August 16, 2025 • 25 mins
Justin sat down with Steve Goreham, author of Green Breakdown, to expose what he calls the “crap plan”—Grand Rapids’ new Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. While city leaders push lofty goals of cutting emissions 63% by 2030 and 100% by 2050, Goreham warns the plan won’t move the needle on global climate but will jack up Michigan’s already sky-high energy prices. They broke down how wind and solar mandates strain taxpayers, why Michigan’s electricity costs have surged nearly 60% since 2008, and how AI data centers are set to fuel massive new demand—driven not by “green” energy, but natural gas and a renewed push for nuclear power. From restarting plants like Palisades to exploring modular nuclear reactors, Goreham argues the real future is reliable, affordable energy—not government-forced green schemes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
To strap any It's going to be a heck of
a riot. It's like drinking from a fire hose.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Never a dull moment.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
But yes, you'll hear the stories you won't hear anywhere else,
and we'll appreciate you being here with us form today.
I'm justin Barclay. Yeah, I call it the crap Plan
because I think they left an r out here in
Grand Rapids. They have a climate action plan that they
(00:28):
give the uh, well, well let's c a AP is
how they give THEE the description of it. But I
think again, I think it's well, they're full of it,
and in this plan particularly they are. But why I
want to dig into it to give a full picture
of why at a time like we thought, well, really
(00:51):
we were all done with all of this nonsense, why
are we still having to deal with it? Why is
it still something that can continues to come up on
the screen, and particularly in places you know, liberal left
leaning cities, Democrat run cities like Grand Rapids. Oh, the
(01:12):
Green New Scheme is still alive and well, and I
thought it had all but been vanquished, so to speak.
Steve Gorham is here with us right now to discuss
this story and really kind of dig into the weeds
on and all. Steve, I appreciate you taking a time.
You're always like the voice of truth, logic, and common sense,
particularly when it comes to these stories on climate and
(01:36):
really what they've been doing for so long. Steve as
the executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America,
the author of four books on energy, climate change, and
sustainable development, with over one hundred thousand copies in print.
The latest book from Steve is Green Breakdown the Coming
Renewable Energy Failure. So let's dive in. Steve, I just
(01:57):
saw this and you can imagine my surprise, distilled thing
they're pushing number one and then when you dig into
it how bad it really is.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Hey, justin great to join you. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
The earlier this week, the Grand Rapid City Commission approved
top twenty priorities for the city's Climate and Adaptation Plan.
And you know, when you read through this, there's there's
a fair amount of good things in there. I think
they're putting in bike paths and some other things, but
they they seem to be still committed to reduce cities
(02:34):
quote greenhouse gas emission sixty three percent by twenty thirty one.
Hundred percent by twenty fifty. Just kind of a crazy thing,
you know.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The bottom line is that this is not going to
have any.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Measurable effect on the climate are on global temperatures, but
it is probably going to raise energy prices for people
in Grand rapids to the extent that it is pursued.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
That's the thing that I think is probably the toughest
pill to swallow right now for folks as they look
at this in a look, our energy prices are through
the roof right now, and I know we're not the
only ones. And by the way, it's because we've seen
some of our energy providers here make that move to
(03:25):
you know, wind solar and unicorn farts as I like
to call it. They've tried all these alternatives meanwhile shutting
down coal plants and I don't know if you're getting
it where you are in Chicago, but we don't get
a peep or here a peep. We know the Attorney
General here has been trying to shut down one of
our coal plants in our backyard for the longest time,
and she still is at that. Yet nothing about the
(03:48):
Canadian wildfire smoke that's pouring across our porter in our
skies ruining our summers for the last two three summers. Now,
I don't know if you're getting any of that where
you are, but it's it's a me us here.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, we are.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The forest fires actually in many places now, the fires
are much bigger in terms of particulates than all of
the vehicles and everything else. And that is the case
in California, for example, and I think it's the case
this summer. So you know, we have regulations all over
that say you shouldn't be using gas leaf blowers or
(04:24):
lawnmowers because of particulates, but the forest fires tend to
be much bigger factors. Not to mention, if people are smoking,
you're using cannabis. I mean that is far far behind,
far far beyond anything that a power plant is putting out.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So let's dig into As you mentioned, there's some good
things in this and some bad things, But the biggest
piece is it is going to cost us more money.
It's going to be taxpayer dollars that are going to
be spent to do things that really aren't going to
have much of an impact at all. And at the
end of the day, what they will do is impact
energy prices, and as you said, I've been taking a
(05:04):
look at this. We've got a lot of people that
are very interested. I'm just watching for my personal aspect.
My bills seem to be going up and up and up.
And one of the things that I always wonder about
is in a place like Michigan, we got all this
manufacturing pouring back into the country right now, particularly investment
coming in. President has been very big on this. In
(05:26):
Michigan is the state to put the world on wheels.
