December 15, 2022 • 58 mins
Ryan Foelske a Carbon Free Electricity Program manager at RMI (previously the Rocky Mountain Institute) decided to put his money where his mouth is by buying a home in Babcock Ranch, a community designed to both reduce human contribution to climate change and to be more resilient to the effects of climate change, especially hurricanes. He tells us about his experience weathering hurricane Ian.
Prior to joining RMI, Ryan worked at Deutsche Bank and Brookfield Asset Management as a buy-side equity analyst specializing in global regulated utilities and other publicly listed infrastructure companies. He built financial models, understood and quantified risks, and sought benchmark-beating returns for investors. In addition to his company coverage duties, Ryan helped develop the modeling framework, standardized and aggregated data outputs, and worked on index construction and inclusion.
As we discuss in the episode, resilience is an area of extensive funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Babcock Ranch has not received any funding under these pieces of federal legislation. Nevertheless we think its resilience measures are worth considering as background for other projects that may receive such funding in the future.
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Episode Transcript
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Greg Williams (00:10):
Thanks for joining us for another episode
of climate money watchdog wherewe investigate and report on how
federal dollars are being spenton mitigating climate change and
protecting the environment.
We're a nonprofit, nonpartisanorganization that does not
accept advertisers or sponsors.
So we can only do this work withyour support. Please visit us at
(00:32):
climate money watchdog.org Tolearn more about us and consider
making a donation. My name isGreg Williams and I learned to
investigate and report on waste,fraud and abuse in federal
spending. While working at theproject on government oversight,
or Pogo 30 years ago, I learnedto do independent research as
well as to work withconfidential informants, or
(00:53):
whistleblowers to uncover thingslike overpriced spare parts,
like the famous $435 hammers,and weapon systems that didn't
work as advertised. I was taughtby my co host Dena razor, who
founded Pogo in 1981, andfounded climate money watchdog
with me last year, Dina hasspent 40 years investigating and
(01:13):
sometimes recovering millions ofdollars wasted by the Defense
Department and other branches ofgovernment, both Pogo and as an
independent journalist, authorand professional investigator.
Dina, would you'd like to say afew words before we introduce
our guests.
Dina Rasor (01:29):
Just a few. It's a Yeah, I'm the old stirrer here
40 years who makes them feelold? It's, it's over 40 years.
But well, I found that federalgovernment, the people that try
to do this, to cheat the federalgovernment with federal money,
they usually have the same kindof patterns. And so the climate
money, we started thisorganization, because we were so
(01:51):
concerned that climate andenvironmental work has not
gotten the level of this kind offunding, funding some of the
it's not quite Pentagon on size,but it doesn't fit like the
Pentagon. But it I can, we cansee that there's not a lot of
history of oversight, especiallyin the environmental community.
(02:12):
So they're not oh, we're allenvironmentalists, we're all
gonna get along. And but theproblem is, of course, there's
always the sharks lurking, tofigure out a way to get in on
the game and not be fair aboutso we're starting this and I'm
really happy to have Ryan andthe other thing is that I'm
(02:34):
familiar with this area becausemy grandparents lived in Port
Charlotte, which is probablywhat 10 miles from you 15 miles.
So yeah, that's in Florida, PortCharlotte, Florida. So I have a
nostalgic interest in and wasvery sorry to see how much of it
got wiped out with thehurricane.
Greg Williams (02:55):
So our guest tonight is Ryan fall ski, a
manager for the carbon freeelectricity program at the Rocky
Mountain Institute. Prior tojoining Rmi, Ryan worked at
Deutsche Bank and Brookfieldasset management as a biocide
equity analyst specializing inglobal regulated utilities and
other publicly listedinfrastructure companies. He
(03:17):
built financial models,understood and quantified risks,
and sought benchmark beatingreturns for investors. In
addition to his company coverageduties, Ryan helped develop the
modeling framework, standardizedand aggregated data outputs and
worked on index construction andinclusion. Deena, why don't you
(03:37):
tell our listeners why we'reexcited to have Ryan with us
tonight?
Dina Rasor (03:41):
Okay, well, because we are interested in exploring
innovative climate solutions andthe money behind them, because
they're all you know, there's anawful lot of people say I've got
ideas, and I've got this ideaand that idea, and we're
looking, we're sort of beentalking about fraud, the first
part of the last 23 things, butwe are now starting to talk
(04:05):
about because the money isstarting to get spent
innovation, what works, whatdoesn't work, the pitfalls of
it, and whether you can do it inthe private sector, or you can
do it with the federal and statemoney, or a combination of both.
And so the Rocky MountainInstitute Rmi, I guess they call
themselves now really has we'vehad two other people on from
(04:29):
there and we're very impressedwith your your, your the
fairness and the even handednessof your work. So, okay, so start
out the first the first questionI have is, you wrote a very
interesting blog piece for Rmi.
That caught my attention, partlybecause it was near where I used
to visit my grandparents but theidea that there was a town that
(04:51):
was planned in Florida that wassort of right, in the in the gut
target of en en, yet you andyour family never lost
electricity. And that caught myeye. And so to start the ad out,
I would love for you to tell theexperience of what that was
(05:14):
like. And whether you thoughtyou would evacuate the area? Or
did you have confidence in yourtown? Or was it just because you
thought it was going to Tampa?
So start with that. What tell ustell us the story about when it
went through and what it waslike and what you what you
(05:34):
expected? And what happened?
Ryan Foelske (05:36):
Yeah, of course.
And thanks for having me on. I'mexcited to share my story about
living through Hurricane Ian.
Gosh, was it two months agoalready? So the I heard about
the storm from a friend whowatches these things. And he
sent me a text message and said,you know, there's this area of
(05:56):
concern you should watch andkeep an eye on it might hit you.
And you know, I'm from Chicagowhere we don't really have
hurricanes. We have blizzards,you don't really have to do
anything for a blizzard. So thatwas kind of new to me. And when
I began seeing it form and getstronger and become, you know, a
tropical storm and then ahurricane, it was, like you said
(06:19):
expected to go to Tampa. So wesaid Whoo, we missed that
hurricane. All is good here. Andyou know, the pathway kept
getting further south andfurther south and further south
until it basically was rightover us in Fort Myers in Port
Charlotte. But, you know, thestrength of it kept changing
because Tampa had beenevacuated, like where are we
(06:41):
really going to go if we choseto leave. And given our location
and kind of the backdrop ofBabcock Ranch, which we can talk
about a little bit. We were notoverly concerned about staying,
if you will. And so we, as yousaid, and we chose not to leave
(07:01):
and we chose to stay. As thestorm approached, we put up our
hurricane shutters, which is awhole new experience. Every
window opening and doorway hasthese big metal panels that you
put up, it makes you feel likeyou're living in a tin can. And
but it's the idea is to blackprojectiles from breaking your
windows and keep your familysafe. So that was a surreal
(07:22):
experience to put those up, beliving in the dark, you can
really hear the wind as thepanel's rattle a little bit. And
it's just kind of scary anddaunting. And it adds to the
ambiance of what's going onoutside which you kind of don't
know. And the we did all thesepreparations to get ready for
(07:43):
the hurricane as it was Pat'spassing over us but before
before beforehand to so we hadyou know, loads of water and
canned foods that we were goingto eat in the coming days. As
the hurricane got closer, wefilled up a bathtub with water
so we could flush the toilet. Asit continued to sit above us, we
turned off certain lights hopingthat would help the power from
(08:04):
going out. Meanwhile, my kidsare watching Disney plus they
don't know the difference. Lifeis just a day off of school for
them. And they had zero fear. Ikept getting cabin fever. So I
peeked outside, I taped down thepanel on the front door just
kind of as much as I was safejust to feel part of the world.
(08:27):
But then there was a time whereit was just time to shutter in
and wait and the winds weremeasured over 100 miles an hour
sustained at our little weatherstation nearby. And as night
came eight hours of these crazywinds. We all just collapsed
from exhaustion but we neverlost power through the whole
(08:47):
thing. We had internet andDisney plus we never lost our
water. So filling up ourbathtubs was unnecessary in the
end, thankfully. And you know wewoke up the next day and it was
like waking up after a blizzardfor those of your listeners who
live in that area of the world.
But you go out after a blizzardand you're like, are you okay?
Are you okay? And he's kind ofsee your neighbors for the first
time and everything is kind ofnew and fresh. And that's when
(09:09):
we really felt and saw thedamage that had been done to
trees to pool cages. But thatwas the extent of it in our
neighborhood at Babcock ranch.
But literally a mile down theroad there were there were
fallen powerlines there werehomes who lost ropes. The river
(09:29):
that is four miles down the roadhad flooded and caused tons of
water damage, no waist high andsome homes that were closer to
the river. And of course theactual damage along the
coastline of Florida. And sojust kind of being in such a
surreal situation where ourlittle development had power had
(09:51):
internet had very modest damage.
Nothing notable was surreal.
That's like the best way todescribe it.
Dina Rasor (10:01):
Okay, then. So everyone's sitting there going
why we saw you aren't that farfrom Fort Myers Beach area
contract gorta support Charlottewhere they showed all this
disaster. But what was it? Whydon't you explain that you live
in this special communityBabcock Ranch, which was the
(10:22):
plan the it's a plannedcommunity when and why it was
able to withstand this wheneverything else was shredded?
Ryan Foelske (10:32):
Yeah, so never lose power. Yeah, masterplan
communities have certain powersthat other developments in
cities historically haven't had,in order to, you know,
efficiently design and build acity. So they plan you know, the
locations of shops and homes andparks and all that stuff, the
roads and the infrastructurethat goes in Babcock Ranch, up
(10:55):
until 2006, was a working ranch.
And that's when our developercame in and purchased the land
sold a big majority of it backto the state of Florida to be
preserved forever. And then kepta certain portion to be
developed. His plan was tocreate this, this town, this
sustainable town. So not only isa master plan community, it is a
(11:18):
sustainable version of themaster planned community. And so
the idea is that we can live inharmony with the environment.
And so there's environmentalfactors that have been
implemented into the design,including retaining wetlands,
for natural drainage of waterinstead of like having to use
pumps and single single pipesthat other maybe smaller local
(11:42):
developments might have. Butalso, we've adhered to the
strictest version of Florida,green building codes and
hurricane safety rules. So allthe homes built here can
withstand wind gusts up to 160miles an hour. Homes have Gable
hip roofs, which means all foursides are tilted inwards. So it
(12:03):
stops some of the wind shearthat might hurt homes of other
designs. They're all cinderblockhomes, which again, is stronger
than wood homes. The the designof of other aspects such as the
infrastructure, the wires, thepipes, the way we get a water,
internet, they're allunderground. And so we don't
(12:27):
have fallen power lines, becausethere are no power lines,
they're underground. And it wasit was done from the start that
way. So it was a lot cheaper todo than having to go and take
existing power lines and burythem which if you've seen
certain utilities around thecountry tried to do it cost
astronomical amounts of money.
But to do it from the start,when there's no buildings and no
homes, it's a lot more costeffective, especially in
(12:50):
Florida, where you might have torestrict those power lines
someday when another hurricanecomes through. So you know, the
combination of all those things,I think really contributed to
helping our town survive and notlose power, not lose internet,
and really not have meaningfuldamage to homes and buildings.
