric grid, but we don't really have any storage on our electric grid because [00:04:30] it's always been cheaper to just have these guys and that puts us at risk, not just in terms of how we integrate wind and solar onto our grid, but it also puts us at risk in terms of blackouts. There have been a lot of times, particularly as you get more extreme weather events where this old manual grid can't respond fast enough to changes that are happening and people lose power. I'm interested about the blackouts that have happened historically. [00:05:00] Did you find in your research that there lessons learned from all the blackouts that have happened? Speaker 1: Some yes and some no. We have learned a lot more about interconnecting parts of the grid to kind of help people get past some of these blackouts. Up until the 1970s even a lot of our grids were just these completely separate islands where a town would be its own grid and another town would be its own grid and there'd be no connection between the two. But [00:05:30] there were a lot of rolling blackouts that happened because you had this constantly increasing electric demand that this small grid couldn't actually keep up with in terms of creating more generation. So one of the things that we found is that it made more sense to start connecting these things to one another and now we have this completely national system where places that don't have enough electricity can get it from somewhere else. And that's a really important thing. Speaker 1: That's a important change that has happened and has made the system more reliable. [00:06:00] There are better things we could do with that interconnection. One of the things that would really help is to have a little bit more distributed generation. So you know, generation, instead of being on the scale of millions of homes being powered by one power plant, hundreds or thousands of homes being powered by one power plant, and those things can be scattered around in a lot more places and they can allow us to access natural resources like gas from landfills or hydroelectric power that we can't get to at [00:06:30] a really large scale right now. And would also then strengthen the system up. Because if you have your power coming from a lot of places, shutting down, one of them doesn't shut down power to millions of people. And that's a big deal. Kind of a resilience thing. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Is there any reason I shouldn't just build a solar farm in my backyard? There's not a reason why you shouldn't build a solar farm in your backyard, but there is a good reason to think [00:07:00] that you're not going to supply all the energy you need for yourself. You know, this isn't, when I talk about de-centralization, I'm not talking about everybody going off the grid and everybody becoming, you know, their own self-sufficient farm basically. That's not a really realistic way to think about the world. I could make this great garden in my backyard, but my chances of feeding my entire family for a full year based only in what's in that garden are pretty slim, but at the same time, I might not like the choices that I have at the giant supermarket in the suburbs. [00:07:30] So this is where I kind of like to talk about decentralization as being a lot like a farmer's market. It's kind of somewhere in the middle. It's got enough diversity of choices that it's better than the really large scale that way, but it also still enables you to share resources among multiple people and make use of these shared networks of energy use and energy, a production that we really need to have a reliable system. You're not going to have [00:08:00] a reliable system. You're not going to have a 21st century system if you're trying to have everybody be off the grid. It just won't work. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 3: you are listening to spectrum the science and technology show on k l x Berkeley. I'm Rick Karnofsky. Brad swift and I are interviewing Maggie. Chris Baker about our energy infrastructure Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 1: [00:08:30] so how much energy do we produce and consume in this country? Here we used 98 quadrillion BTUs of energy in 2010 which is enough energy to take something decide is the great salt lake and boil it dry twice. So that's a lot of energy. It's, it's kind of hard to wrap your head around, it's just that massive. [00:09:00] But if you think about boiling away a lake, the size of the Great Salt Lake, twice in a year, you kind of get an idea of how much energy we're using and what's the trend of our energy usage. It generally goes up, it goes, it fluctuates a lot. We've had some dips in the past eight or nine, eight or seven years because of recession issues. But if you look at like the overall trend, what you see as it going up. So one of the things that would be really helpful is if we can kind [00:09:30] of find ways to stabilize energy use and not grow at this constant growth rate without having to be in a recession to do that. Speaker 1: What are some of the surprising things you found when researching the book? One of the biggest surprises for me was that we don't have storage on the electric grid. I honestly thought just had not even ever considered that. That wasn't there until I found out that it wasn't, you know, batteries [00:10:00] are just such this