We're so proud of that fact. But it's so hard
because our state government has made it such a governor
particularly and Democrats in Lansing made it so hard for
folks to do business here. The state of our roads
is one thing. The whole other piece of this is
(05:46):
the cost of energy. So it's one thing when my
bills I but it's a whole other thing when people
are looking whether or not they're going to invest and
come into the state of Michigan, whether their bills are
going to be high or not. And this is before
everybody playsugs. They're tesla in like they'd all like them too,
And let's be real, what's really going to be driving
these prices up is data centers and AI sucking the
(06:09):
juice every moment. That's just going to be a reality.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, it is. So.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Your prices in Michigan are the highest in the Midwest
right now. According to the US Department of Energy, in
twenty twenty four, the average residential electricity price in Michigan
was nineteen zero point two to nine cents for killo
whatt hour, a little over nineteen cents for killowot hour.
That's higher than Ohio and Indiana and Illinois and Wisconsin
(06:39):
and even beyond that. Another thing that's happening is the
rise in electricity prices in Michigan is faster than most
other states since two thousand and eight, over the last
sixteen years. I've been tracking this for a while. Again,
this is data from the US Department of Energy. The
national average electricity prices going up thirty three percent in
(07:01):
those sixteen years, but Michigan is up about fifty eight
percent over that period of time. Indiana up about sixty percent,
but everybody else in the Midwest is down about thirty
about the national average.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So it is going up.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
The other thing is, you know, you have the Michigan
Healthy Climate Plan, which calls for trying to go to
sixty percent renewables by twenty thirty, one hundred percent by
twenty fifty, very similar to what Grand Rapids is trying
to do. In twenty twenty four, you actually had a
pretty good mix. You had natural gas forty seven percent
(07:38):
of the electricity, nuclear twenty two percent, coal twenty one
point six percent, wind was was only about eight point
two percent, and solar was just not even around. But
the idea is to get rid of all that natural
gas and coal that is that's almost seventy percent of
your electricity and trying to replace it with wind and solar.
(08:01):
That is still the state's current plan, and that's just
really poor policy.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That's going to be very expensive.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Steve, what's the answer. A lot of people talk about
some of the things that we've had, coal and natural gas,
and every now and then I hear people talk about nuclear.
Is that still in the conversation?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, I think it is.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
As you know, we have this artificial intelligence revolution going on,
and so there's a lot of things going on a
lot around the country, and one of these is restarting
nuclear plants, and one of those is in Michigan, the
Palisades plants that closed about three years ago. They are
looking to restart that. Pennsylvania is restarting one of the
(08:45):
three Mile Island plants, not the one that had the accident.
The Diablo Canyon plant in California has been extended, and
now Iowa is talking about restarting a plant in eastern
Iowa arting a nuclear plant. So there is a bunch
going on. The other thing that's happening with nuclear is
we have a bunch of these small modular plants, which
(09:10):
there are about fifty companies around the world that are
working on small modular nuclear plants, and these are various types.
Some of them are molten salt reactors which don't produce
waste and can't melt down, and there's a bunch of others.
And Chris Wright, the Energy Secretary, is all in for
these nuclear plants, so they're really promoting this. They're trying
(09:32):
to get a couple of them built within the next
two years, an accelerated schedule. Nuclear, though, still has cost
problems in a lot of ways. If you can compare
it to natural gas, a nuclear plant takes five or
ten years to build, at least a big one, and
a natural gas plant you can build in two years.
(09:53):
And the price of natural gas is about a plant
is about a quarter of a quarter of fifth of
the nuclear plants. We really need cost reductions. Hopefully these
new modular reactors will provide that and make nuclear a
bigger source of power again.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I have a conversation about a year or two that
is probably a couple of years ago with a guy
who we have some co ops here in Michigan, one
of the energy co ops, and so he sits on
the board. He's one of the folks who is just
you know, just a resident and is to have this
conversation about these things particularly, and that's when I first
(10:30):
heard about the modular nuclear. He was very hot on.
He said, you know, these things are the future if
they can get if they can get them up and running.
And we've even heard stories to your point about people
like Meta and Google and some of these companies that
Trump's trying to take some of the regulations off I
guess to allow them to build their own power plants, nuclear,
(10:51):
whatever they might be, so that they can power these
data centers in AI.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I actually spoke to a plastic pipe group in the
last year or two and the guy said, well, if
we ship plastic pipe to a regular factory, it takes
about two pages of a paperwork. If we ship it
to a nuclear planet, it takes about an inch of paperwork.
So we really have a big problem with regulations, and
(11:17):
the Trumpet administration, I think, is going to be trying
to cut those down to speed these up.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But you know, the big thing that's going on now.
One of the things the.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
State of Michigan with the Climate Plan and also Grand Rapids,
there really is no evidence that they're going to have
the slightest effect on temperatures, even if they go to
one hundred percent zero emissions. A Michigan itself is much
less than a one to one hundredth of global emissions.