Dina Rasor (13:10):
Okay, and what what technologies and innovations
where we talked a little bitabout that, but I understand you
I understand you have this is100% Solar community and you
have this giant solar field. Andthen of course, you also have
these mega batteries. And so wasit that technology that you
(13:30):
think that and burying the powerlines, which I wish I could do
in California because ofearthquake proof bringing them
down. But were you able to didyou think that was innovation of
being able to have a giant solarpanel field of your own your own
electricity, and basically likea micro grid and in your own
(13:54):
battery? Was that a big part ofit?
Ryan Foelske (13:57):
Yeah, so we have a solar farm on the outskirts of
town or part of the town thatcan provide power for about
30,000 homes. Today, we onlyhave 2000 homes. And there's
like you said a big battery thatcould provide power for I think
it's about eight hours at thecurrent population level. And so
(14:18):
given the proximity that we haveto that solar farm, which by the
way did not lose any panels inthe store, which is they have
some 700,000 panels and theylost zero during the storm which
is fine, but you know mindblowing statistic to me, but
yeah, so being so close to ageneration source that can like
you said be a micro grid.
Especially when we consider thatcan be a micro grid for
(14:39):
fractions of seconds that ittakes for the power to go out
like if when the power linesaround us fell. We didn't we
could balance load with thebatteries. And then the
undergrounding meant that ourload with stable in the town and
didn't cause things to happenthat caused power to go out. So
basically when Load spikes orchanges or a power line goes
(15:02):
down and it changes. How muchpower is flowing. That's kind of
what accentuates power outages.
And we didn't experience that.
And I understand that. Yeah, goahead. Good. I was just gonna
say because of havingunderground pipe wires, and
being so close to generationsource, kind of those two
things. Yep. Helped us.
Dina Rasor (15:28):
Okay, sorry, I talked over you. i One thing
that I found intriguing aboutthe column that the blog you
wrote was that you guys were theonly people that were really
functioning in that big area andthe supermarkets and everything.
And so you had sort of a,probably a lot of people who,
coming from communities that hadno food, no water, no toilet, no
(15:49):
plumbing, no, anything. What wasit like afterwards? Did you know
you were almost like a refugeecamp for supermarkets and stuff,
Ryan Foelske (15:59):
we were our, you know, like I said, we've got
about 2000 homes built here. Andwe've got a little local grocery
store, or it's a Publix, but ourtown's grocery store, no one
else from outside, the townusually goes to it. But the
Saturday after the hurricane, itwas completely full, full of
cars that I've never seenbefore, people from outside
whose grocery stores did nothave power to not have water,
(16:21):
therefore could not be open. Andso in that sense, we serve to
those people to get them thefood that they needed. We have a
hurricane shelter in town thatwas certified the day of the
storm, and has people from otherareas that were more impaired.
I'm
Greg Williams (16:37):
curious, when it became clear that your local
grocery store had power and manyof the surrounding ones didn't?
Did any of the other stores tryto move their inventory to your
store so that they would avoidspoiling?
Ryan Foelske (16:51):
I think so, the shelves were constantly being
restocked. And you know, giventhat some of the Roads and
Transport was hard to get morebroadly, I think that's exactly
what happened is stores within20 Miles came in and gave us
their inventory to serve thosepeople. Which is really cool to
see the sharing and how itplayed out.
Dina Rasor (17:14):
Okay, so after the hurricane and now you've you say
it's been a couple of months?
Where could the town actuallyimprove even more scrutiny
against hurricanes and othernational natural disasters? Do
you or do you think you can'tthink of anything that they
could have done better?
Ryan Foelske (17:33):
So the thing that we were lucky with this storm in
our area was we didn't have abunch of water, I think we had
under four inches of rain andthe whole experience. And even
though our lakes and ponds anddrainage systems are designed to
take up to 20 something inchesof water, I think that has not
(17:57):
yet been tested. And in a and ina future storm that could be
different. But to the credit ofour developer, they have already
started working to get ready forthat. So we've seen changes
happening already they're outlooking to expand the storm
sewer drains, they are alreadychanging the way the lakes are
interconnected to improve theway water flows around the
(18:20):
property. And being able to showagain that in the next storm,
we'll be ready to survive again,even if it's different.
Greg Williams (18:29):
I perhaps should have made this introduction or
earlier in the episode but I Ibelieve everything that we're
talking about falls into thegeneral heading of resilience
and it's a really important partof the infrastructure law and
and other funding you know, wewe try to reduce the amount of
co2 we're putting into theatmosphere so that we can slow
(18:53):
or ideally even halt climatechange but in the meantime it
pays to undertake efforts to toexperience less damage or
inconvenience or suffering andthat all falls under the heading
of of resilience which is whatyou're describing here so I want
(19:14):
our listeners to consider thatthis is this episode at some
level is meant to be a positiveexample of how resilience funds
can be spent as we look forwardto the expenditures that have
already been authorized and andnew legislation that hopefully
will fund even more resiliencework. I do yeah and I
Dina Rasor (19:38):
yeah, I don't also I was gonna say because this isn't
the last day hurricane I went tothings that I noticed have
noticed since I you know beenbeen checking Port Charlotte
since 1964. All you guys wereborn when my grandparents moved
down there and the storms werenot as big and heavy. and
(20:00):
whatever. But I remember evenback then that the Gulf of
Mexico was very warm to swim in.
But now it's come become sort ofsuperheated. And once once those
once those hurricanes go aroundthe edge of Cuba and hit that
water, this was this one andCharlie were both the same kind
of hurricanes. They were like,holy cow, this thing is just
suddenly it's like a bomb goingoff. And so this idea of
(20:22):
resiliency and whatever, it thisis not this was not 100 year
storm, there's going to be moreand more of these kinds of
things. So it's interesting thatthere's a community that's
actually actually thinkingahead, which is a good idea.
Greg Williams (20:40):
Yeah. And, again, a little bit more context for
our listeners, fundamentally,hurricanes derive their energy
from warm water. And so thewarmer the water is, the more
energy that hurricane absorbs,and then the hurricane may
exhibit that energy in form ofstorm surge, precipitation or
(21:00):
wind. And, and so I think it'sinteresting that you point out
that you weren't really testedon the, in terms of
precipitation or flooding,because that is something that
we look forward to with futurehurricanes. You know,
historically, I think theprimary impact of hurricanes has
(21:22):
been wind damage, which is whythe the hurricane categorization
system is based fundamentally onsustained and in peak wind
speeds. But as we saw in Houstonand Galveston a couple of years
ago, really, tremendous amountsof damage can be caused by a
(21:43):
sort of new kind of hurricanethat just finds a spot that it
likes and sits there and poursrain on it for days and days on
end.
Dina Rasor (21:53):
Yeah, okay, that's so how did you end up deciding
to move to how long have youbeen there and Babcock ranch?
And you said that it was it wasbuilt started being built in
2006. And what what drew youthere are the houses? Was it
hurricane situation? Or was itjust because it was a plant
(22:17):
community and you work in youwork in renewable energy, and
that kind of appealed to you?
Are or what other reason thatdrew you to buy a house there?
Ryan Foelske (22:29):
Yeah, so like I said, I'm from Chicago, and had
been there my whole life. I leftmy job as a bi side stock
analyst to have an RV adventure.
And the first place we went inour RV adventure was to Florida,
we spent a winter in Florida,and thought it was a cheat code
(22:49):
to life, you know, you don'thave to put on these winter
coats, you don't have to shovel.
You can be outside every day inthe sun. And it's super
comfortable. And by the time weended our adventure, went back
to Chicago for a couple years,we kept every winter saying,
man, what if we do that again?
Or what if we, you know, decidenot to do winter anymore. And
(23:12):
during that time, we spent aboutthree years researching where to
move in Florida, we're attractedto the west coast for a bunch of
reasons that tend to be whereMidwesterners settle is part of
that. And you know, seeing asunset is kind of cooler to us
than seeing the sunrise over theover the ocean. So I think we
looked from Tampa all the way toNaples, if you're familiar with
(23:34):
the west coast of Florida,looked at existing towns and new
developments, and couldn't quiteput our finger on on home. But
when we learned about BabcockRanch, which had the solar farm,
it had the sustainable focus.
You know, I'd been increasinglygetting involved in renewable
(23:55):
energy and at the time was aboutto start my my career at RMI
focusing on renewable energy, Ithought man wouldn't be cool if
the all of my life kind ofblended together and rhymed. And
made sense. And so, you know,Babcock ranch fit a lot of those
things of being a way for lifeto work and all the pieces, you
(24:15):
know, I could live in asustainable place work in
sustainability. And kind of, youknow, live the thing that I'm
trying to pursue broadly.
Dina Rasor (24:26):
Well, that's really interesting. I can, I can
understand that. And then I alsothough, I saw that they were
there. They're planning to buildanother 19,000 houses. Exactly.
Yeah. So it's gonna, it's gonnago from 2000 Do you think the
solar farm is going to have tobe expanded to do that and where
(24:49):
they're going to put the housesand do you see, I'm sure you
watch now the how they developedto make sure they stay true to
the fact that they are makingit, you know, eco friendly
Ryan Foelske (25:00):
Yeah, so the solar farm, when it was built was
actually sized for the fullscale development. So it's large
enough to power 30,000 homes,our development is only going to
be 19 20,000. So there's excesssolar power being produced from
the existing solar farm. If andwhen they expand it, you know,
in the future that can only helpthey, the town, the developer
(25:24):
puts out maps of where the newneighborhoods are gonna go kind
of where the new schools aregonna go, you can watch as it as
the plan unfold in real time.
Greg Williams (25:33):
So you can have plenty of solar power, but if
you only have eight hours ofbattery life for 3000 homes, are
what forgotten what the numberwas. But if you dramatically
increase the number of homes,you're essentially going to be
dividing that battery capacityby by that expansion fasters
(25:53):
factor rather, so are thereplans to expand the battery farm
if not the solar farm?
Ryan Foelske (25:59):
That's one of the misconceptions about Babcock
Ranch, even from residents isthat all of our power comes from
solar all of the time. But as weall know, that sometimes there's
this balancing effect. So we areconnected to the broader Florida
grid. And we we draw power fromthe grid at times, mostly at
night. And so as we grow, wewon't need to rely on the
(26:21):
batteries alone, because we dodraw power from the grid. So
yes, yes, is the answer yourquestion, they, I hope they do
expand the batteries. But also,if they don't, we will still
have power. And as Florida Powerand Light is one of the leaders
in pursuing a netzero utility ofthe future. Hopefully, our power
(26:44):
becomes increasingly clean fromthe grid at large as well.
Dina Rasor (26:49):
And just to get an idea, because everyone, I saw
something today that said, Onlybillionaires are going to
survive climate change, becausethey've got the money to move
and build and you know, build afortress and everything that you
would need, but what? So we sortof feel like, well, you know, an
average per average homeownercan, what's the range of prices
(27:11):
in the houses there?
Ryan Foelske (27:12):
Yeah, great question. The you can, you can
get a two bedroom, two bathcondo for right around 300,000.
Right now. Single family homescan be built for 350 to 400,000.
And up. And if you are one ofthose higher end people, you can
build a home for one to $2million, as well. And so I think
(27:34):
it's that's one of the thingsthat drew me here as well is
that there is a pretty broadaffordability factor. There are
people who work in all sorts ofjobs that live here, actually,
it's a lot of remote workers,but there are a lot of
tradesmen. And that makes fairreally, for what it is it's a
diverse place to live.