huge part of our lives. They're in everything we use there in our cars. They're in laptops, they're, you know, just all over the place. It just made sense that there would be batteries on the grid and there really aren't not enough to actually make a difference. And that's because they're much bigger and much more expensive and we don't necessarily have battery technology worked out in a way that can make it cheap and make it big. And that's something that we really need a lot more r and D on. Speaker 1: But [00:10:30] there are other ways to store energy and I just was really surprised to find out that we weren't using them. Can you give examples? One of the things is called compressed air energy storage, which is one of the most cost effective ways that we can store energy at a grid scale. And it basically involves how you bring electricity potentials from overnight when there's not a lot of demand for it into the day when there is on the great plains where get most of our wind power from wind [00:11:00] actually blows more at night in a lot of those places, but there's no demand for that electricity. So you just can't use it, which is a problem because we have, you know, these wind farms built and they're not getting us all of the power they could be giving us. So one of the things you can do is have your wind farm hooked up to an air compressor and at night when the wind is blowing and there's not demand, you use that wind power to power the air compressor, which pumps compressed air into porous rock underground. Speaker 1: Basically use the earth as a giant battery [00:11:30] and then the next day you just run the system backwards and that compressed air comes out and helps to run a natural gas generator that produces electricity for far, far less energy than we'd otherwise need. So in addition to making our system smarter and putting storage on the grid, what other improvements can be made to the system? We need a lot more ways people to use energy efficiency better than we do today. There's a big difference between energy efficiency and conservation. [00:12:00] Conservation is great, but conservation is all about not doing something. Whereas energy efficiency is about finding ways to do it better. So you can get the services you need and want. You can get these things that make our lives clean and comfortable and convenient. But you can do that for less energy. And a lot of that has to do with making it easy for energy efficiency to happen. Speaker 1: You do make the case that individual consumer contribution is great, but we do need to make these system level changes. How do we actually start to do that? [00:12:30] Yeah. So that's, that's a tough thing. One of the things that I've learned in the course of this research is that energy isn't just our choices. It's not just the sources we're using, it's the systems and the infrastructure that kind of control how we use energy. You know, I've been telling people that the average American uses twice as much energy as the average European, but that's not because they're better people than us. That's because they have infrastructures that allow them to do that without becoming energy experts or without agonizing over every single choice they make every day. And I think [00:13:00] a big part of it has to start with making the case for this. In terms of practicality. Speaker 1: I think the places where I've seen that kind of top down infrastructure change happen, particularly the u s military or things where it started with the people who wanted to make individual changes, going to the people in charge and making a practical case for what benefits we're going to get if we make a couple of these changes and then those changes started influencing the way that everybody [00:13:30] else at the bottom of this chain of command thought about how they used energy and they became more aware of it in their lives and they became smarter about what they were doing. And then that led to pressure. That led to more changes at the top, which led to more cultural changes at the bottom. And you kind of get this nice feedback loop, but I think it has to start with what kind of pressures we put on our government, not just in terms of you need to do this because it's good for the environment, but here are these really good practical things we're going to get out [00:14:00] of making these changes. Speaker 1: We're going to make our system more stable. We're going to make us better able to deal with weather, with terrorism, with all these different things that can affect the grid. And I think that that's a good place to start. How vulnerable is the grid to attack either physically or software wise? Software wise it's not very much right now. It will be more when we have a smart grid and I think this is something that worries people a lot and I think it's reasonable cause it's a reasonable risk, but we have [00:14:30] to kind of consider the balance between benefits and detriments. You know the analogy I ended up using in the book was my dad's typewriter from 1986 was a lot less vulnerable to cyber attack and identity theft than his internet enabled computer now. But I don't think he'd ever go back to that typewriter because their stuff he gets from that Internet enabled computer that he could never possibly get otherwise. And I think that we [00:15:00] need to be cautious in how we set things up. We need to be intelligent in how we set up our security systems and we need to know that we're not ever going to have anything set up perfectly and there's going to be failures, but that the benefits are going to outweigh the risks. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 1: you're listening to spectrum on k a l ex Maggie. Chris Baker is discussing [00:15:30] her recent book before the lights go out. Speaker 1: Do you think dynamic pricing of energy has any role? Definitely does. This is another one of those aspects of how you reduce demand and reduce the need to build new power plants has to do a lot with reducing those peak loads. When we build power plants, we don't just build power plants for the amount of energy that is used. Most of the time we have to [00:16:00] build power plants for the theoretical peak in energy that we might hit at any given point, which means we have a lot of power plants in the u s that aren't actually producing much electricity and it just kind of sitting in idle for most of the year because we need them in the middle of summer, in the afternoon. And if we can cut those peak loads down, that means that we don't have to have as many of those things. They don't have to be on, they don't have to be idling because idling is not a really efficient way to use those fuels. Speaker 1: [00:16:30] So that's where the dynamic pricing thing comes in because right now if you are a business, you are charged for electricity in a really different way than individuals are. As a business, your electricity costs more when people want more of it and costs less when people want less of it so that you're kind of incentivized to not use electricity during that peak time. We don't charge people in residential areas like that and [00:17:00] I think that there could be a big benefit. It would take also implementing systems so people know what's going on because if you don't know that the cost changes throughout the day, there's really nothing you can do about it. But there's some really cool technologies, like a, an orb that sits on your table and changes color based on the price of electricity or you know what demand for electricity is like. And so you can look at that and know, well, the orb is red. Speaker 1: I shouldn't run the dishwasher right now, and that's the kind [00:17:30] of thing that you need built in if you're going to make dynamic pricing work, don't to swap out all of your appliances. Right. Which is a nice thing. Also, one of the things I found interesting about the book is that you get a lot of evidence for climate change, but then you also say even if you don't believe in climate change, energy efficiency is still very important. Yeah. This is one of those things that I was really surprised by when I was doing the research was the idea that I don't have to convince people that climate change is real in order to convince them that we need energy change. This [00:18:00] is something people are willing to sign on for for a whole host of reasons. There was a really great story that ended up opening the book with where a nonprofit in Kansas was doing these focus groups to kind of find out what people thought about climate and energy and kind of get a good idea of, you know, how they would develop their programs. Speaker 1: And they kept running over and over into these situations where you'd have some guy talking about how climate change is a socialist plot. It's going to destroy us all. And then you'd ask him, you know, [00:18:30] what are you doing about energy? And the same guy would have switched out all of his light bulb to cfls and he'd owned a Prius and he was excited about wind power because he was excited about those things for different reasons. To save a lot of money. He gets to save money, he gets to be part of this Apollo project, kind of USA, USA kind of thing. And you know, there's lots of different reasons why people care about this stuff. There are opportunities we're missing to communicate with people in their language, their cultural language instead [00:19:00] of trying to convince them to be part of our cultural language. And I think that's a mistake that we make a lot as you know, communicators of sustainability and of environmentalism is that we don't make a big enough effort to talk to people in different cultural languages. Speaker 3: I would like to say I really like your footnotes in the book. They're not only like useful links that were, you know, I was able to fall on my kindle. I don't know how useful they are in the hard backwards. I don't know about that either. The uh, [00:19:30] just the stories that are hitting back there are, are absolutely fantastic. So what sort of motivated you to put all that in? Speaker 1: Not being able to cut out great stories that didn't quite have a place in the main text. You know, there's just so many cool things that I learned that didn't quite fit with the narrative of the story and I needed a place to put them. And then I had all these footnotes and now there's like 50 pages of footnotes, but one like one of my favorites was the [00:20:00] story of Thomas Edison when he was developing the grid system in New York City, which was the first grid system in the world. And they had this faulty junction box under a street corner that when it rained and the ground got saturated that you had kind of an electric connection up