(11:47):
And we have first across the globe, we have about
sixty five hundred coal fired power plants that are operating
and another thousand that are in planting or can. Coal
is actually the biggest source of electricity around the world,
provides about thirty five percent of the world electricity. But
then even in the US we have the artificial intelligence
(12:10):
revolution going on, and this is just astonishing. People don't
realize what's happening.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
The green movement would like wind and solar to drive this,
but it takes too long to get transmission. That's the
big problem. And when you put up wind and solar,
you have to cover wide, wide areas across the landscape
or up on ridges far away, and you got to
build all this transmission and it just takes you way
too long. So for example, what Elon Musk's Tesla company did.
(12:44):
They built a supercomputer next to Memphis called the Colossus
I believe XAI and they did it in six months.
They put in over two hundred thousand graphics processing units,
which are the things that drive AI.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
They did it in six months. They didn't even have permits.
But Tesla is a.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Solar and battery company, but they put in thirty five
gas turbines because it takes too long to do solar.
And now they have the permits, but they were being
challenged for a while. So these things are going on
across the country. Let me give you another huge example.
Texas is planning more than one hundred gas fire power
(13:30):
plants to drive AI. It's one hundred and eight new
plants and seventeen expansions and those are going to be
up in the next three or four or five years.
And Texas is the biggest wind state in the country.
It has over fifteen thousand wind turbines. But when all
these gas plants are built, these hundred gas plants they're
going to provide they're going to provide three times as
(13:52):
much electricity as all the wind turbines in Texas. So
that's what's really happening around the country. We have nuclear
plants to restart, and then a lot of gas plants
are being built.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Well, I mean, you know, the the truth of the
matter is, uh, you know, number one from a national
security standpoint and just an innovation standpoint, for the United
States to really be the continue to be the leader
of the free world, we're going to have to be
at the forefront of this technology. And this technology requires
massive amounts of energy, Steve, is what you're pointing out.
(14:26):
So we've really got to be We've we've got to
we've got to get rid of a lot of these
things that are in the way, the red tape, and
China's not China's putting new cold plants on every you know,
every every day we hear more and more. So that's
why I think when you look at this stories like
this action plan out at Grand rapids. I call it
(14:47):
the crap plan, but the Client Action and Adaptation Plan. Uh,
it's even if you think, even if you're well, they're
well intended, even if you think about that, Uh, the
outcome is is so herrific. It's so bad in so
many different ways. It's it's it's ob Yeah, China, not
(15:07):
just on the world stage, what it's going to do
to us. But you know, I know you've written about this.
This goes far back. You've written about what what what
these plans actually I don't want to say accomplish because
that's not the right word for it, but that that
green breakdown what ends up happening because of it.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, I was actually on the phone.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
You stay at a in a board meeting with the
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and I basically
pointed out to them that you know, what you do
here isn't going to have any effect. Like in Texas
are building one hundred gas plants, so so going to wind.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And solar here is not going to have any real effect.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
But they basically said, well, it's California law, you know,
we have to do it. And they realize it's not
going to affect global emissions in any way. And that's
sort of the situation in Michigan. Michigan does with all
this green stuff. It may get him some badges. They
may be able to comply with state law, but it's
not going to have any measurable effect on the environment.
(16:11):
But it is going to, as we say, raise prices
when you put in the women's solar.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
We've got a guy in the chat right now watching
with us a little often. You can actually get in
the behind the scenes livestream on the chat and locals
vip just seven bucks a month to join. You can
join the annual I'll send you a copy of my
book Good News, Hope and Encouragement for trying time. Send it,
sign it and also give you a month fore if
you sign up for the annual plan. But you get
to ask questions or throw comments. And like Critter who's
(16:39):
talking about he's a nuclear employee, and he said, I
often advocate for its use the regulatory issues or the
real issues that you are just talking about. To your
point there, Steve, he says nuclear creates the greatest bang
for your buck in the long run, get rid of
some of the regulation and increase its benefits. Tenaxi said,
So I think it is. You know, I'm not going
(17:01):
to say one thing or the other, but I think
the maybe that thirty thousand foot viewpoint is that getting
rid of some of these regulatory issues in all of
these different areas to get, you know, a level playing
field so that we can continue to not just be
a superpower, but make sure that we're at the forefront. Because, boy,
(17:24):
I'll tell you what, whoever masters this AI stuff is
going to end up running the world.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, it's a huge thing. And Trump has come out
for it.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
They actually had a a energy summit in Pennsylvania a
couple of weeks ago, and Trump went there and it
was called the Energy Innovation Summit. Pennsylvania is going to
put in more than ninety billion dollars in AI data centers.
Most of those are going to be powered by gas,
but the Westinghouse Electric is always is also building multiple
(17:56):
nuclear plants in the.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
State to try and do that. Here's an other one.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Meta Facebook is claiming to build the largest data center
in the Western hemisphere. It's going to be in Richland
Parish in northeast Louisiana. They've already started construction north of
New Orleans and when this is done, it's expected to
use more electricity, twice as much electricity as the city
of New Orleans, if you can imagine. So these are
(18:23):
really really big things. By the way, a company called
Energy Louisiana is building three large gas fired power plants
on the Meta site at a cost of more than
three billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So this is what is happening.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And you know, the board in Grand Rapids thinks they're
going to make a difference, and they really aren't.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
It's it's kind of old thing. The combination of.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Mister Trump cutting back subsidies for wind and solar and
evs and then this AI revolution are just moving us
in a different direction.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Well, I will say in the book, in fact, he's
written like I said, a number of books. But in
that Green Breakdown book you talk about, I mean, some
really dark things in the name of you know, trying
to we always hear, you know, compassion or whatnot, and
we completely forget about, you know, the reality of the consequences.
