8-21-25 - 7am - Net Zero Pipe Dream

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mike.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Over a decade ago, the Colorado PUC pulled off a
table workaround that mandated that Xcel Energy establish a second
lower rate that was below their cost of production and
transmission that they would charge small users, which was subsidized
by charging large residential users a higher than average rate
for their electricity.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Cross subsidies like we talked about yesterday on the three
or four B drug program in the government. So Excel
Energy is probably underestimating the radio impact even with its
own modeling system that they're using. And you may think,
you know, if you're listening in some other states, you
may think that this doesn't apply to you, but it does. First,

(00:44):
Excel covers seven different states. But second of all, this
is pretty standard when it comes to invest your own utilities. IOUs.
It's pretty standard in terms of how IOUs operate and
interact with their regulators. If you think that there's been

(01:06):
regulatory capture by big pharma, or by the homeless industry
or any other you know of these groups that have
you know that are regulated or financed and funded by taxpayers,
this is no different than any of that that this
is regulatory capture because they have just in the most

(01:30):
basic of terms, when they do their modeling and they
put out their forecast or their predictions, do you really
believe that the people that run Colorado State government or
your government, that they have the capacity or the ability
to do the same kind of modeling. For example, I'm

(01:55):
not doing the story yet, but just as a tease,
there was on my next timeline last night, a short
little SoundBite from someone who either is a current secretary
of state or a candidate for secretary state in Illinois
talking about their emissions inspection program and what a joke

(02:15):
it is. And that sent me down a rabbit hole.
And as I started going down the rabbit hole of
trying to research and find as much empirical data as
I could about the cost benefit analysis of Colorado's emissions program,
I found that Colorado doesn't have deadly when it comes
to that, they don't have squat If you if you

(02:38):
ask Jared Polus or any of the dumbasses at the
Colorado Pullup Bureau, or any in any state that has
an the missions program.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Show me.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Either your own studies, not models, but your studies that
can show a cost benefit analysis and show that they're
is a benefit or that you've had some contractor some
consultant do that you won't find any, and the same
is true here. In a filing with the Public Utilities Commission,

(03:17):
a couple of energy environmental organizations said that Excel's long
term rate forecast model, they calculated that the increase by
twenty thirty one, a fifty percent increase. Then Polus sends

(03:38):
a letter to the public utility commissions and some other
state agencies telling them, you need to coordinate. Want such
a stupid word, but you need to coordinate in meeting
data center needs and moving activities such as transportation and
building heating to electricity, the so called beneficial electrification that

(04:03):
Colorado's undergoing as part of their zero campaign. So when
you consider all of that, how do you maintain affordable
energy costs when you're adding all of this building, all
of this expansion based on growth models that are totally

(04:26):
divorced from reality. The chairman of the Public Utilities Commission
in Colorado says that Excel energies fifteen cent per kilowatt
hour residential charge. Average residential charge could double by twenty
thirty six and triple by twenty forty four if Excel

(04:49):
spending is not tightly managed well, when Excel is actually
making money by expanding and growing because they I don't
have to best describe this. Yes, they will make if
you expand your generation capacity and there are consumers out there, business, residential, industrial,

(05:13):
whatever it might be. If there are those consumers out
there that are going to consume that additional generation that
you now produce, yeah, you'll make more money because you
make a certain not you know it, maybe pennies, but
you make a profit off every kilowa hours sold. But
that's only half the story. Under Colorado PUC regulations, the

(05:37):
way they operate, just spending the money to build capacity,
regardless of its necessity, gives them additional profits. In other words,
they make money by just going out and building, just building.

(06:00):
Now Again, going back to the chairman of the PUC
in Colorado, he's quoted as saying that Excel Energy has
projected sixteen percent growth and rate base between twenty twenty
and twenty thirty two, is even significantly faster than in California,
adding that the current rate for Pacific GASCT Electric PG

(06:20):
and E that they serve northern Colorado is forty five
cents of kilowatt hour and that is on a forty
five degree trajectory upward as we move forward, forty five
cents compared to our fifteen to twenty one cents per hour.