Dina Rasor (27:58):
Okay. And I wanted to ask you also what kind of
land was the solar field builton? Because there's always this,
you know, thing of, like inCalifornia, where we've been
building, we have brownfields,you know, fields that aren't
they're not Superfund sites, butthey're things that you'd have
to do an enormous amount ofabatement if you ever wanted to
(28:18):
use them. And we've been puttingsolar panels on those because
then you only have to worryabout the work the workmen, and
the people who maintain it haveto be careful not to stir up
dust and whatever. But it's notsomeplace you want to go rent
your dog have your kids play. Sowhat kind of land was the one
that I saw a picture of thesolar farm? It's quite
(28:40):
impressive. And did they end upcutting down any forests, or
wetlands or anything to be ableto put that so because that's a
that's a big question now issolar energy.
Ryan Foelske (28:53):
Yeah, the the solar farm is, you know, this
area was a big ranch. And so Ithink there was a mix of heavily
forested areas in addition tokind of more cleared spaces for
for the ranch activities to takeplace. The if you drive by the
solar farm now, which you cando, it doesn't appear to be
(29:17):
overly cleared. I'm sure theycleared some amount of trees. To
be fair, there have been treescleared for the development of
the neighborhoods in this townas well. But I think it's
something like two thirds of theland, even under the development
section is going to be retainedfor green spaces for forests for
(29:38):
preserve and park so it's not.
And again, I think this is notas bad as some developments, but
it's also not perfect. Andthere's a balance to be found as
communities like this come upand being better than average as
being a leader. Okay,
Dina Rasor (30:02):
another issue that comes up is Florida's one of the
flattest places I've ever seenin my life. I remember as a
little kid, and my grandmotherloved riding her bike around
there because there were nohills, because she'd come from
an hilly area. Just one littlebridge, you know, she called it
the big hill. So you you're notvery far above sea level, you're
(30:24):
inland a little bit more thanplaces like Port Charlotte. But
what's going to happen? Do youhave any Did they have any plans
on the the problem with the withrising water levels due to
climate change, of course, thatwould be rising water levels
from the ocean. So that would bebringing also being bringing in
(30:44):
more briny saltwater, is thereis head to town address that at
all.
Ryan Foelske (30:51):
That was part of the reason that they chose to
develop in this location versussomewhere else is that we are 30
feet above sea level, whichdoesn't sound like a lot. But
for Florida, that's a reallyhigh place to be. We're also you
know, 15 to 20 miles from thecoast. And so as sea levels rise
as things like that happen,we're far enough inland and high
(31:14):
enough that this town will beokay. Yeah, the more coastal
areas won't. And related to thisis a really interesting point
about because how well we faredduring the hurricane, the end
the insurance market that hashappened, and maybe we could
talk, talk about this later. Butwe're looking to create our own
(31:37):
insurance zone because of howwell we fared. And the
robustness. And, you know, givenwhere we are, instead of being
lumped in with all of this area,where it kind of a special area,
if you will,
Dina Rasor (31:48):
you will Yeah, I mean, insurance companies are
pulling out Florida, you know,because there's like, you know,
we're done. There's too manyhurricanes too many times, you
know, kind of thing goes,that's, that's a big problem. I
think I'm beginning to thinkthat as climate change advances,
we may end up having things likefederal government took over
flood insurance, because nobodywanted to do it. So of course,
(32:09):
then you have all these very bigexpensive houses on the long
East Coast that keep gettingpulverized by storms, and the
federal government pays to haveit rebuilt in the bottom and
then they rebuild them right ontop of the thing. And that's
just normal, you know, sanderosion, but as the, as the
water begins to rise,interestingly enough, in places
(32:31):
like the Outer Banks of NorthCarolina and some of these
barrier islands, they they arenow starting to buy into the
workers towns that are furtherinland, the rich people are
moving there, and then the theworkers and people that maintain
the place are ending up moretowards the coast, which makes
(32:52):
it probably a problematicbecause then they don't they,
you know, they would have moretime doing that. So is that a is
Are any of the other townsaround there like Punta Gorda
and, and Port Charlotte, thoseplaces which have a lot of, you
know, recreational canals yourhouses are on that was a big
(33:13):
thing in the 60s they put a lotof canals in, and those houses
are just not you're introducinga little rivers of water
everywhere around these houses.
And is that going to be aproblem? Problem with the
insurance companies or anybodybeing able to, to rebuild those
towns that have been soslaughtered?
Ryan Foelske (33:34):
Yeah, I think it would have to be. And if you you
know that this issue is firstbrought to me when I was on my
RV trip, and I went to Biloxiafter one of the hurricanes had
hit that area. And I was like,Wow, what a cool property. This
is right across from the beach.
Why isn't there like a houserebuilt? And, you know, you look
into it, and it's oh, well, theinsurance costs for this house,
(33:55):
no matter what you build,there's like $8,000 a year, even
for, you know, a very modesthome, not, you know, large home
and like, well, that's why it'snot going to be rebuilt. And so
the insurance market has toadjust to you not serve that
area, it'd be interesting to seehow it plays out.
Dina Rasor (34:18):
So it's sort of like having a very expensive car. The
more expensive your car is thewired people say, oh, you know,
I'd love to have a car likethat. I wouldn't want to pay the
insurance on that car. Becauseyou know, the more expensive or
the bigger the engine, the morethe insurance goes up. And this
is sort of the same thing, asI'm just wondering how they're
gonna how they're gonna rebuild.
Okay. Can you think bulk?
(34:42):
Babcock ranch can be duplicatedin areas that don't have the
same amount of sunlight is fromFlorida. And are there pieces of
the Bob babcox invasions thatwould work in other communities
like, Could you be Bad Cop ascommunity in Chicago,
Ryan Foelske (35:05):
I think you can incorporate a lot of the ideas
and it would make a bigdifference. One of the really
fascinating things about BabcockRanch is that it automates
sustainability resiliencywithout people even knowing or
feeling it. For example, a lotof people ride golf carts around
town, because you can get todowntown, you can get to the
(35:25):
school, get to the grocerystore, all within a mile, mile
and a half. And so because ofthat, we've reduced our miles
driven. But it's also more fun,because if you ride on a golf
cart, you're smiling the wholetime. And so the way that the
way that we design cities canchange, and take lessons from
this have things more, insteadof the neighborhoods, miles away
(35:46):
from the services, and thestores make everything smaller,
more local. So as areas inChicago are around there,
develop and redevelop, I thinkincorporating those lessons
making areas more walkable, ormore bicycle liberal. It's
tougher in Chicago because ofweather. But I think those
(36:08):
lessons do a lot of impact andhave a lot of impact that we
don't really think about,because it's not these big fancy
solar farms that that catchheadlines, but it also has a big
impact.
Dina Rasor (36:18):
So probably in a place like Chicago, I'm just
using it because it's such ahuge extreme from Florida, the
mountain but the biggestproblem, I think with Chicago,
you get a lot of wind off thelakes and stuff at the is the
power lines going down in butthe heavy snow, I think that's
you know, and then it becomesdangerous, really dangerous,
(36:38):
because it's so cold, you know,when you don't have ability to
to heat and you're fine things.
So I was just thinking that,that probably each each
community has to decide whereare we the most vulnerable? Is
there a technology we can dosomething with, for example, if
(36:59):
you lived somewhere in Chicago,and you couldn't really change
the sprawl, you could at leastput the powerlines under
underground.
Ryan Foelske (37:12):
I just think related to that, you can do that
yourself too. You can make yourown. If you put solar panels on
your roof, if you have anelectric car, you can kind of be
your own micro grid, you can addyour own resiliency, no matter
where you live, and incorporatesome of the things of being more
resilient, being moreindependent of whatever's going
on outside of your home.
Greg Williams (37:32):
So that said, I'm going to encourage our listeners
to go to Google Maps and look atthat Babcock ranch. You know, if
ever there was an example ofsomething that was big enough to
be seen from space, that solarfarm is certainly it. And so I
can only imagine that that it'sit's going to be difficult to
(37:53):
implement exactly that model inplaces that are already
relatively densely settled.
Ryan Foelske (38:01):
Yeah, and that's something that is the challenge,
right, of even the areas ofFlorida that will need to be
rebuilt. Hopefully to take someof the lessons maybe as it's
being rebuilt underground, thepower lines underground, that
utility services, put smallerstores along the way.
Dina Rasor (38:20):
And we you know, we have plenty of sunlight here in
California, but we also limitedland. And one thing that we're
saying is we do not want tocover the Central Valley where
all the vegetables in thecountry are with solar panels.
So there is a real push.
California has always been sortof a cutting edge on that. And,
you know, obviously, you know,I've had 40 years of experience
when I was in college, JerryBrown, the first time he was
(38:44):
governor when he was theyoungest governor versus the
oldest governor. He didsomething that the the utilities
this fought and fought andfought. And he said if you put
you know, solar panels back inthe late 1970s, were very
effective, but they they notlike they are today. But he said
if you put solar panels on yourroof, and you hitch it into the
(39:06):
grid, pg&e the Pacific Gas andElectric how if you make more
than you use, they have to buyit from you. In other words, the
excess goes in back into thegrid, and they have to buy it
for you. And so that was a hugething to come up and boy, they
(39:27):
fought it and everything else.
But here we are, you know,almost 45 years later. Still
benefiting from that right now Iam selling back in these very
sunny areas. And I think theutilities have finally decided
that it's cheaper to go aheadand buy that kind of electricity
(39:49):
and then try to build anotherplant which would take years you
know, whether it's nuclear or ornatural gas, natural grass, gas
or anything else. So So I'm justwondering if you can see what
kind of economic and climateissues that would prevent
(40:09):
replications of parts of BabcockRanch, it was Bobcat Babcock
ranch sounds like a littleutopia, because you got to do it
all at once on thing, but whatis it that what's the economic?
You know, you, especially sinceyou're in the economics, what is
the economic issues? That canthat are going to be troublesome
(40:30):
for for people to try toreplicate the resilience that
you have?
Ryan Foelske (40:36):
Yeah. And I think you hit on one of the big
issues, which is this availableland. And there's, in order to
build a solar farm, maybefurther away from where people
live requires then building thepower lines to bring it there.
That's its own big issue ofnobody wants power lines in
their backyard. And one of thesolutions, as you said, is to
(41:00):
make the power generated hyperlocally. That's net metering is
a big debate happening shouldwhat the situation you described
where the utility pays you,should that occur, at what rate
should you get reimbursed orpaid for the power you produce?
Florida actually, recently, Ithink, in 2022, had had a big
(41:22):
bill get vetoed by the governor,that would have been net
metering. And so it saved netmetering for customers. So its
customers can still now sellpower at the full retail price
back to the company. But thereal issue of creating areas
like this is, is this whole,there's not enough grid
(41:45):
infrastructure is the realbottom line. We if we built
enough solar somewhere todeliver this kind of power, if
it was underground, that'sgreat, but that's going to cost
a lot of money. And utilitybills are already one of the
larger bills that people face.
We have a calculator at RMI on.
It's called energy burden howmuch people spend by income
(42:07):
group on their electric bill.
And it's really fascinating toexplore how that is different
around the country. And I thinkthose are the limiting factors
and figuring out how we aregoing to equitably pay for a
transition to a low carbonfuture is a big challenge.