(19:18):
There's still compassion for well, are people going to be
able to eat? Are they going to starve? Are they
going to freeze to death or burn up? Depending upon
what day it is because of the blackouts that are
possible in these situations, whether it be in the winter
time or in the summertime when we have well seasons.
We're not prepared for some of these things that we
(19:40):
like we used to be. I mean, you've got some
of the most vulnerable people that are at the most
risk YEP.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
We had the blackout in Texas, we had it in California.
In Texas in February of twenty twenty one, power was
off for seventy two hours, three full days to four
and a half million people, and more than two hundred
people died in that incident from the power blackout. A
New ZERI, New Jersey has shut down all their coal
(20:07):
plants and their natural gas and nuclear plants. Now they've
got some natural gas, but they're shut down coal and
nuclear and now they're really short of power. They're trying
to import it from everybody else. And Trump just shut
off the offshore wind. So I talk about this a
lot in Green breakdown the complete story from power plants,
homoplants as electric vehicles, heavy industry, heavy transportation, and how
(20:32):
we're going to get back to sensible energy. We're not
going to pursue this green stuff. By the way, the
book is a.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
It's got one hundred and fifty color sidebars which are
real headlines about the climate and energy, and here's one
of them. This was in twenty nineteen Swedish scientists advocates
eating humans to combat climate change. Point and he actually
(20:59):
gives presents and then at the end of this presentation,
according to the article, he was asking the audience, uh,
who would be willing to try human flesh? But the
whole just a whole bunch of crazy stuff. The world
is following this goofy path, but it is changing now
we have this this green breakdown is underway, and uh,
(21:20):
I recommend people get the book. That can get it
at my website Steve gooram dot com. They buy one,
I'll send them a signed copy or two, and then
they're on Amazon ebooks as well.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Steve, I love that people are waking up and to
your point, get the book not just so you can
read it and be informed of yourself, but also share
it with other people. But there is a return to
common sense happening at least in the forefront, like in
in I think in the in the sort of a zeitgeist.
(21:54):
I really think that people have always had these thesecies.
I just think that for some reason, the media has
been so loud in the drum beat from all the
really the fake news, the propaganda against and it's not
just this issue, there's so many others. But people are
(22:15):
waking up. That's why I was so surprised the other
day when I saw this story pop up. We had
a guy call about this. He said, you know, they're
about writing the meat on this. In fact, it's happening
to day. I said, I can't. I can't believe we're
still doing this. These people ought to be run out
on our rail tartan feathered that they would even consider this.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Well, again, the key thing ought to be reduce real pollution,
which are particulates and sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, ozone, lead,
and we've done a great job in the United States,
according to EPA data, since nineteen eighty, those harmful pollutants
are down more than eighty percent in our ear I
remember when I was a child driving past Geary, Indiana
(22:57):
steel mills, and we literally hit our Winshield coated We
had to pull over on the side of the road.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And wipe off the windshield from what was in the air.
But we don't have that anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
But what we should be doing is concentrating on real pollution,
air and water pollution, some plastic in the ocean, some
discharges across the world into fresh water, not carbon dioxide.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Carbon dioxide should not even be called a pollutant.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
And by the way, Alise Eldon, the EPA administrator, is
trying to roll back the endangement finding of two thousand
and nine, which is actually what the source of calling
a CO two a pollutant.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
All of this, folks, you're making sense of some of
the most senseless, right is our goal when we have
these conversations. Steve one of the best at doing just that.
By the way, you can get all of the breakdown
literally for the breakdown in the book Green Breakdown, the
Coming Renewable Energy Failure, and I would say you get
(23:58):
one or two and then pass them around the folks
that you know, obviously they'll have a chance to know
the truth on this stuff too. But always a pleasure.
Steve is a regular comes on this program quite often
and tries to break it all down for us, and
we always appreciate that. Steve, thank you for all that
you do. I guess one last piece, what can we
(24:19):
do as we try to wake people up to this
and and and put the adults back in charge in
the room.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Well, I think people should push back, particularly local folks
who may not want wind or solar, and and they'll
be pushing back against governments.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And and you know.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
The question is, why do you want to raise our
energy prices. Let's let's get back to a sensible energy policy,
reliable energy policy. If people want to buy electric cars,
that's great. By the way, again, the Trump administration has
uh has eliminated all the waivers to states, so all
of these these mandates are disappearing as well. Yeah, but
(25:03):
let's get back to choice for consumers and get away
from from the forced work of government.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Steve Gorham, the author and the course of the book
is out everywhere where can folks grab it again? Steve
your website and what's the best way to do it?