(06:41):
So yeah, your rates are going to just skyrocket. Colorado
has been as many states are out there pushing this
idea of electrification. And I find that funny because you know,
when I was growing up, our electric provider og in

(07:06):
the Olklama Gas and Electric, and I'm sure this was
kind of rural electric cooperatives used. Remember the little guy
that looked like a little light bulb, a little stick
figure like a light bulb, Ready kill a what? Remember,
ready kill a what? Oh, encouraging you to, you know,
use electricity. You know, hey, now you can get an
electric stove, you know, you know, get get an electric

(07:29):
washer and dryer, get electric this electric that, get everything
electric electric electric. Well, of course, because they're trying to
push that particular form of energy because they can increase
rates and they can make more money off I mean
not just the increase, but the increased consumption.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Also.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Now, think about what's different from the old ready kill
a what that's trying to get you to use electricity
versus what's happening today, Because there's another factor that people
tend to ignore, and that is the attack on fossil fuels.

(08:08):
Where is most of that When you and I were
growing up, and for you young people, for you millennials
and gen xers and others in this audience. You probably
don't remember this, but most of our electric generation came
from coal, oil, natural gas. And of course we had
nuclear back then too, but we don't really have much

(08:29):
of that anymore.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Today.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
They're trying to kill off We're shutting down coal plants
all over the country. We're shutting down cold plants in Colorado,
and we're turning to what well we do. We're still
using natural gas, but they still want us to get
to net zero by reducing natural gas. So in Colorado
it is wind and solar completely unreliable, incredibly costly, and

(08:58):
is not going to provide the amount of power. And
remember whended solars is dependent upon two factors, one of
which we have zero control over and the second of
which we don't have the technology for yet. One is
we have absolutely no control over the weather. Is the
wind blowing or not blowing? And is it blowing too hard?

(09:19):
Because if it's blowing too hard, you can't turn on
you can't let the turbines spin. If it's turning too slow,
doesn't produce any electricity, So that's already limited. Is it
sunny out or is at cloudy out? Oh? Was your
solar farm destroyed by a hailstorm? You know you've heard
Mandy do the commercial on this program. She's got a

(09:41):
roofing contractor. And you know, if you haven't been hit
by hale, Mandy says, well, you're going to be hit
by hale. Well, so are those solar farms. Eventually they'll
be hit by hale and they'll be out of commission
and they won't be usable. Then add this, there are
three things. This comes. What's hilarious about the three things

(10:04):
I'm about to tell you is this comes straight from
the Colorado Sun, which is obviously left leaning. Is you know,
kind of a government spokesman. They're a government stenographer, and
they talk about how rates are being pushed by three pressures.
These are the three pressures. Number one Colorado's goal of

(10:29):
cutting greenhouse gas emissions and promoting clean energy. The second
one growing electricity demand in the face of increasing building
costs due to inflation, supply chain problems, and tariffs. And

(10:49):
the last one the corporate goal of increasing shareholder value. Now,
which of those three is not like the others? Cutting
greenhouse gas emissions, promoting clean energy, inflation, supply chain problems, tariffs,

(11:11):
government regulations, all of that, or just increasing your shareholder value,
which is that is unlike the others increasing shareholder value,
because that's what any private, publicly traded company and investor
owned utility like Excel should be doing. They should be
increasing their shareholder value. If I own stock, which I

(11:33):
do not, if I own stock in Excel, I would
want them to be making as much profit as they
possibly could to increase my dividends, to increase the value
of my stock, so that I make money off them
making money. But I don't, and I don't have a
problem within doing that. But as long as they are
heavily regulated monopoly, then I expect them to be rational

(11:56):
and reasonable in their modey and in their expectations and
estimates for growth over the next decade. And I don't
think they are. But the other two those are government mandates.
That's government interference in the marketplace. So now Excel is
confronted with truly kind of mandated, almost government imposed profit

(12:25):
making a way for you to have to pay more
in order to meet a silly goal that Colorado has
set of zero by twenty thirty, which I don't think
there's any way in hell they're going to meet that.
Plus they'll have to continue to push that on that
into twenty forty or twenty fifty, and so just like California,

(12:48):
our rates will start to double and triple and quadruple,
and suddenly we'll find ourselves.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Unaffordable.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
And when we find ourselves unaffordable, people start voting with
their feet and they move. And now you're going to
even further complicate the problem because you have all this
capital expenditure, you have all of this capacity, and it's
going to be unused.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
You're going to be.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Over capacity, and so you still have to maintain that generation.
You still have to deal with all the maintenance and
upkeep and everything else. So you're paying for something that
you overpriced because of government regulations, and now your customers
are dwindling because growth will slow down. Because if you