Dina Rasor (42:28):
Another thing we do in California, and I'd be
interested to see if you do thisin Florida, and you live in
Florida, and especially live inCalifornia, where there's not a
lot of humidity. So sunlight isvery intense. When you come out
of a store and you get in yourcar. You finalist like you're
going to be cremated. It is sohot. And you you want to have
cloth seats, you know, leatherseats, and and you can't barely
(42:49):
touch the steering wheel. And,of course, California having
been brought up in the 60s and70s as being you know, very big
car. Car. Friendly. Kiacentered, yes. The local little
community energy power that doesours came up with putting it
(43:14):
solves two problems. Threeactually three problems putting
solar canopies over all theparking lots, and then putting a
solar panels on those. So thatone the car does not get that
hot. So then of course you don'thave to use all the electric or
gasoline to cool it down. And toit's getting, you know, it's
(43:37):
making a lot of energy. Becausethat's, you know, you think
about a shopping mall and howmuch parking space there is that
could be covered. And then thethird thing is that the end of
each one of these they put incharging stations, and they
actually can some of thesecanopies are big enough that
they can be charging stationsfrom those solar panels. And so
(43:58):
I'm just thinking that you haveyou seen that at all in Florida,
because that's, I'm sort ofdisappointed that California
Well, California isn't doingmore, I think they're gonna
start doing more because it'ssuch a smart idea.
Ryan Foelske (44:10):
It really is.
We've all the commercialbuildings in our town have solar
panels on them, and there arecharging stations spread
throughout the town for electricvehicles. And then even you
know, expanding the scope alittle bit there are more and
more covered areas with solarpanels, but I would say it makes
sense to do it more. We havesolar trees in our town, which
(44:35):
are kind of cool to see. It'sjust Yeah. But the coolest thing
that I've seen is in Californiato cover that the aquadex with
solar panels, which reduces theamount of water that's lost.
It's kind of the virtuouscircle.
Dina Rasor (44:53):
And they're also finding that they there's crops
that they can do in a centralvalley because you know,
unfortunately the centralvalleys turning into, you know,
110 114 degree days. And sothat's frying a lot of the
fruits and vegetables stuff, wefinally came up with the idea of
let's put the solar panels, youknow, keep the solar panels one
(45:15):
tractor with heart and grow andthey're growing crops under the
solar panels and they growbigger because and they use less
water because they are not thatsome of these things are not
native. And so they can't standthis kind of horrible dry season
with no rain.
Greg Williams (45:33):
So speaking of water, I'm curious to what
extent Babcock Ranch is, is selfcontained or dependent on
adjacent communities either interms of the potable water
coming in? And for lack of abetter term, let's say the non
potable water going out? Like doyou have your own water
(45:53):
purification and waste treatmentfacilities, that's all part of
the community.
Ryan Foelske (45:57):
Yeah, the community has its own water
utility that manages and createsour potable water, they've got
retention ponds, and all of allof the infrastructure required.
And we are actually a netdischarger of water. And there
are certain requirements thatFlorida has in terms of
discharging water, and we meetand exceed all of them by
(46:23):
design. The other notable thingis that the we're very proud of
not having algae blooms in ourlakes, because of the way that
we treat our plants and soil anddon't have some of the nitrogen
related effects that other areashave in their in their lakes.
And we don't have bubblers. It'sjust by design again,
Dina Rasor (46:45):
why that was so heartbreaking to me on that
coast, when they they releasedto the inner state canals from
Lake Okeechobee, they releasedall that water and it just
turned the west coast into Iremember, there was a natural
red tide when I was a kid, wehave to step over the piles of
(47:06):
fish to get in. But what it'swhat the red tides are getting
worse and worse, and Manateesare starving. And you know, all
this kind of stuff because ofthese big algae blooms, which
should should not be put in theocean going is there is that one
of the reasons that you guys didthat. And so you wouldn't have
(47:27):
any drainage to the ocean thatwould have algae.
Ryan Foelske (47:30):
Yeah, we're just trying, again, like Babcock
ranch in in a is a great exampleof what you can do to automate
living a sustainable version ofa modern life without kind of
noticing. And by design, wedon't discharge dirty water,
enough water of the certain kindto cause those problems.
Greg Williams (47:52):
I want to make sure I understand how you're
using the term automate, I thinkusually when we think of
automation, you know, we'rethinking machinery and robots
or, or computer logic, what itsounds like you're talking about
is simply designing things sothat they passively don't have
the negative effects that that,you know, more typical forms of
(48:12):
infrastructure do.
Ryan Foelske (48:14):
Yeah, it's automation in at the grand scale
at a design level scale, where,you know, again, if if you can
walk to school in a fasteramount of time than it takes to
drive you're gonna walk. And sothat's one design example of, of
just automating the decisionmaking it easier to not drive so
(48:36):
to reduce your emissions thatway. The way that the lakes are
interconnected kind of automatesthe risk of flooding, without
anyone having to actively doanything.
Greg Williams (48:48):
And perhaps more importantly, with it without the
input of electrical or otherkinds of power.
Ryan Foelske (48:53):
Exactly other other power. You can live here
and not even know that you'reliving in a sustainable
community. Because you know,your lights turn on when you
flip the switch. You haveinternet like you don't your
homes feel like like normalhomes, but then when we're
challenged by the storm by thehurricane, we perform
differently than other places.
Greg Williams (49:16):
Then I guess that the last kind of sustainability
question that I wanted to askyou about is how our homes and
other buildings heated. He
Dina Rasor (49:26):
isn't air conditioned.
Greg Williams (49:30):
air conditioned I sort of take for granted is
going to involve electricity,but we've we've already sort of
addressed that but are there nocircumstances where you where
you do buildings simply not haveradiators? We do have some real
hardcore Yankee question. Thereal thing
Ryan Foelske (49:50):
that is heated though is pools. And pools do
have heaters and for that I'vegot an electric heat pump. And
so it keeps my pool well aboveambient temperatures. And it's
the same concept I think thatyou're asking about is there's
an electric way to heat things,whether it's air or, or water.
Dina Rasor (50:11):
Or most of your house is heated by electricity
instead of natural gas orsomething, or else,
Ryan Foelske (50:16):
all the homes are heated by electricity. Because
you don't use it much that it'slike the really old version of
electric key. It's not that niceheat pump version of electric
heat, but I've used it once inthe 18 months I've lived here.
But it really is not a thing.
That I would say maybe a quarterof homes do have natural gas
(50:37):
service. That was a concessionmade to get home builders and
get people to live to move herebecause it's seen as a luxury
good.
Greg Williams (50:48):
But mostly for fireplaces and cooking, or
Ryan Foelske (50:52):
it's mostly for cooking. Yes. There's a certain
group of folks who think thatelectric cooktops aren't as fun
to to cook with as guestscooktops. But if you've used the
latest induction stoves, I thinkyou'll be very impressed.
Dina Rasor (51:07):
Well, I also think anybody with young children is
crazy to have a gas stoveanymore. I see all these people,
you know, when these big housesthat I know, they, they buy
these unbelievably expensiveelectric gas stoves, and burners
and everything, and it'sconstantly leaking stuff that
can cause childhood asthma. Andso you know, you've just got to
(51:28):
finally decide, you know, thisjust isn't going to work. And I
think the the induction stonesreally have to come down a
little bit. So I'm just stunned.
I'm hoping that California andthe federal government and that
kind of thing. That and thatreminds me of a question I had
not asked you. How has there wasthere any federal or state money
(51:49):
grants, given went to build thiscommunity? Or and is there in
the past the present? And dothey have a future of
interesting of bringing federalmoney, incentive money and state
incentive money? Can Californiathe state instead of money is
big, but I don't think Floridais step wedded to it. But is
(52:11):
there any kind of governmentmoney involved? Or is this all
completely private?
Ryan Foelske (52:21):
So the way that this area was put together, it
was a huge, complicated realestate transaction where the
developer bought all of the landand then sold 70% of it back to
the state. So in that sense,there was some amount of state,
not a, necessarily, theyprobably paid the market price,
but state involvement in, ingetting this parcel into what it
(52:44):
is today. There was privatemoney built the solar farm with
with the the local utility. Andthere's some amount of
innovative things. So we werelooking in working on having
these driverless electric,personal taxis of sorts where
you on an app, you could call adriverless taxi to pick you up
(53:07):
and take you to certain places.
And that was done with agovernment, I believe, a doe
loan of sorts, you know, insmall, smaller amounts. There's
a innovative series of homes,that is exploring using gray
water being a little bit morerobust in your off grid
capabilities. And those are donein partnership with private
(53:27):
capital. So it's with thenational home builders, it's
with, you know, utilities,again, in figuring out ways to
explore home resiliency. But tomy knowledge, there is not large
scale federal money.
Dina Rasor (53:43):
i One of the things I think that might happen is
that obviously this was builtbefore the heat pump situation
really took off. And he bunts inthe 60s, so expensive. But I can
imagine that at some of thesepeople who have even electric
heat, like electric heat, andor, you know, to do that would
(54:06):
want to take incentives from thegovernment to switch over to the
and maybe switch over to themore bang, but there are there
solar panels on the houses atall.
Ryan Foelske (54:16):
Some homes do, I would say it's, I don't know, a
quarter give or take of homeshave solar panels, which I think
is somewhat normal for that areaof the country, maybe even the
country at large. Penetration isshockingly low in the state of
Florida. I was at a recentutility investor conference and
(54:37):
Florida is well below average interms of solar rooftop
penetration where
Dina Rasor (54:42):
there's not really there's not a lot of state
money, incentive. Right. Soanything that occurred you there
would be it has to be federal,because California almost tries
to outdo the Feds every timethat's sort of
Ryan Foelske (54:53):
Yeah, and I think what we're seeing where the
inflation reduction act playsthrough and X celebrate some of
the rooftop solar benefits.
There's huge programs, as Ithink, you know, at the DoD in
getting some of these thingsdone more effectively and
cheaply for consumers andhopefully accelerates the
transition to a net zeroeconomy.
Dina Rasor (55:19):
Okay, good. Well, is there anything else you would
like to add? that we haven'tcovered?
Ryan Foelske (55:25):
No, I just would love to say that. You know,
Babcock Ranch is a unique place.
And there are a lot of lessonsto unpack. And I think the
biggest one is that you canautomate in a broad sense, as
we've talked about living asustainable version of a very
modern life without even knowingthat you're doing anything
different than anybody else. Andthat is done at like a city
(55:48):
level. And it's excited to seehow this shakes. shakes out.
Dina Rasor (55:55):
Okay, good. Well, I encourage people to go to when
we put this up next week, thispodcast, I'm encouraged people
to go to our blog page, our mainpage, which has our blog in it,
and we'll have all theconnection, all the things that
to your article, your articlewas really interesting to read,
and kind of really caught myeye. And also, of course, I
(56:17):
encourage people to go tormi.org, if you want to see some
really good reports, I learnedso much every time I go to your
you guys, websites, because youguys are, you're you're really
on the cutting edge, but you'renot crazy. I mean, you you're
very realistic.
Ryan Foelske (56:35):
Yeah, and I'll just make a plug for Rmi. We
have a team of 60 people whocover us electric utilities and
the the energy sector, inaddition to a bunch of other
programs that are in my handsthat have, again, really
incredible work being done. Butas the utilities person, it's
fascinating, all the areas thatwe cover, all the way from the
(56:58):
consumer side of things tocommunity groups, and regulators
all the way through investors,which is where I spend my time
trying to link our work toinvestors. And there's a lot of
exciting stuff coming and goingon. And if you just want to get
overwhelmed with learning aboutthe utilities industry, yeah, go
to rmi.org.
Greg Williams (57:17):
Absolutely. I mean, we we've had a number of
our my guests on the showbefore, we've enjoyed having you
and we look forward to havingmore in the future. So thank you
very much. Oh, go ahead.