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Steve Goorham dot com, G O R E H A
M dot com. I'll send them signed copies and they're
on Amazon, they're ebooks as well, and wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Fantastic, Thank you for all you do, Steve. We really
appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Okay, till the next time, justin.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
You got it, God bless. Folks will continue and more
of the stories just like this right here, making sense
of it all, more truth, logic and common sense. God bless.
To strap any It's going to be a heck of
a riot. It's like drinking from a fire hose.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Never a dull moment.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
But yes, you'll hear the stories you won't hear anywhere else,
and we'll appreciate you being here with us form today.
I'm justin Barclay. Yeah, I call it the crap Plan
because I think they left an r out here in
Grand Rapids. They have a climate action plan that they
(00:28):
give the uh, well, well let's c a AP is
how they give THEE the description of it. But I
think again, I think it's well, they're full of it,
and in this plan particularly they are. But why I
want to dig into it to give a full picture
of why at a time like we thought, well, really
(00:51):
we were all done with all of this nonsense, why
are we still having to deal with it? Why is
it still something that can continues to come up on
the screen, and particularly in places you know, liberal left
leaning cities, Democrat run cities like Grand Rapids. Oh, the
(01:12):
Green New Scheme is still alive and well, and I
thought it had all but been vanquished, so to speak.
Steve Gorham is here with us right now to discuss
this story and really kind of dig into the weeds
on and all. Steve, I appreciate you taking a time.
You're always like the voice of truth, logic, and common sense,
particularly when it comes to these stories on climate and
(01:36):
really what they've been doing for so long. Steve as
the executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America,
the author of four books on energy, climate change, and
sustainable development, with over one hundred thousand copies in print.
The latest book from Steve is Green Breakdown the Coming
Renewable Energy Failure. So let's dive in. Steve, I just
(01:57):
saw this and you can imagine my surprise, distilled thing
they're pushing number one and then when you dig into
it how bad it really is.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Hey, justin great to join you. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
The earlier this week, the Grand Rapid City Commission approved
top twenty priorities for the city's Climate and Adaptation Plan.
And you know, when you read through this, there's there's
a fair amount of good things in there. I think
they're putting in bike paths and some other things, but
they they seem to be still committed to reduce cities
(02:34):
quote greenhouse gas emission sixty three percent by twenty thirty one.
Hundred percent by twenty fifty. Just kind of a crazy thing,
you know.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The bottom line is that this is not going to
have any.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Measurable effect on the climate are on global temperatures, but
it is probably going to raise energy prices for people
in Grand rapids to the extent that it is pursued.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
That's the thing that I think is probably the toughest
pill to swallow right now for folks as they look
at this in a look, our energy prices are through
the roof right now, and I know we're not the
only ones. And by the way, it's because we've seen
some of our energy providers here make that move to
(03:25):
you know, wind solar and unicorn farts as I like
to call it. They've tried all these alternatives meanwhile shutting
down coal plants and I don't know if you're getting
it where you are in Chicago, but we don't get
a peep or here a peep. We know the Attorney
General here has been trying to shut down one of
our coal plants in our backyard for the longest time,
and she still is at that. Yet nothing about the
(03:48):
Canadian wildfire smoke that's pouring across our porter in our
skies ruining our summers for the last two three summers. Now,
I don't know if you're getting any of that where
you are, but it's it's a me us here.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, we are.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The forest fires actually in many places now, the fires
are much bigger in terms of particulates than all of
the vehicles and everything else. And that is the case
in California, for example, and I think it's the case
this summer. So you know, we have regulations all over
that say you shouldn't be using gas leaf blowers or
(04:24):
lawnmowers because of particulates, but the forest fires tend to
be much bigger factors. Not to mention, if people are smoking,
you're using cannabis. I mean that is far far behind,
far far beyond anything that a power plant is putting out.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So let's dig into As you mentioned, there's some good
things in this and some bad things, But the biggest
piece is it is going to cost us more money.
It's going to be taxpayer dollars that are going to
be spent to do things that really aren't going to
have much of an impact at all. And at the
end of the day, what they will do is impact
energy prices, and as you said, I've been taking a
(05:04):
look at this. We've got a lot of people that
are very interested. I'm just watching for my personal aspect.
My bills seem to be going up and up and up.
And one of the things that I always wonder about
is in a place like Michigan, we got all this
manufacturing pouring back into the country right now, particularly investment
coming in. President has been very big on this. In
(05:26):
Michigan is the state to put the world on wheels.
We're so proud of that fact. But it's so hard
because our state government has made it such a governor
particularly and Democrats in Lansing made it so hard for
folks to do business here. The state of our roads
is one thing. The whole other piece of this is
(05:46):
the cost of energy. So it's one thing when my
bills I but it's a whole other thing when people
are looking whether or not they're going to invest and
come into the state of Michigan, whether their bills are
going to be high or not. And this is before
everybody playsugs. They're tesla in like they'd all like them too,
And let's be real, what's really going to be driving
these prices up is data centers and AI sucking the
(06:09):
juice every moment. That's just going to be a reality.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, it is. So.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Your prices in Michigan are the highest in the Midwest
right now. According to the US Department of Energy, in
twenty twenty four, the average residential electricity price in Michigan
was nineteen zero point two to nine cents for killo
whatt hour, a little over nineteen cents for killowot hour.