(13:41):
have a choice of moving or moving or keeping your
business in California where you're paying forty five cents to
kill a one hour versus moving to Colorado where you
can get it for fifteen to twenty one cents kill
a one hour. Well, yeah, it's going to make sense
that if you're building something new, go building Colorado. Well

(14:02):
that's true today, it's not going to be true tomorrow.
And that's not going to be true tomorrow. Not because
of well it is because of economics, but it's government
regulations that interfere with a free market that then force
artificial price increases. And artificial is probably not exactly the
right word to use, because those price increases are actually

(14:25):
forced upon us because of government regulations. They six years
ago when the POLP Bureau required utilities to cut greenhouse
gas emissions by eighty percent over two thousand and five
levels by twenty thirty, which is just less than five
years from now. That caused Excel to come up with

(14:48):
their twelve billion dollar clean energy plan. Now, you can
blame Excel, but you can't blame Maxcel without blaming the government.
That very same year, twenty nineteen, six years ago, sent
IT Bill seventy seven requiring utilities to develop electrical vehicle
charging station plans. Well, just developing a plan costs money.

(15:13):
Rate payers have to pay for that. And now what
do we see ev sales plummeting. Two years ago, they
proposed a four hundred and forty million dollar plan, which
the PUC cut to two hundred and sixty four million dollars.
They probably all to look at it and cut it now.

(15:34):
Two years ago they also passed another bill which required
the gas utilities to develop clean heat plans to cut
emissions by twenty two percent below twenty fifteen levels again
within the next five years. So the PUC approved a
four hundred and forty million dollars clean heat plan. You

(15:54):
see everything that the government has done in order to
meet the stupid pipe dream of net zero. We're going
to meet net zero about as much as we're going
to meet that Net zero or Vision zero for traffic
deaths in Colorado. You're not going to do it in

(16:18):
either case. Unless you prevent people from driving vehicles. Everybody's
gonna have to just ride a horse or ride a bicycle. No,
no more gas or electric vehicles on the highways anywhere.
Or by the same token, you're gonna have force everybody to,
you know, put in heat, well whatever you're gonna have

(16:38):
to do, put in solar or wind in your own home,
because you're not going to eliminate and get to net
zero emissions. It's just not going to happen. Excel, though,
being smart is going to take advantage of these mandates.
By Okay, you want to develop a plan. Sure, it's
gonna cost us four hundred and forty million dollars to

(16:59):
develop the plan. And if we're going to spend four
hundred and forty million dollars, we need to be able
to recoup that somewhere because we need to maintain our
profit margins. And the PU says, okay, well, the government mandated,
so that's what we're going to do. It's insane and
this happens all over the country, and the same is
true with emissions. Somebody mentioned that they're the emissions. I

(17:23):
see this emissions guy setting up the portable emissions testing
on the on ramp to northbound twenty five from westbound
four seventy. Well, in Illinois, they discovered that, oh, there's
really not a benefit when you do a cost benefit analysis.

(17:43):
So I saw that yesterday and I start diving into that.
Seventy five almost seventy six million dollars for emissions testing
in Colorado. What do you think we get for it?

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Dragon?

Speaker 4 (18:01):
Here's slot number one of your best of Michael Brown,
what you talked about today on your XL Electric Company
is true today and it'll be true five years from now.
There you go, Dragon, You go collect all the past
ones that are true then, true now and will be
true in the future.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Get her going, get her done, Get her done, Get
her done.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
But that kind of implies that maybe some things I've
said in the pastor now are no longer true, which
I guess could be based upon the facts then versus
as facts have changed and developed over time. I guess
that could be true.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Right.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Alexi Gilanius Glaius, proud dad and husband ex Hooper and
thirty eighth Illinois Secretary of State, in a short video, says,
one of the biggest.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
Questions I get as Secretary of State, even though it
has absolutely nothing to do with our office, is about
missions testing for your vehicle. It has nothing to do
with us. But today I'm really excited not to be
partnering with the IVA to bring a mobile emissions tester
to the South side of Chicago. More to come on
this issue. We are bringing our services to the community

(19:23):
to you. Today's an enormous day. Put a lot more
to come.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Be on the lookout such a dumb ass democrat.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
I'm so excited to partner with the Illinois Environmental Protection
Agency to bring a mobile testing unit to our DMV
on the south side of Chicago. I wonder if that
testing unit will be armored. I'm if it will be
guarded by the Illinois National Guard. In response to that,