Dina Rasor (57:31):
Let me let me encourage you to, if you come up
with something new to or if youend up falling, finding a
whistleblower, then we'rewhistleblower experts. So you
find anybody that really knowsthere's a problem going on. And
this is kind of not what you dosend them to us. And and that's
for the audience, too. Becauseour job is to, is to expose when
(57:53):
things go wrong. And we've nevergot I've never had anybody
caught and fired in 40 years. SoI know, I know how to hide your
identity. But I just encourageyou that and I encourage you to
contact us if you see there'ssome breakthrough that you'd
like to come back on.
Ryan Foelske (58:10):
Excellent. Yeah.
Thanks for having me. I lookforward. Thanks again.
Thanks for joining us for another episode
of climate money watchdog wherewe investigate and report on how
federal dollars are being spenton mitigating climate change and
protecting the environment.
We're a nonprofit, nonpartisanorganization that does not
accept advertisers or sponsors.
So we can only do this work withyour support. Please visit us at
(00:32):
climate money watchdog.org Tolearn more about us and consider
making a donation. My name isGreg Williams and I learned to
investigate and report on waste,fraud and abuse in federal
spending. While working at theproject on government oversight,
or Pogo 30 years ago, I learnedto do independent research as
well as to work withconfidential informants, or
(00:53):
whistleblowers to uncover thingslike overpriced spare parts,
like the famous $435 hammers,and weapon systems that didn't
work as advertised. I was taughtby my co host Dena razor, who
founded Pogo in 1981, andfounded climate money watchdog
with me last year, Dina hasspent 40 years investigating and
(01:13):
sometimes recovering millions ofdollars wasted by the Defense
Department and other branches ofgovernment, both Pogo and as an
independent journalist, authorand professional investigator.
Dina, would you'd like to say afew words before we introduce
our guests.
Dina Rasor (01:29):
Just a few. It's a Yeah, I'm the old stirrer here
40 years who makes them feelold? It's, it's over 40 years.
But well, I found that federalgovernment, the people that try
to do this, to cheat the federalgovernment with federal money,
they usually have the same kindof patterns. And so the climate
money, we started thisorganization, because we were so
(01:51):
concerned that climate andenvironmental work has not
gotten the level of this kind offunding, funding some of the
it's not quite Pentagon on size,but it doesn't fit like the
Pentagon. But it I can, we cansee that there's not a lot of
history of oversight, especiallyin the environmental community.
(02:12):
So they're not oh, we're allenvironmentalists, we're all
gonna get along. And but theproblem is, of course, there's
always the sharks lurking, tofigure out a way to get in on
the game and not be fair aboutso we're starting this and I'm
really happy to have Ryan andthe other thing is that I'm
(02:34):
familiar with this area becausemy grandparents lived in Port
Charlotte, which is probablywhat 10 miles from you 15 miles.
So yeah, that's in Florida, PortCharlotte, Florida. So I have a
nostalgic interest in and wasvery sorry to see how much of it
got wiped out with thehurricane.
Greg Williams (02:55):
So our guest tonight is Ryan fall ski, a
manager for the carbon freeelectricity program at the Rocky
Mountain Institute. Prior tojoining Rmi, Ryan worked at
Deutsche Bank and Brookfieldasset management as a biocide
equity analyst specializing inglobal regulated utilities and
other publicly listedinfrastructure companies. He
(03:17):
built financial models,understood and quantified risks,
and sought benchmark beatingreturns for investors. In
addition to his company coverageduties, Ryan helped develop the
modeling framework, standardizedand aggregated data outputs and
worked on index construction andinclusion. Deena, why don't you
(03:37):
tell our listeners why we'reexcited to have Ryan with us
tonight?
Dina Rasor (03:41):
Okay, well, because we are interested in exploring
innovative climate solutions andthe money behind them, because
they're all you know, there's anawful lot of people say I've got
ideas, and I've got this ideaand that idea, and we're
looking, we're sort of beentalking about fraud, the first
part of the last 23 things, butwe are now starting to talk
(04:05):
about because the money isstarting to get spent
innovation, what works, whatdoesn't work, the pitfalls of
it, and whether you can do it inthe private sector, or you can
do it with the federal and statemoney, or a combination of both.
And so the Rocky MountainInstitute Rmi, I guess they call
themselves now really has we'vehad two other people on from
(04:29):
there and we're very impressedwith your your, your the
fairness and the even handednessof your work. So, okay, so start
out the first the first questionI have is, you wrote a very
interesting blog piece for Rmi.
That caught my attention, partlybecause it was near where I used
to visit my grandparents but theidea that there was a town that
(04:51):
was planned in Florida that wassort of right, in the in the gut
target of en en, yet you andyour family never lost
electricity. And that caught myeye. And so to start the ad out,
I would love for you to tell theexperience of what that was
(05:14):
like. And whether you thoughtyou would evacuate the area? Or
did you have confidence in yourtown? Or was it just because you
thought it was going to Tampa?
So start with that. What tell ustell us the story about when it
went through and what it waslike and what you what you
(05:34):
expected? And what happened?
Ryan Foelske (05:36):
Yeah, of course.
And thanks for having me on. I'mexcited to share my story about
living through Hurricane Ian.
Gosh, was it two months agoalready? So the I heard about
the storm from a friend whowatches these things. And he
sent me a text message and said,you know, there's this area of
(05:56):
concern you should watch andkeep an eye on it might hit you.
And you know, I'm from Chicagowhere we don't really have
hurricanes. We have blizzards,you don't really have to do
anything for a blizzard. So thatwas kind of new to me. And when
I began seeing it form and getstronger and become, you know, a
tropical storm and then ahurricane, it was, like you said
(06:19):
expected to go to Tampa. So wesaid Whoo, we missed that
hurricane. All is good here. Andyou know, the pathway kept
getting further south andfurther south and further south
until it basically was rightover us in Fort Myers in Port
Charlotte. But, you know, thestrength of it kept changing
because Tampa had beenevacuated, like where are we
(06:41):
really going to go if we choseto leave. And given our location
and kind of the backdrop ofBabcock Ranch, which we can talk
about a little bit. We were notoverly concerned about staying,
if you will. And so we, as yousaid, and we chose not to leave
(07:01):
and we chose to stay. As thestorm approached, we put up our
hurricane shutters, which is awhole new experience. Every
window opening and doorway hasthese big metal panels that you
put up, it makes you feel likeyou're living in a tin can. And
but it's the idea is to blackprojectiles from breaking your
windows and keep your familysafe. So that was a surreal
(07:22):
experience to put those up, beliving in the dark, you can
really hear the wind as thepanel's rattle a little bit. And
it's just kind of scary anddaunting. And it adds to the
ambiance of what's going onoutside which you kind of don't
know. And the we did all thesepreparations to get ready for
(07:43):
the hurricane as it was Pat'spassing over us but before
before beforehand to so we hadyou know, loads of water and
canned foods that we were goingto eat in the coming days. As
the hurricane got closer, wefilled up a bathtub with water
so we could flush the toilet. Asit continued to sit above us, we
turned off certain lights hopingthat would help the power from
(08:04):
going out. Meanwhile, my kidsare watching Disney plus they
don't know the difference. Lifeis just a day off of school for
them. And they had zero fear. Ikept getting cabin fever. So I
peeked outside, I taped down thepanel on the front door just
kind of as much as I was safejust to feel part of the world.
(08:27):
But then there was a time whereit was just time to shutter in
and wait and the winds weremeasured over 100 miles an hour
sustained at our little weatherstation nearby. And as night
came eight hours of these crazywinds. We all just collapsed
from exhaustion but we neverlost power through the whole
(08:47):
thing. We had internet andDisney plus we never lost our
water. So filling up ourbathtubs was unnecessary in the
end, thankfully. And you know wewoke up the next day and it was
like waking up after a blizzardfor those of your listeners who
live in that area of the world.
But you go out after a blizzardand you're like, are you okay?
Are you okay? And he's kind ofsee your neighbors for the first
time and everything is kind ofnew and fresh. And that's when
(09:09):
we really felt and saw thedamage that had been done to
trees to pool cages. But thatwas the extent of it in our
neighborhood at Babcock ranch.
But literally a mile down theroad there were there were
fallen powerlines there werehomes who lost ropes. The river
(09:29):
that is four miles down the roadhad flooded and caused tons of
water damage, no waist high andsome homes that were closer to
the river. And of course theactual damage along the
coastline of Florida. And sojust kind of being in such a
surreal situation where ourlittle development had power had
(09:51):
internet had very modest damage.
Nothing notable was surreal.
That's like the best way todescribe it.
Dina Rasor (10:01):
Okay, then. So everyone's sitting there going
why we saw you aren't that farfrom Fort Myers Beach area
contract gorta support Charlottewhere they showed all this
disaster. But what was it? Whydon't you explain that you live
in this special communityBabcock Ranch, which was the
(10:22):
plan the it's a plannedcommunity when and why it was
able to withstand this wheneverything else was shredded?
Ryan Foelske (10:32):
Yeah, so never lose power. Yeah, masterplan
communities have certain powersthat other developments in
cities historically haven't had,in order to, you know,
efficiently design and build acity. So they plan you know, the
locations of shops and homes andparks and all that stuff, the
roads and the infrastructurethat goes in Babcock Ranch, up
(10:55):
until 2006, was a working ranch.
And that's when our developercame in and purchased the land
sold a big majority of it backto the state of Florida to be
preserved forever. And then kepta certain portion to be
developed. His plan was tocreate this, this town, this
sustainable town. So not only isa master plan community, it is a
(11:18):
sustainable version of themaster planned community. And so
the idea is that we can live inharmony with the environment.
And so there's environmentalfactors that have been
implemented into the design,including retaining wetlands,
for natural drainage of waterinstead of like having to use
pumps and single single pipesthat other maybe smaller local
(11:42):
developments might have. Butalso, we've adhered to the
strictest version of Florida,green building codes and
hurricane safety rules. So allthe homes built here can
withstand wind gusts up to 160miles an hour. Homes have Gable
hip roofs, which means all foursides are tilted inwards. So it
(12:03):
stops some of the wind shearthat might hurt homes of other
designs. They're all cinderblockhomes, which again, is stronger
than wood homes. The the designof of other aspects such as the
infrastructure, the wires, thepipes, the way we get a water,
internet, they're allunderground. And so we don't
(12:27):
have fallen power lines, becausethere are no power lines,
they're underground. And it wasit was done from the start that
way. So it was a lot cheaper todo than having to go and take
existing power lines and burythem which if you've seen
certain utilities around thecountry tried to do it cost
astronomical amounts of money.
But to do it from the start,when there's no buildings and no
homes, it's a lot more costeffective, especially in
(12:50):
Florida, where you might have torestrict those power lines
someday when another hurricanecomes through. So you know, the
combination of all those things,I think really contributed to
helping our town survive and notlose power, not lose internet,
and really not have meaningfuldamage to homes and buildings.
Dina Rasor (13:10):
Okay, and what what technologies and innovations
where we talked a little bitabout that, but I understand you
I understand you have this is100% Solar community and you
have this giant solar field. Andthen of course, you also have
these mega batteries. And so wasit that technology that you
(13:30):
think that and burying the powerlines, which I wish I could do
in California because ofearthquake proof bringing them
down. But were you able to didyou think that was innovation of
being able to have a giant solarpanel field of your own your own
electricity, and basically likea micro grid and in your own
(13:54):
battery? Was that a big part ofit?