That's higher than Ohio and Indiana and Illinois and Wisconsin
(06:39):
and even beyond that. Another thing that's happening is the
rise in electricity prices in Michigan is faster than most
other states since two thousand and eight, over the last
sixteen years. I've been tracking this for a while. Again,
this is data from the US Department of Energy. The
national average electricity prices going up thirty three percent in
(07:01):
those sixteen years, but Michigan is up about fifty eight
percent over that period of time. Indiana up about sixty percent,
but everybody else in the Midwest is down about thirty
about the national average.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So it is going up.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
The other thing is, you know, you have the Michigan
Healthy Climate Plan, which calls for trying to go to
sixty percent renewables by twenty thirty, one hundred percent by
twenty fifty, very similar to what Grand Rapids is trying
to do. In twenty twenty four, you actually had a
pretty good mix. You had natural gas forty seven percent
(07:38):
of the electricity, nuclear twenty two percent, coal twenty one
point six percent, wind was was only about eight point
two percent, and solar was just not even around. But
the idea is to get rid of all that natural
gas and coal that is that's almost seventy percent of
your electricity and trying to replace it with wind and solar.
(08:01):
That is still the state's current plan, and that's just
really poor policy.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That's going to be very expensive.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Steve, what's the answer. A lot of people talk about
some of the things that we've had, coal and natural gas,
and every now and then I hear people talk about nuclear.
Is that still in the conversation?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, I think it is.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
As you know, we have this artificial intelligence revolution going on,
and so there's a lot of things going on a
lot around the country, and one of these is restarting
nuclear plants, and one of those is in Michigan, the
Palisades plants that closed about three years ago. They are
looking to restart that. Pennsylvania is restarting one of the
(08:45):
three Mile Island plants, not the one that had the accident.
The Diablo Canyon plant in California has been extended, and
now Iowa is talking about restarting a plant in eastern
Iowa arting a nuclear plant. So there is a bunch
going on. The other thing that's happening with nuclear is
we have a bunch of these small modular plants, which
(09:10):
there are about fifty companies around the world that are
working on small modular nuclear plants, and these are various types.
Some of them are molten salt reactors which don't produce
waste and can't melt down, and there's a bunch of others.
And Chris Wright, the Energy Secretary, is all in for
these nuclear plants, so they're really promoting this. They're trying
(09:32):
to get a couple of them built within the next
two years, an accelerated schedule. Nuclear, though, still has cost
problems in a lot of ways. If you can compare
it to natural gas, a nuclear plant takes five or
ten years to build, at least a big one, and
a natural gas plant you can build in two years.
(09:53):
And the price of natural gas is about a plant
is about a quarter of a quarter of fifth of
the nuclear plants. We really need cost reductions. Hopefully these
new modular reactors will provide that and make nuclear a
bigger source of power again.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I have a conversation about a year or two that
is probably a couple of years ago with a guy
who we have some co ops here in Michigan, one
of the energy co ops, and so he sits on
the board. He's one of the folks who is just
you know, just a resident and is to have this
conversation about these things particularly, and that's when I first
(10:30):
heard about the modular nuclear. He was very hot on.
He said, you know, these things are the future if
they can get if they can get them up and running.
And we've even heard stories to your point about people
like Meta and Google and some of these companies that
Trump's trying to take some of the regulations off I
guess to allow them to build their own power plants, nuclear,
(10:51):
whatever they might be, so that they can power these
data centers in AI.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I actually spoke to a plastic pipe group in the
last year or two and the guy said, well, if
we ship plastic pipe to a regular factory, it takes
about two pages of a paperwork. If we ship it
to a nuclear planet, it takes about an inch of paperwork.
So we really have a big problem with regulations, and
(11:17):
the Trumpet administration, I think, is going to be trying
to cut those down to speed these up.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But you know, the big thing that's going on now.
One of the things the.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
State of Michigan with the Climate Plan and also Grand Rapids,
there really is no evidence that they're going to have
the slightest effect on temperatures, even if they go to
one hundred percent zero emissions. A Michigan itself is much
less than a one to one hundredth of global emissions.
(11:47):
And we have first across the globe, we have about
sixty five hundred coal fired power plants that are operating
and another thousand that are in planting or can. Coal
is actually the biggest source of electricity around the world,
provides about thirty five percent of the world electricity. But
then even in the US we have the artificial intelligence
(12:10):
revolution going on, and this is just astonishing. People don't
realize what's happening.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
The green movement would like wind and solar to drive this,
but it takes too long to get transmission. That's the
big problem. And when you put up wind and solar,
you have to cover wide, wide areas across the landscape
or up on ridges far away, and you got to
build all this transmission and it just takes you way
too long. So for example, what Elon Musk's Tesla company did.