(19:56):
Mark Warremile Wire movie Ruler, who is a taxpayer advocate,
part of the public policy Group, one of the public
policy groups in Illinois rights, we need to eliminate emission testing.
There is no data that it helps the environment. In fact,

(20:16):
a million spin on it actually hurts the environment. Do
you know that in Illinois ninety eight percent of cars
pass making a huge waste of.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Time and gas and gas going to get tested.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
The annual cost of the Colorado Air Care vehicle missions
program in Colorado, which is probably true for states that
have you know, order of magnitude the same, whether you
are in Wyoming or New Mexico, or you're in Massachusetts.
Probably probably order of magnitude the same. The last figure

(20:52):
I could find, you know, let me let me get
away from my paper. I want to go on to
the because I've got footnotes on this because I'm going
to tell you where this came from. The calor air
Care Vehicle Emissions program costs seventy five point sixty three

(21:13):
million dollars in fiscal.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
Year twenty twenty three.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
That includes inspection fees, repair costs, and administering the program
that comes to us from Rocky Mountain PBS. Now. The
inspection fees in Colorado, according to AirCare Colorado, twenty five
dollars every two years for gas vehicles nineteen eighty two
and newer. There are exceptions. Both of my cars are

(21:38):
accepted fifteen dollars annually for nineteen eighty one and older vehicles. Again,
according to AirCare Colorado, the average time spent drivers spend
an average of almost an hour fifty minutes between travel
waiting and the waiting for the testing and then waiting

(22:02):
for the test results. So almost an hour fifty minutes
on average, some a little less, probably some a little
more again according to Rocky Mountain PBS. But I wanted
to know has anybody done a cost benefit analysis, because
like many government programs, I have determined that this is
nothing more than a feel good program. When you go

(22:27):
to official sources, they cannot quantify the benefit. Oh, they'll
tell you things like this, the Colorado Air Care program prevented, prevented.
It's like Obama, you know, jobs, what was it? Jobs

(22:51):
saved and jobs preserved? Whatever that phrase was, that there
was no way to prove or disprove it. Colorado Air
and the Collle Department of Environment Public Health claim that
our emissions program prevents an estimated somewhere between six and
a half and seven and a half tons per day

(23:14):
of those zone precursors from being released into the atmosphere.
And they then claim that that translates to a almost
seven and a half reduction seven and a half percent
reduction in total ozone emissions for the Northern Front Range
urban area. Okay, So if I just told you that

(23:36):
it reduces ozone emissions by seven point three five percent,
can you tell me what that translates to? Okay, what
does it do? Well, I'll tell you in a minute.
I just want you to think, what's the benefit of that.
We spend almost eighty million dollars and in exchange for

(23:58):
the eighty million dollars we get slightly more than seven
percent reduction in ozone? Is that worth eighty million dollars.
What's the benefit? Now, you if you go on to
some of the AI chat bots and you ask them

(24:18):
what are some of the justifications, you get stuff like this, Well,
ozone precursors can cause, can can cause, or can exacerbate
respiratory problems, and therefore can impact public health. Okay, well,
I get that my diet coke impacts public health. What's

(24:42):
the cost benefit? What is the risk benefit of me?
Risk benefit analysis? Because the benefit to me is it
keeps my mouth moist. The carbonation is good on my
throat since I spend four hours, at minimum four hours
a day yacking around, and I like the taste of it.

(25:04):
So I have to me I've got lots of benefits.
I've asked my doctors. Can you tell me the dangers
of me drinking you know, two or three diet cokes
a day. It's not good for you.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
I get that.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Tell me why they can't quantify it? Neither can they
quantify that these ozone precursors are a problem other than
they exacerbate and can actually be a cause of link
between developing a respiratory problem and impacting public health in general. Okay, Well,
some days I have a respiratory problem. Remember I was

(25:41):
sick a couple of weeks ago. It was I had
a respiratory infection, I had an influence of some sort.
Was that caused by ozone?

Speaker 2 (25:51):
What?

Speaker 3 (25:51):
What was that caused by?