Ryan Foelske (13:57):
Yeah, so we have a solar farm on the outskirts of
town or part of the town thatcan provide power for about
30,000 homes. Today, we onlyhave 2000 homes. And there's
like you said a big battery thatcould provide power for I think
it's about eight hours at thecurrent population level. And so
(14:18):
given the proximity that we haveto that solar farm, which by the
way did not lose any panels inthe store, which is they have
some 700,000 panels and theylost zero during the storm which
is fine, but you know mindblowing statistic to me, but
yeah, so being so close to ageneration source that can like
you said be a micro grid.
Especially when we consider thatcan be a micro grid for
(14:39):
fractions of seconds that ittakes for the power to go out
like if when the power linesaround us fell. We didn't we
could balance load with thebatteries. And then the
undergrounding meant that ourload with stable in the town and
didn't cause things to happenthat caused power to go out. So
basically when Load spikes orchanges or a power line goes
(15:02):
down and it changes. How muchpower is flowing. That's kind of
what accentuates power outages.
And we didn't experience that.
And I understand that. Yeah, goahead. Good. I was just gonna
say because of havingunderground pipe wires, and
being so close to generationsource, kind of those two
things. Yep. Helped us.
Dina Rasor (15:28):
Okay, sorry, I talked over you. i One thing
that I found intriguing aboutthe column that the blog you
wrote was that you guys were theonly people that were really
functioning in that big area andthe supermarkets and everything.
And so you had sort of a,probably a lot of people who,
coming from communities that hadno food, no water, no toilet, no
(15:49):
plumbing, no, anything. What wasit like afterwards? Did you know
you were almost like a refugeecamp for supermarkets and stuff,
Ryan Foelske (15:59):
we were our, you know, like I said, we've got
about 2000 homes built here. Andwe've got a little local grocery
store, or it's a Publix, but ourtown's grocery store, no one
else from outside, the townusually goes to it. But the
Saturday after the hurricane, itwas completely full, full of
cars that I've never seenbefore, people from outside
whose grocery stores did nothave power to not have water,
(16:21):
therefore could not be open. Andso in that sense, we serve to
those people to get them thefood that they needed. We have a
hurricane shelter in town thatwas certified the day of the
storm, and has people from otherareas that were more impaired.
I'm
Greg Williams (16:37):
curious, when it became clear that your local
grocery store had power and manyof the surrounding ones didn't?
Did any of the other stores tryto move their inventory to your
store so that they would avoidspoiling?
Ryan Foelske (16:51):
I think so, the shelves were constantly being
restocked. And you know, giventhat some of the Roads and
Transport was hard to get morebroadly, I think that's exactly
what happened is stores within20 Miles came in and gave us
their inventory to serve thosepeople. Which is really cool to
see the sharing and how itplayed out.
Dina Rasor (17:14):
Okay, so after the hurricane and now you've you say
it's been a couple of months?
Where could the town actuallyimprove even more scrutiny
against hurricanes and othernational natural disasters? Do
you or do you think you can'tthink of anything that they
could have done better?
Ryan Foelske (17:33):
So the thing that we were lucky with this storm in
our area was we didn't have abunch of water, I think we had
under four inches of rain andthe whole experience. And even
though our lakes and ponds anddrainage systems are designed to
take up to 20 something inchesof water, I think that has not
(17:57):
yet been tested. And in a and ina future storm that could be
different. But to the credit ofour developer, they have already
started working to get ready forthat. So we've seen changes
happening already they're outlooking to expand the storm
sewer drains, they are alreadychanging the way the lakes are
interconnected to improve theway water flows around the
(18:20):
property. And being able to showagain that in the next storm,
we'll be ready to survive again,even if it's different.
Greg Williams (18:29):
I perhaps should have made this introduction or
earlier in the episode but I Ibelieve everything that we're
talking about falls into thegeneral heading of resilience
and it's a really important partof the infrastructure law and
and other funding you know, wewe try to reduce the amount of
co2 we're putting into theatmosphere so that we can slow
(18:53):
or ideally even halt climatechange but in the meantime it
pays to undertake efforts to toexperience less damage or
inconvenience or suffering andthat all falls under the heading
of of resilience which is whatyou're describing here so I want
(19:14):
our listeners to consider thatthis is this episode at some
level is meant to be a positiveexample of how resilience funds
can be spent as we look forwardto the expenditures that have
already been authorized and andnew legislation that hopefully
will fund even more resiliencework. I do yeah and I
Dina Rasor (19:38):
yeah, I don't also I was gonna say because this isn't
the last day hurricane I went tothings that I noticed have
noticed since I you know beenbeen checking Port Charlotte
since 1964. All you guys wereborn when my grandparents moved
down there and the storms werenot as big and heavy. and
(20:00):
whatever. But I remember evenback then that the Gulf of
Mexico was very warm to swim in.
But now it's come become sort ofsuperheated. And once once those
once those hurricanes go aroundthe edge of Cuba and hit that
water, this was this one andCharlie were both the same kind
of hurricanes. They were like,holy cow, this thing is just
suddenly it's like a bomb goingoff. And so this idea of
(20:22):
resiliency and whatever, it thisis not this was not 100 year
storm, there's going to be moreand more of these kinds of
things. So it's interesting thatthere's a community that's
actually actually thinkingahead, which is a good idea.
Greg Williams (20:40):
Yeah. And, again, a little bit more context for
our listeners, fundamentally,hurricanes derive their energy
from warm water. And so thewarmer the water is, the more
energy that hurricane absorbs,and then the hurricane may
exhibit that energy in form ofstorm surge, precipitation or
(21:00):
wind. And, and so I think it'sinteresting that you point out
that you weren't really testedon the, in terms of
precipitation or flooding,because that is something that
we look forward to with futurehurricanes. You know,
historically, I think theprimary impact of hurricanes has
(21:22):
been wind damage, which is whythe the hurricane categorization
system is based fundamentally onsustained and in peak wind
speeds. But as we saw in Houstonand Galveston a couple of years
ago, really, tremendous amountsof damage can be caused by a
(21:43):
sort of new kind of hurricanethat just finds a spot that it
likes and sits there and poursrain on it for days and days on
end.
Dina Rasor (21:53):
Yeah, okay, that's so how did you end up deciding
to move to how long have youbeen there and Babcock ranch?
And you said that it was it wasbuilt started being built in
2006. And what what drew youthere are the houses? Was it
hurricane situation? Or was itjust because it was a plant
(22:17):
community and you work in youwork in renewable energy, and
that kind of appealed to you?
Are or what other reason thatdrew you to buy a house there?
Ryan Foelske (22:29):
Yeah, so like I said, I'm from Chicago, and had
been there my whole life. I leftmy job as a bi side stock
analyst to have an RV adventure.
And the first place we went inour RV adventure was to Florida,
we spent a winter in Florida,and thought it was a cheat code
(22:49):
to life, you know, you don'thave to put on these winter
coats, you don't have to shovel.
You can be outside every day inthe sun. And it's super
comfortable. And by the time weended our adventure, went back
to Chicago for a couple years,we kept every winter saying,
man, what if we do that again?
Or what if we, you know, decidenot to do winter anymore. And
(23:12):
during that time, we spent aboutthree years researching where to
move in Florida, we're attractedto the west coast for a bunch of
reasons that tend to be whereMidwesterners settle is part of
that. And you know, seeing asunset is kind of cooler to us
than seeing the sunrise over theover the ocean. So I think we
looked from Tampa all the way toNaples, if you're familiar with
(23:34):
the west coast of Florida,looked at existing towns and new
developments, and couldn't quiteput our finger on on home. But
when we learned about BabcockRanch, which had the solar farm,
it had the sustainable focus.
You know, I'd been increasinglygetting involved in renewable
(23:55):
energy and at the time was aboutto start my my career at RMI
focusing on renewable energy, Ithought man wouldn't be cool if
the all of my life kind ofblended together and rhymed. And
made sense. And so, you know,Babcock ranch fit a lot of those
things of being a way for lifeto work and all the pieces, you
(24:15):
know, I could live in asustainable place work in
sustainability. And kind of, youknow, live the thing that I'm
trying to pursue broadly.
Dina Rasor (24:26):
Well, that's really interesting. I can, I can
understand that. And then I alsothough, I saw that they were
there. They're planning to buildanother 19,000 houses. Exactly.
Yeah. So it's gonna, it's gonnago from 2000 Do you think the
solar farm is going to have tobe expanded to do that and where
(24:49):
they're going to put the housesand do you see, I'm sure you
watch now the how they developedto make sure they stay true to
the fact that they are makingit, you know, eco friendly
Ryan Foelske (25:00):
Yeah, so the solar farm, when it was built was
actually sized for the fullscale development. So it's large
enough to power 30,000 homes,our development is only going to
be 19 20,000. So there's excesssolar power being produced from
the existing solar farm. If andwhen they expand it, you know,
in the future that can only helpthey, the town, the developer
(25:24):
puts out maps of where the newneighborhoods are gonna go kind
of where the new schools aregonna go, you can watch as it as
the plan unfold in real time.
Greg Williams (25:33):
So you can have plenty of solar power, but if
you only have eight hours ofbattery life for 3000 homes, are
what forgotten what the numberwas. But if you dramatically
increase the number of homes,you're essentially going to be
dividing that battery capacityby by that expansion fasters
(25:53):
factor rather, so are thereplans to expand the battery farm
if not the solar farm?
Ryan Foelske (25:59):
That's one of the misconceptions about Babcock
Ranch, even from residents isthat all of our power comes from
solar all of the time. But as weall know, that sometimes there's
this balancing effect. So we areconnected to the broader Florida
grid. And we we draw power fromthe grid at times, mostly at
night. And so as we grow, wewon't need to rely on the
(26:21):
batteries alone, because we dodraw power from the grid. So
yes, yes, is the answer yourquestion, they, I hope they do
expand the batteries. But also,if they don't, we will still
have power. And as Florida Powerand Light is one of the leaders
in pursuing a netzero utility ofthe future. Hopefully, our power
(26:44):
becomes increasingly clean fromthe grid at large as well.
Dina Rasor (26:49):
And just to get an idea, because everyone, I saw
something today that said, Onlybillionaires are going to
survive climate change, becausethey've got the money to move
and build and you know, build afortress and everything that you
would need, but what? So we sortof feel like, well, you know, an
average per average homeownercan, what's the range of prices
(27:11):
in the houses there?
Ryan Foelske (27:12):
Yeah, great question. The you can, you can
get a two bedroom, two bathcondo for right around 300,000.
Right now. Single family homescan be built for 350 to 400,000.
And up. And if you are one ofthose higher end people, you can
build a home for one to $2million, as well. And so I think
(27:34):
it's that's one of the thingsthat drew me here as well is
that there is a pretty broadaffordability factor. There are
people who work in all sorts ofjobs that live here, actually,
it's a lot of remote workers,but there are a lot of
tradesmen. And that makes fairreally, for what it is it's a
diverse place to live.
Dina Rasor (27:58):
Okay. And I wanted to ask you also what kind of
land was the solar field builton? Because there's always this,
you know, thing of, like inCalifornia, where we've been
building, we have brownfields,you know, fields that aren't
they're not Superfund sites, butthey're things that you'd have
to do an enormous amount ofabatement if you ever wanted to
(28:18):
use them. And we've been puttingsolar panels on those because
then you only have to worryabout the work the workmen, and
the people who maintain it haveto be careful not to stir up
dust and whatever. But it's notsomeplace you want to go rent
your dog have your kids play. Sowhat kind of land was the one
that I saw a picture of thesolar farm? It's quite
(28:40):
impressive. And did they end upcutting down any forests, or
wetlands or anything to be ableto put that so because that's a
that's a big question now issolar energy.