to the street. And that ended up leading to everybody in New York crowded around the street corner watching horses and buggies go by and then the horses hitting this electrified patch of ground and like rearing [00:20:30] and freaking out and kind of got to the point apparently where people sort of like urging them on like, no, no, there's no problem here and bring your horse through. Speaker 1: Um, and so they finally called down Edison's staff bowsers. Yeah, exactly. Basically giant joy buzzer. And they finally down Edison staff to get this thing fixed. And so they get it fixed and everything's fine. But then the next day, this used horse salesman shows up at Edison's office asking him to install an intentionally faulty junction box under [00:21:00] his used horse paddock to make the horses look more energetic than they actually are. And that's really where the story ends in the Edison archives. There's no record of whether or not he took the guy up on that offer. Has the way you use energy actually changed at all? Definitely. It's changed not because of the book. It changed when my husband got the job that he has. Uh, we've done a lot to make our house more energy efficient. We have a 1920s bungalow in Minneapolis that, you know, it's, [00:21:30] it's not going to be something where we can like reorient it on the site and make it save energy. Speaker 1: But there's a lot of things that were already done because of how they used to design buildings that involved that, you know, we have a 40 foot wide lot and our house is not right in the middle of it. Our House is set so that the north side of our lot is extremely small. Like is basically the smallest setback you can possibly have while the south side of our lot is much wider. And that was done in old Minneapolis neighborhoods [00:22:00] specifically. So you got more light coming in during the winter and more warmth and we're able to capture some of that energy that you wouldn't be able to capture otherwise if your house didn't have that kind of setback. So, I mean there's a lot of that kind of stuff that was built into how our house was built. And we've since gone through and my husband has like an expanding foam addiction and took it through the entire house and basically patched up everything that could possibly be construed as a, uh, leak in the house. [00:22:30] So we're, we're held up now with our, uh, with stucco and expanding foam. Oh, make it bigger. Thanks for joining. Yes, thank you so much. Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Now for some science news headlines, here's Brad swift and Lisa Katovich Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 4: [00:23:00] The California condors returned to flying free in the wild after a close brush with extinction, maybe an illusory recovery. The hundred plus condors soaring over California swallow so much led shot as they scavenge carcasses that the population can't sustain itself without steady medical care and continual resupply from captive populations. Toxicologist Myra Finkelstein of UC Santa Cruz described analyses of lead [00:23:30] in blood and feathers in the June 25th proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Each year about 20% of the state's monitored birds flunk their lead tests badly enough to need detox. This grim paper supplies the data to confirm the toll of lead ammunition on condors in the wild, regional or species. Specific regulations do restrict ammunition in California and Arizona, the two states where condos live, but those rules don't seem to be solving the problem without a politically difficult nationwide ban [00:24:00] on lead ammunition. California condors will exist in the wild only due to costly extensive human intervention. Essentially in an outdoor zoo state Speaker 5: science news reports that quantum information has leaped through the air about 100 kilometers in two new experiments further and with greater fidelity than ever before. The research brings truly long distance quantum communication networks in which satellites could beam encrypted information around the globe closer to reality. [00:24:30] Both studies involve quantum teleportation, which transports the quantum state of one particle to another. This star trek like feet is possible because of a phenomenon called entanglement in which pairs of particles become linked in such a way that measuring a certain property in one instantly determines the same property for the other, even if separated by large distances. In the first experiment, Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna and his colleagues used a pair of entangled photons [00:25:00] to transmit a piece of quantum information over 143 kilometers between two of the Canary Islands. In the second experiment, John Way Pawn of the University of Science and technology of China in Shanghai and his colleagues and tangled many protons together and teleported information 97 kilometers across the lake in China. These experiments are a milestone towards future satellite based quantum teleportation. Speaker 4: In the July issue of [00:25:30] the Journal cell, researchers from Stanford University reported the world's first complete computer model of an organism, the bacteria, Mycoplasma genitalium, a humble parasitic bacterium known mainly for showing up uninvited in the human urogenital and respiratory tracks. Its distinction is that