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Then? They claim, this is according to reports from the
Colorado Public Bureau itself, that the benefit of this program
is that it quote targets older and high emitting vehicles,
which cause a disproportionate share of emissions. Okay, and what's

(26:16):
the benefit to me? What's the benefit to the state.
You just don't like old car. You don't like to
see old junkers. Maybe we need to reinstate the old
you know, junker program and buy junk cars and get
them off the road because they're ugly. Makes Colorado look,
you know, kind of like a third world country. So
if you drive an old car, shame on you. If
you're Warren Buffett and you're driving your nineteen eighty five

(26:39):
Pontiac or whatever it is that he drives, you know,
shame on you, Warren, because you're embarrassing Omaha. Nine percent
of vehicles tested in Colorado. This is according to the
reports from the Colorado Legislature. Nine nine tested vehicles typically

(27:01):
fail and must be repaired or removed, and that therefore
directly reduces emissions. Then I asked an AI chat bot
how much nobody can tell me? So nine percent failed.
So we're spending eighty million dollars a year to find

(27:23):
less than ten percent of the vehicles on the road.
What does that do to help me, to help you,
to help the environment? I then asked for I go
back to the cost benefit analysis, and I want to
know how cost effective is the program. Well, the call

(27:45):
of the Department of Health and Environment says that, oh, well,
the cost per ton removed in recent years latest date
is only twenty twenty one was twenty thousand, nine hundred
and thirty two dollars per ton of ozone precursors. So
to remove a ton. Now, I want you to think

(28:06):
for a moment. I want you to, wherever you are
inside or outside, go to a window. If you're in
your car, look through your car window windshield. If you're outside,
look up at the sky. Look as far to the north, south, east,
and west as you can look up to the sky,
look up way high, and you know, suns out, so
you really can't see the stars. You know, maybe the

(28:27):
moon's still out. I don't know, but look up now,
imagine a ton of ozone precursors in that atmosphere. We're
gona been almost twenty one thousand dollars to take that
ton out. And I say, and what does that do?

(28:48):
Nobody seems to be able to tell me. And in fact,
Denver seven had a report that said that our program,
our emissions program, as opposed to say Illinois, is seen
as more rigorous, earning praise from state officials.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
Wow, way to go. What journalism.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
So the people that implement the program, that passed the
law that require the program, make it mandatory, then praise
the program because we're stricter than other states. And look
what it's doing, Why it's costing us. We're only spending
twenty one thousand dollars per ton to remove a ton
of ozone precursors out of the atmosphere. And that may

(29:32):
stop or that may benefit public health, and that may
prevent some respiratory diseases, and it may prevent me from
doing a break on time. All right, quickly, I may
have to carry part of this over to the next hour.
Here's what I did next. I took all of the
data that I got from the Coloridal Department of Health

(29:54):
and Environment, from the Colorado State Legislature of the polit Bureau.
I even uploaded PDFs of the news stories from Rocky Mountain,
PBS from Denver, seven others, and I put those into
an AI chatbot, and I said something to the effect
that all of these documents tell me that the reduction

(30:20):
in ozone precursors might in quotes avoid quote dozens of
premature deaths.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
This seems to me to be an.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Incredibly generalized analysis and does not quantify the benefit. I
want a cost benefit analysis that does something other than
claim maybe dozens of premature deaths are are avoided, because
otherwise these are all very shaw shallow analyzes of the problem.

(30:58):
Just to give you the overall view. Then I'll give
the details. Next you have the response from the AI chatbot,
was your critique is well founded? A meaningful cost benefit
analysis for public policy requires quantitative Colorado specific evidence, not
vague or nationalized estimates. Here's the most concrete, evidence based

(31:22):
quantification currently available for Colorado and similar US airsheds. We'll
break down the numbers using published peer reviewed models. Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment analysis and EPA review
cost benefit frameworks. In other words, they go right back
to the same sources. And this is the fallacy. I

(31:42):
think of a lot of the AI that people are thinking,
oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
It's going to be so wonderful.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Well it ain't there yet, baby, it ain't there yet
because they go right back to the same sources and
it refeeves me the same information only in a different format.
So now the AI chat bought pissed me off. So
now I go dig further and then I get some
information and I plug that back into the AI to

(32:08):
see what the response is. Then I find out that
it's actually even worse than you think in terms of
a cost benefit of malice. Now some of these figures
you may find offensive based on my interpretation of it,
Well sucks to be you. But it's just how I

(32:29):
feel because if we're going to spend eighty million dollars
a year, I want to see something significant.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
I don't fight it.