(12:44):
They built a supercomputer next to Memphis called the Colossus
I believe XAI and they did it in six months.
They put in over two hundred thousand graphics processing units,
which are the things that drive AI.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
They did it in six months. They didn't even have permits.
But Tesla is a.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Solar and battery company, but they put in thirty five
gas turbines because it takes too long to do solar.
And now they have the permits, but they were being
challenged for a while. So these things are going on
across the country. Let me give you another huge example.
Texas is planning more than one hundred gas fire power
(13:30):
plants to drive AI. It's one hundred and eight new
plants and seventeen expansions and those are going to be
up in the next three or four or five years.
And Texas is the biggest wind state in the country.
It has over fifteen thousand wind turbines. But when all
these gas plants are built, these hundred gas plants they're
going to provide they're going to provide three times as
(13:52):
much electricity as all the wind turbines in Texas. So
that's what's really happening around the country. We have nuclear
plants to restart, and then a lot of gas plants
are being built.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Well, I mean, you know, the the truth of the
matter is, uh, you know, number one from a national
security standpoint and just an innovation standpoint, for the United
States to really be the continue to be the leader
of the free world, we're going to have to be
at the forefront of this technology. And this technology requires
massive amounts of energy, Steve, is what you're pointing out.
(14:26):
So we've really got to be We've we've got to
we've got to get rid of a lot of these
things that are in the way, the red tape, and
China's not China's putting new cold plants on every you know,
every every day we hear more and more. So that's
why I think when you look at this stories like
this action plan out at Grand rapids. I call it
(14:47):
the crap plan, but the Client Action and Adaptation Plan. Uh,
it's even if you think, even if you're well, they're
well intended, even if you think about that, Uh, the
outcome is is so herrific. It's so bad in so
many different ways. It's it's it's ob Yeah, China, not
(15:07):
just on the world stage, what it's going to do
to us. But you know, I know you've written about this.
This goes far back. You've written about what what what
these plans actually I don't want to say accomplish because
that's not the right word for it, but that that
green breakdown what ends up happening because of it.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, I was actually on the phone.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
You stay at a in a board meeting with the
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and I basically
pointed out to them that you know, what you do
here isn't going to have any effect. Like in Texas
are building one hundred gas plants, so so going to wind.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And solar here is not going to have any real effect.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
But they basically said, well, it's California law, you know,
we have to do it. And they realize it's not
going to affect global emissions in any way. And that's
sort of the situation in Michigan. Michigan does with all
this green stuff. It may get him some badges. They
may be able to comply with state law, but it's
not going to have any measurable effect on the environment.
(16:11):
But it is going to, as we say, raise prices
when you put in the women's solar.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
We've got a guy in the chat right now watching
with us a little often. You can actually get in
the behind the scenes livestream on the chat and locals
vip just seven bucks a month to join. You can
join the annual I'll send you a copy of my
book Good News, Hope and Encouragement for trying time. Send it,
sign it and also give you a month fore if
you sign up for the annual plan. But you get
to ask questions or throw comments. And like Critter who's
(16:39):
talking about he's a nuclear employee, and he said, I
often advocate for its use the regulatory issues or the
real issues that you are just talking about. To your
point there, Steve, he says nuclear creates the greatest bang
for your buck in the long run, get rid of
some of the regulation and increase its benefits. Tenaxi said,
So I think it is. You know, I'm not going
(17:01):
to say one thing or the other, but I think
the maybe that thirty thousand foot viewpoint is that getting
rid of some of these regulatory issues in all of
these different areas to get, you know, a level playing
field so that we can continue to not just be
a superpower, but make sure that we're at the forefront. Because, boy,
(17:24):
I'll tell you what, whoever masters this AI stuff is
going to end up running the world.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, it's a huge thing. And Trump has come out
for it.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
They actually had a a energy summit in Pennsylvania a
couple of weeks ago, and Trump went there and it
was called the Energy Innovation Summit. Pennsylvania is going to
put in more than ninety billion dollars in AI data centers.
Most of those are going to be powered by gas,
but the Westinghouse Electric is always is also building multiple
(17:56):
nuclear plants in the.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
State to try and do that. Here's an other one.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Meta Facebook is claiming to build the largest data center
in the Western hemisphere. It's going to be in Richland
Parish in northeast Louisiana. They've already started construction north of
New Orleans and when this is done, it's expected to
use more electricity, twice as much electricity as the city
of New Orleans, if you can imagine. So these are
(18:23):
really really big things. By the way, a company called
Energy Louisiana is building three large gas fired power plants
on the Meta site at a cost of more than
three billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So this is what is happening.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And you know, the board in Grand Rapids thinks they're
going to make a difference, and they really aren't.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
It's it's kind of old thing. The combination of.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Mister Trump cutting back subsidies for wind and solar and
evs and then this AI revolution are just moving us
in a different direction.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Well, I will say in the book, in fact, he's
written like I said, a number of books. But in
that Green Breakdown book you talk about, I mean, some
really dark things in the name of you know, trying
to we always hear, you know, compassion or whatnot, and
we completely forget about, you know, the reality of the consequences.