Ryan Foelske (28:53):
Yeah, the the solar farm is, you know, this
area was a big ranch. And so Ithink there was a mix of heavily
forested areas in addition tokind of more cleared spaces for
for the ranch activities to takeplace. The if you drive by the
solar farm now, which you cando, it doesn't appear to be
(29:17):
overly cleared. I'm sure theycleared some amount of trees. To
be fair, there have been treescleared for the development of
the neighborhoods in this townas well. But I think it's
something like two thirds of theland, even under the development
section is going to be retainedfor green spaces for forests for
(29:38):
preserve and park so it's not.
And again, I think this is notas bad as some developments, but
it's also not perfect. Andthere's a balance to be found as
communities like this come upand being better than average as
being a leader. Okay,
Dina Rasor (30:02):
another issue that comes up is Florida's one of the
flattest places I've ever seenin my life. I remember as a
little kid, and my grandmotherloved riding her bike around
there because there were nohills, because she'd come from
an hilly area. Just one littlebridge, you know, she called it
the big hill. So you you're notvery far above sea level, you're
(30:24):
inland a little bit more thanplaces like Port Charlotte. But
what's going to happen? Do youhave any Did they have any plans
on the the problem with the withrising water levels due to
climate change, of course, thatwould be rising water levels
from the ocean. So that would bebringing also being bringing in
(30:44):
more briny saltwater, is thereis head to town address that at
all.
Ryan Foelske (30:51):
That was part of the reason that they chose to
develop in this location versussomewhere else is that we are 30
feet above sea level, whichdoesn't sound like a lot. But
for Florida, that's a reallyhigh place to be. We're also you
know, 15 to 20 miles from thecoast. And so as sea levels rise
as things like that happen,we're far enough inland and high
(31:14):
enough that this town will beokay. Yeah, the more coastal
areas won't. And related to thisis a really interesting point
about because how well we faredduring the hurricane, the end
the insurance market that hashappened, and maybe we could
talk, talk about this later. Butwe're looking to create our own
(31:37):
insurance zone because of howwell we fared. And the
robustness. And, you know, givenwhere we are, instead of being
lumped in with all of this area,where it kind of a special area,
if you will,
Dina Rasor (31:48):
you will Yeah, I mean, insurance companies are
pulling out Florida, you know,because there's like, you know,
we're done. There's too manyhurricanes too many times, you
know, kind of thing goes,that's, that's a big problem. I
think I'm beginning to thinkthat as climate change advances,
we may end up having things likefederal government took over
flood insurance, because nobodywanted to do it. So of course,
(32:09):
then you have all these very bigexpensive houses on the long
East Coast that keep gettingpulverized by storms, and the
federal government pays to haveit rebuilt in the bottom and
then they rebuild them right ontop of the thing. And that's
just normal, you know, sanderosion, but as the, as the
water begins to rise,interestingly enough, in places
(32:31):
like the Outer Banks of NorthCarolina and some of these
barrier islands, they they arenow starting to buy into the
workers towns that are furtherinland, the rich people are
moving there, and then the theworkers and people that maintain
the place are ending up moretowards the coast, which makes
(32:52):
it probably a problematicbecause then they don't they,
you know, they would have moretime doing that. So is that a is
Are any of the other townsaround there like Punta Gorda
and, and Port Charlotte, thoseplaces which have a lot of, you
know, recreational canals yourhouses are on that was a big
(33:13):
thing in the 60s they put a lotof canals in, and those houses
are just not you're introducinga little rivers of water
everywhere around these houses.
And is that going to be aproblem? Problem with the
insurance companies or anybodybeing able to, to rebuild those
towns that have been soslaughtered?
Ryan Foelske (33:34):
Yeah, I think it would have to be. And if you you
know that this issue is firstbrought to me when I was on my
RV trip, and I went to Biloxiafter one of the hurricanes had
hit that area. And I was like,Wow, what a cool property. This
is right across from the beach.
Why isn't there like a houserebuilt? And, you know, you look
into it, and it's oh, well, theinsurance costs for this house,
(33:55):
no matter what you build,there's like $8,000 a year, even
for, you know, a very modesthome, not, you know, large home
and like, well, that's why it'snot going to be rebuilt. And so
the insurance market has toadjust to you not serve that
area, it'd be interesting to seehow it plays out.
Dina Rasor (34:18):
So it's sort of like having a very expensive car. The
more expensive your car is thewired people say, oh, you know,
I'd love to have a car likethat. I wouldn't want to pay the
insurance on that car. Becauseyou know, the more expensive or
the bigger the engine, the morethe insurance goes up. And this
is sort of the same thing, asI'm just wondering how they're
gonna how they're gonna rebuild.
Okay. Can you think bulk?
(34:42):
Babcock ranch can be duplicatedin areas that don't have the
same amount of sunlight is fromFlorida. And are there pieces of
the Bob babcox invasions thatwould work in other communities
like, Could you be Bad Cop ascommunity in Chicago,
Ryan Foelske (35:05):
I think you can incorporate a lot of the ideas
and it would make a bigdifference. One of the really
fascinating things about BabcockRanch is that it automates
sustainability resiliencywithout people even knowing or
feeling it. For example, a lotof people ride golf carts around
town, because you can get todowntown, you can get to the
(35:25):
school, get to the grocerystore, all within a mile, mile
and a half. And so because ofthat, we've reduced our miles
driven. But it's also more fun,because if you ride on a golf
cart, you're smiling the wholetime. And so the way that the
way that we design cities canchange, and take lessons from
this have things more, insteadof the neighborhoods, miles away
(35:46):
from the services, and thestores make everything smaller,
more local. So as areas inChicago are around there,
develop and redevelop, I thinkincorporating those lessons
making areas more walkable, ormore bicycle liberal. It's
tougher in Chicago because ofweather. But I think those
(36:08):
lessons do a lot of impact andhave a lot of impact that we
don't really think about,because it's not these big fancy
solar farms that that catchheadlines, but it also has a big
impact.
Dina Rasor (36:18):
So probably in a place like Chicago, I'm just
using it because it's such ahuge extreme from Florida, the
mountain but the biggestproblem, I think with Chicago,
you get a lot of wind off thelakes and stuff at the is the
power lines going down in butthe heavy snow, I think that's
you know, and then it becomesdangerous, really dangerous,
(36:38):
because it's so cold, you know,when you don't have ability to
to heat and you're fine things.
So I was just thinking that,that probably each each
community has to decide whereare we the most vulnerable? Is
there a technology we can dosomething with, for example, if
(36:59):
you lived somewhere in Chicago,and you couldn't really change
the sprawl, you could at leastput the powerlines under
underground.
Ryan Foelske (37:12):
I just think related to that, you can do that
yourself too. You can make yourown. If you put solar panels on
your roof, if you have anelectric car, you can kind of be
your own micro grid, you can addyour own resiliency, no matter
where you live, and incorporatesome of the things of being more
resilient, being moreindependent of whatever's going
on outside of your home.
Greg Williams (37:32):
So that said, I'm going to encourage our listeners
to go to Google Maps and look atthat Babcock ranch. You know, if
ever there was an example ofsomething that was big enough to
be seen from space, that solarfarm is certainly it. And so I
can only imagine that that it'sit's going to be difficult to
(37:53):
implement exactly that model inplaces that are already
relatively densely settled.
Ryan Foelske (38:01):
Yeah, and that's something that is the challenge,
right, of even the areas ofFlorida that will need to be
rebuilt. Hopefully to take someof the lessons maybe as it's
being rebuilt underground, thepower lines underground, that
utility services, put smallerstores along the way.
Dina Rasor (38:20):
And we you know, we have plenty of sunlight here in
California, but we also limitedland. And one thing that we're
saying is we do not want tocover the Central Valley where
all the vegetables in thecountry are with solar panels.
So there is a real push.
California has always been sortof a cutting edge on that. And,
you know, obviously, you know,I've had 40 years of experience
when I was in college, JerryBrown, the first time he was
(38:44):
governor when he was theyoungest governor versus the
oldest governor. He didsomething that the the utilities
this fought and fought andfought. And he said if you put
you know, solar panels back inthe late 1970s, were very
effective, but they they notlike they are today. But he said
if you put solar panels on yourroof, and you hitch it into the
(39:06):
grid, pg&e the Pacific Gas andElectric how if you make more
than you use, they have to buyit from you. In other words, the
excess goes in back into thegrid, and they have to buy it
for you. And so that was a hugething to come up and boy, they
(39:27):
fought it and everything else.
But here we are, you know,almost 45 years later. Still
benefiting from that right now Iam selling back in these very
sunny areas. And I think theutilities have finally decided
that it's cheaper to go aheadand buy that kind of electricity
(39:49):
and then try to build anotherplant which would take years you
know, whether it's nuclear or ornatural gas, natural grass, gas
or anything else. So So I'm justwondering if you can see what
kind of economic and climateissues that would prevent
(40:09):
replications of parts of BabcockRanch, it was Bobcat Babcock
ranch sounds like a littleutopia, because you got to do it
all at once on thing, but whatis it that what's the economic?
You know, you, especially sinceyou're in the economics, what is
the economic issues? That canthat are going to be troublesome
(40:30):
for for people to try toreplicate the resilience that
you have?
Ryan Foelske (40:36):
Yeah. And I think you hit on one of the big
issues, which is this availableland. And there's, in order to
build a solar farm, maybefurther away from where people
live requires then building thepower lines to bring it there.
That's its own big issue ofnobody wants power lines in
their backyard. And one of thesolutions, as you said, is to
(41:00):
make the power generated hyperlocally. That's net metering is
a big debate happening shouldwhat the situation you described
where the utility pays you,should that occur, at what rate
should you get reimbursed orpaid for the power you produce?
Florida actually, recently, Ithink, in 2022, had had a big
(41:22):
bill get vetoed by the governor,that would have been net
metering. And so it saved netmetering for customers. So its
customers can still now sellpower at the full retail price
back to the company. But thereal issue of creating areas
like this is, is this whole,there's not enough grid
(41:45):
infrastructure is the realbottom line. We if we built
enough solar somewhere todeliver this kind of power, if
it was underground, that'sgreat, but that's going to cost
a lot of money. And utilitybills are already one of the
larger bills that people face.
We have a calculator at RMI on.
It's called energy burden howmuch people spend by income
(42:07):
group on their electric bill.
And it's really fascinating toexplore how that is different
around the country. And I thinkthose are the limiting factors
and figuring out how we aregoing to equitably pay for a
transition to a low carbonfuture is a big challenge.
Dina Rasor (42:28):
Another thing we do in California, and I'd be
interested to see if you do thisin Florida, and you live in
Florida, and especially live inCalifornia, where there's not a
lot of humidity. So sunlight isvery intense. When you come out
of a store and you get in yourcar. You finalist like you're
going to be cremated. It is sohot. And you you want to have
cloth seats, you know, leatherseats, and and you can't barely
(42:49):
touch the steering wheel. And,of course, California having
been brought up in the 60s and70s as being you know, very big
car. Car. Friendly. Kiacentered, yes. The local little
community energy power that doesours came up with putting it
(43:14):
solves two problems. Threeactually three problems putting
solar canopies over all theparking lots, and then putting a
solar panels on those. So thatone the car does not get that
hot. So then of course you don'thave to use all the electric or
gasoline to cool it down. And toit's getting, you know, it's
(43:37):
making a lot of energy. Becausethat's, you know, you think
about a shopping mall and howmuch parking space there is that
could be covered. And then thethird thing is that the end of
each one of these they put incharging stations, and they
actually can some of thesecanopies are big enough that
they can be charging stationsfrom those solar panels. And so
(43:58):
I'm just thinking that you haveyou seen that at all in Florida,
because that's, I'm sort ofdisappointed that California
Well, California isn't doingmore, I think they're gonna
start doing more because it'ssuch a smart idea.