it contains the smallest genome of any free living organism, only 525 genes as opposed to the 4,288 genes of eco lie. [00:26:00] The final model made use of more than 1900 experimentally determined parameters to integrate these disparate data points into a unified machine. Researchers modeled individual biological processes at 28 separate modules each governed by its own algorithm. These modules communicated to each other after every step making for a unified whole that closely matched the bacteria as real world behavior models like this could bring rational design to biology, allowing for computer guided experimental regimes and wholesale [00:26:30] creation of new micro organisms. Speaker 3: Irregular feature of spectrum is a calendar of science related events happening in the bay area over the next two weeks. Here's Lisa Katovich and Brad's swift, Speaker 4: the coming century war against your computers. The title of the August long now foundation seminar, Tuesday, July 31st Cory Doctorow, the night Speaker contend set the war against computer freedom will just keep escalating. Copyright wars, net neutrality and stop [00:27:00] online piracy act. We're early samples of what's to come. Victories in those battles were temporary and conflict in the decades ahead. We'll feature even higher stakes, more convoluted issues, and far more powerful technology. The debate is how civilization decides to conduct itself and in whose interests. Cory Doctorow writes contemporary science fiction. Recent books include for the win makers and little brother. The seminar will be held Tuesday, July 31st seven 30 to 9:00 PM at the Yerba Buena Center, Novellus Theater [00:27:30] 700 Howard Street, San Francisco admission is $10 [inaudible] Speaker 5: cosmos reconsidered. Alex Philapannco, UC Berkeley astronomy professor will present key video excerpts from Carl Sagans, legendary Cosmos Television series, offer uptodate commentary and invite audience questions. This event is presented by wonder fest and ask a scientist. The presentation will be held at the California Institute of Integral Studies. 1453 [00:28:00] mission street in San Francisco, July 31st 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM and mission is free. Speaker 4: The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is nearing the end of its eight month voyage to Mars to deliver the newest Mars rover. August 5th there will be two events featuring live feeds of the attempt to land the rover called curiosity on the Martian surface at Ames research center in mountain view, a public gathering to view the landing will take place from five to midnight. For details go to the NASA Ames research [00:28:30] center site, nasa.gov/centers/ames this event is free. The Chabot science center in Oakland will also have a live feed from 6:00 PM to 11 o'clock along with other presentations about the mission and landing. These events are included in the general admission to the center Speaker 2: [inaudible] the music you [00:29:00] heard during say show. We'll spend the Stein and David from his album book and Acoustic [inaudible]. It is released under a creative Commons license version 3.0 spectrum was recorded and edited by me, Rick [inaudible], and by Brad Swift. Thank you for listening to spectrum. We are happy to hear from listeners. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum [00:29:30] dot k a l x@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. [inaudible] [inaudible]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Products that perform their job so well that you just do not have to think about them are products that on today’s market seem few and far in between. Maxitrol gas regulators are among this line of products that we as suppliers and contractors have come to depend on. Founded in 1946 Maxitrol’s headquarters are located in Southfield, Michigan. The Maxitrol 325 series gas regulators are world renown for their use in the domestic natural gas market. The 325 series allows for inlet pressures up to 10 psig with certified 325 series for 2 and 5 psi systems and vent limiters to reduce the costs of installation by removing the need for a separate gas vent line to be installed by the contractor. New 325-7AL series regulator announced in July of 2010 takes the 325 series to new limits of capacities of over 1,000,000 BTUs. The larger RV series and 210 series are used by OEM boiler and burner manufactures worldwide. Maxitrol’s  Selectra series of gas valves, amplifiers, and Selectrastat thermostats  with options of different temperature sensors allow the service and repair companies to add electronic modulation to Make Up Air applications and Space Heating applications for environmental climate control, as well as industrial or commercial heating processes. Maxitrol’s PLUG1, is one of the most innovative devices for the homeowner. PLUG1 allows the homeowner to turn off the gas to an appliance, unplug the gas line, move the appliance for cleaning or any other reason, return the appliance, plug the gas line back in, turn the switch back on, and the appliance is ready for use again. Plug 1 video (double click black box) Smart solutions to everyday needs, keep Maxitrol, on top of your needs. Stromquist and Company is proud to service your Maxitrol needs just give us a call at 1-800-241-9471. The post Maxitrol for Maximum Need appeared first on ControlTrends.