(19:18):
There's still compassion for well, are people going to be
able to eat? Are they going to starve? Are they
going to freeze to death or burn up? Depending upon
what day it is because of the blackouts that are
possible in these situations, whether it be in the winter
time or in the summertime when we have well seasons.
We're not prepared for some of these things that we
(19:40):
like we used to be. I mean, you've got some
of the most vulnerable people that are at the most
risk YEP.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
We had the blackout in Texas, we had it in California.
In Texas in February of twenty twenty one, power was
off for seventy two hours, three full days to four
and a half million people, and more than two hundred
people died in that incident from the power blackout. A
New ZERI, New Jersey has shut down all their coal
(20:07):
plants and their natural gas and nuclear plants. Now they've
got some natural gas, but they're shut down coal and
nuclear and now they're really short of power. They're trying
to import it from everybody else. And Trump just shut
off the offshore wind. So I talk about this a
lot in Green breakdown the complete story from power plants,
homoplants as electric vehicles, heavy industry, heavy transportation, and how
(20:32):
we're going to get back to sensible energy. We're not
going to pursue this green stuff. By the way, the
book is a.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
It's got one hundred and fifty color sidebars which are
real headlines about the climate and energy, and here's one
of them. This was in twenty nineteen Swedish scientists advocates
eating humans to combat climate change. Point and he actually
(20:59):
gives presents and then at the end of this presentation,
according to the article, he was asking the audience, uh,
who would be willing to try human flesh? But the
whole just a whole bunch of crazy stuff. The world
is following this goofy path, but it is changing now
we have this this green breakdown is underway, and uh,
(21:20):
I recommend people get the book. That can get it
at my website Steve gooram dot com. They buy one,
I'll send them a signed copy or two, and then
they're on Amazon ebooks as well.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Steve, I love that people are waking up and to
your point, get the book not just so you can
read it and be informed of yourself, but also share
it with other people. But there is a return to
common sense happening at least in the forefront, like in
in I think in the in the sort of a zeitgeist.
(21:54):
I really think that people have always had these thesecies.
I just think that for some reason, the media has
been so loud in the drum beat from all the
really the fake news, the propaganda against and it's not
just this issue, there's so many others. But people are
(22:15):
waking up. That's why I was so surprised the other
day when I saw this story pop up. We had
a guy call about this. He said, you know, they're
about writing the meat on this. In fact, it's happening
to day. I said, I can't. I can't believe we're
still doing this. These people ought to be run out
on our rail tartan feathered that they would even consider this.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Well, again, the key thing ought to be reduce real pollution,
which are particulates and sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, ozone, lead,
and we've done a great job in the United States,
according to EPA data, since nineteen eighty, those harmful pollutants
are down more than eighty percent in our ear I
remember when I was a child driving past Geary, Indiana
(22:57):
steel mills, and we literally hit our Winshield coated We
had to pull over on the side of the road.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And wipe off the windshield from what was in the air.
But we don't have that anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
But what we should be doing is concentrating on real pollution,
air and water pollution, some plastic in the ocean, some
discharges across the world into fresh water, not carbon dioxide.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Carbon dioxide should not even be called a pollutant.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
And by the way, Alise Eldon, the EPA administrator, is
trying to roll back the endangement finding of two thousand
and nine, which is actually what the source of calling
a CO two a pollutant.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
All of this, folks, you're making sense of some of
the most senseless, right is our goal when we have
these conversations. Steve one of the best at doing just that.
By the way, you can get all of the breakdown
literally for the breakdown in the book Green Breakdown, the
Coming Renewable Energy Failure, and I would say you get
(23:58):
one or two and then pass them around the folks
that you know, obviously they'll have a chance to know
the truth on this stuff too. But always a pleasure.
Steve is a regular comes on this program quite often
and tries to break it all down for us, and
we always appreciate that. Steve, thank you for all that
you do. I guess one last piece, what can we
(24:19):
do as we try to wake people up to this
and and and put the adults back in charge in
the room.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Well, I think people should push back, particularly local folks
who may not want wind or solar, and and they'll
be pushing back against governments.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And and you know.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
The question is, why do you want to raise our
energy prices. Let's let's get back to a sensible energy policy,
reliable energy policy. If people want to buy electric cars,
that's great. By the way, again, the Trump administration has
uh has eliminated all the waivers to states, so all
of these these mandates are disappearing as well. Yeah, but
(25:03):
let's get back to choice for consumers and get away
from from the forced work of government.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Steve Gorham, the author and the course of the book
is out everywhere where can folks grab it again? Steve
your website and what's the best way to do it?
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Steve Goorham dot com, G O R E H A
M dot com. I'll send them signed copies and they're
on Amazon, they're ebooks as well, and wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Fantastic, Thank you for all you do, Steve. We really
appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Okay, till the next time, justin.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
You got it, God bless. Folks will continue and more
of the stories just like this right here, making sense
of it all, more truth, logic and common sense. God bless.
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