Ryan Foelske (44:10):
It really is.
We've all the commercialbuildings in our town have solar
panels on them, and there arecharging stations spread
throughout the town for electricvehicles. And then even you
know, expanding the scope alittle bit there are more and
more covered areas with solarpanels, but I would say it makes
sense to do it more. We havesolar trees in our town, which
(44:35):
are kind of cool to see. It'sjust Yeah. But the coolest thing
that I've seen is in Californiato cover that the aquadex with
solar panels, which reduces theamount of water that's lost.
It's kind of the virtuouscircle.
Dina Rasor (44:53):
And they're also finding that they there's crops
that they can do in a centralvalley because you know,
unfortunately the centralvalleys turning into, you know,
110 114 degree days. And sothat's frying a lot of the
fruits and vegetables stuff, wefinally came up with the idea of
let's put the solar panels, youknow, keep the solar panels one
(45:15):
tractor with heart and grow andthey're growing crops under the
solar panels and they growbigger because and they use less
water because they are not thatsome of these things are not
native. And so they can't standthis kind of horrible dry season
with no rain.
Greg Williams (45:33):
So speaking of water, I'm curious to what
extent Babcock Ranch is, is selfcontained or dependent on
adjacent communities either interms of the potable water
coming in? And for lack of abetter term, let's say the non
potable water going out? Like doyou have your own water
(45:53):
purification and waste treatmentfacilities, that's all part of
the community.
Ryan Foelske (45:57):
Yeah, the community has its own water
utility that manages and createsour potable water, they've got
retention ponds, and all of allof the infrastructure required.
And we are actually a netdischarger of water. And there
are certain requirements thatFlorida has in terms of
discharging water, and we meetand exceed all of them by
(46:23):
design. The other notable thingis that the we're very proud of
not having algae blooms in ourlakes, because of the way that
we treat our plants and soil anddon't have some of the nitrogen
related effects that other areashave in their in their lakes.
And we don't have bubblers. It'sjust by design again,
Dina Rasor (46:45):
why that was so heartbreaking to me on that
coast, when they they releasedto the inner state canals from
Lake Okeechobee, they releasedall that water and it just
turned the west coast into Iremember, there was a natural
red tide when I was a kid, wehave to step over the piles of
(47:06):
fish to get in. But what it'swhat the red tides are getting
worse and worse, and Manateesare starving. And you know, all
this kind of stuff because ofthese big algae blooms, which
should should not be put in theocean going is there is that one
of the reasons that you guys didthat. And so you wouldn't have
(47:27):
any drainage to the ocean thatwould have algae.
Ryan Foelske (47:30):
Yeah, we're just trying, again, like Babcock
ranch in in a is a great exampleof what you can do to automate
living a sustainable version ofa modern life without kind of
noticing. And by design, wedon't discharge dirty water,
enough water of the certain kindto cause those problems.
Greg Williams (47:52):
I want to make sure I understand how you're
using the term automate, I thinkusually when we think of
automation, you know, we'rethinking machinery and robots
or, or computer logic, what itsounds like you're talking about
is simply designing things sothat they passively don't have
the negative effects that that,you know, more typical forms of
(48:12):
infrastructure do.
Ryan Foelske (48:14):
Yeah, it's automation in at the grand scale
at a design level scale, where,you know, again, if if you can
walk to school in a fasteramount of time than it takes to
drive you're gonna walk. And sothat's one design example of, of
just automating the decisionmaking it easier to not drive so
(48:36):
to reduce your emissions thatway. The way that the lakes are
interconnected kind of automatesthe risk of flooding, without
anyone having to actively doanything.
Greg Williams (48:48):
And perhaps more importantly, with it without the
input of electrical or otherkinds of power.
Ryan Foelske (48:53):
Exactly other other power. You can live here
and not even know that you'reliving in a sustainable
community. Because you know,your lights turn on when you
flip the switch. You haveinternet like you don't your
homes feel like like normalhomes, but then when we're
challenged by the storm by thehurricane, we perform
differently than other places.
Greg Williams (49:16):
Then I guess that the last kind of sustainability
question that I wanted to askyou about is how our homes and
other buildings heated. He
Dina Rasor (49:26):
isn't air conditioned.
Greg Williams (49:30):
air conditioned I sort of take for granted is
going to involve electricity,but we've we've already sort of
addressed that but are there nocircumstances where you where
you do buildings simply not haveradiators? We do have some real
hardcore Yankee question. Thereal thing
Ryan Foelske (49:50):
that is heated though is pools. And pools do
have heaters and for that I'vegot an electric heat pump. And
so it keeps my pool well aboveambient temperatures. And it's
the same concept I think thatyou're asking about is there's
an electric way to heat things,whether it's air or, or water.
Dina Rasor (50:11):
Or most of your house is heated by electricity
instead of natural gas orsomething, or else,
Ryan Foelske (50:16):
all the homes are heated by electricity. Because
you don't use it much that it'slike the really old version of
electric key. It's not that niceheat pump version of electric
heat, but I've used it once inthe 18 months I've lived here.
But it really is not a thing.
That I would say maybe a quarterof homes do have natural gas
(50:37):
service. That was a concessionmade to get home builders and
get people to live to move herebecause it's seen as a luxury
good.
Greg Williams (50:48):
But mostly for fireplaces and cooking, or
Ryan Foelske (50:52):
it's mostly for cooking. Yes. There's a certain
group of folks who think thatelectric cooktops aren't as fun
to to cook with as guestscooktops. But if you've used the
latest induction stoves, I thinkyou'll be very impressed.
Dina Rasor (51:07):
Well, I also think anybody with young children is
crazy to have a gas stoveanymore. I see all these people,
you know, when these big housesthat I know, they, they buy
these unbelievably expensiveelectric gas stoves, and burners
and everything, and it'sconstantly leaking stuff that
can cause childhood asthma. Andso you know, you've just got to
(51:28):
finally decide, you know, thisjust isn't going to work. And I
think the the induction stonesreally have to come down a
little bit. So I'm just stunned.
I'm hoping that California andthe federal government and that
kind of thing. That and thatreminds me of a question I had
not asked you. How has there wasthere any federal or state money
(51:49):
grants, given went to build thiscommunity? Or and is there in
the past the present? And dothey have a future of
interesting of bringing federalmoney, incentive money and state
incentive money? Can Californiathe state instead of money is
big, but I don't think Floridais step wedded to it. But is
(52:11):
there any kind of governmentmoney involved? Or is this all
completely private?
Ryan Foelske (52:21):
So the way that this area was put together, it
was a huge, complicated realestate transaction where the
developer bought all of the landand then sold 70% of it back to
the state. So in that sense,there was some amount of state,
not a, necessarily, theyprobably paid the market price,
but state involvement in, ingetting this parcel into what it
(52:44):
is today. There was privatemoney built the solar farm with
with the the local utility. Andthere's some amount of
innovative things. So we werelooking in working on having
these driverless electric,personal taxis of sorts where
you on an app, you could call adriverless taxi to pick you up
(53:07):
and take you to certain places.
And that was done with agovernment, I believe, a doe
loan of sorts, you know, insmall, smaller amounts. There's
a innovative series of homes,that is exploring using gray
water being a little bit morerobust in your off grid
capabilities. And those are donein partnership with private
(53:27):
capital. So it's with thenational home builders, it's
with, you know, utilities,again, in figuring out ways to
explore home resiliency. But tomy knowledge, there is not large
scale federal money.
Dina Rasor (53:43):
i One of the things I think that might happen is
that obviously this was builtbefore the heat pump situation
really took off. And he bunts inthe 60s, so expensive. But I can
imagine that at some of thesepeople who have even electric
heat, like electric heat, andor, you know, to do that would
(54:06):
want to take incentives from thegovernment to switch over to the
and maybe switch over to themore bang, but there are there
solar panels on the houses atall.
Ryan Foelske (54:16):
Some homes do, I would say it's, I don't know, a
quarter give or take of homeshave solar panels, which I think
is somewhat normal for that areaof the country, maybe even the
country at large. Penetration isshockingly low in the state of
Florida. I was at a recentutility investor conference and
(54:37):
Florida is well below average interms of solar rooftop
penetration where
Dina Rasor (54:42):
there's not really there's not a lot of state
money, incentive. Right. Soanything that occurred you there
would be it has to be federal,because California almost tries
to outdo the Feds every timethat's sort of
Ryan Foelske (54:53):
Yeah, and I think what we're seeing where the
inflation reduction act playsthrough and X celebrate some of
the rooftop solar benefits.
There's huge programs, as Ithink, you know, at the DoD in
getting some of these thingsdone more effectively and
cheaply for consumers andhopefully accelerates the
transition to a net zeroeconomy.
Dina Rasor (55:19):
Okay, good. Well, is there anything else you would
like to add? that we haven'tcovered?
Ryan Foelske (55:25):
No, I just would love to say that. You know,
Babcock Ranch is a unique place.
And there are a lot of lessonsto unpack. And I think the
biggest one is that you canautomate in a broad sense, as
we've talked about living asustainable version of a very
modern life without even knowingthat you're doing anything
different than anybody else. Andthat is done at like a city
(55:48):
level. And it's excited to seehow this shakes. shakes out.
Dina Rasor (55:55):
Okay, good. Well, I encourage people to go to when
we put this up next week, thispodcast, I'm encouraged people
to go to our blog page, our mainpage, which has our blog in it,
and we'll have all theconnection, all the things that
to your article, your articlewas really interesting to read,
and kind of really caught myeye. And also, of course, I
(56:17):
encourage people to go tormi.org, if you want to see some
really good reports, I learnedso much every time I go to your
you guys, websites, because youguys are, you're you're really
on the cutting edge, but you'renot crazy. I mean, you you're
very realistic.
Ryan Foelske (56:35):
Yeah, and I'll just make a plug for Rmi. We
have a team of 60 people whocover us electric utilities and
the the energy sector, inaddition to a bunch of other
programs that are in my handsthat have, again, really
incredible work being done. Butas the utilities person, it's
fascinating, all the areas thatwe cover, all the way from the
(56:58):
consumer side of things tocommunity groups, and regulators
all the way through investors,which is where I spend my time
trying to link our work toinvestors. And there's a lot of
exciting stuff coming and goingon. And if you just want to get
overwhelmed with learning aboutthe utilities industry, yeah, go
to rmi.org.
Greg Williams (57:17):
Absolutely. I mean, we we've had a number of
our my guests on the showbefore, we've enjoyed having you
and we look forward to havingmore in the future. So thank you
very much. Oh, go ahead.
Dina Rasor (57:31):
Let me let me encourage you to, if you come up
with something new to or if youend up falling, finding a
whistleblower, then we'rewhistleblower experts. So you
find anybody that really knowsthere's a problem going on. And
this is kind of not what you dosend them to us. And and that's
for the audience, too. Becauseour job is to, is to expose when
(57:53):
things go wrong. And we've nevergot I've never had anybody
caught and fired in 40 years. SoI know, I know how to hide your
identity. But I just encourageyou that and I encourage you to
contact us if you see there'ssome breakthrough that you'd
like to come back on.
Ryan Foelske (58:10):
Excellent. Yeah.
Thanks for having me. I lookforward. Thanks again.
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