September 30, 2025 • 52 mins
Celebrity guest! Liz asks Sam Evans-Brown to do some heavy lifting as Liz learned zero things about anything "energy" related in high school. As much as Liz hates change, it's time to learn a little bit.
Tune in to get answers to questions like, "What's a watt?" and "What kind of outlet do you need for an electric vehicle?" and "Is Massachusetts doing things worse than New Hampshire?" and "What on earth is 'net metering'?!"...and many more.
New episodes on Tuesdays.
Become a supporter of the show --> this helps Liz continue to make episodes!
Have an idea for an upcoming episode? Email Liz: newhampshirehasissues@gmail.com
Links:
- Clean Energy NH
- Clean Energy NH on Instagram
- NH Saves
- ISO New England
- Ernie Moniz (and his hair)
- The Energy Transition and Why It's Inevitable (Sam's homework for Liz)
- The Accidental History of Solar Power (Outside/In)
- Advocates decry $43.5 M solar grant clawback (NH Business Review)
- A multi-million dollar grant for solar power in New Hampshire is set to be scrapped (NHPR)
- Sam also recommends the slidedeck from The Electrotech Revolution
Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm. Learn how to start a podcast here.
New Hampshire Has Issues is generously sponsored by Seacoast Soils, an organic compost and topsoil provider for New Hampshire, Maine, and Northeast Massachusetts. Visit their website at www.seacoastsoil.com!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam (00:00):
Yeah.
Liz (00:01):
Which gets us into the topic of climate change.
Sam (00:03):
Is this the perfect We have the benefit of recording on a
peak demand day?
So we're Oh my God.
Liz (00:08):
What does it mean?
I'm so excited to learn somethings.
I watched the video that yousent me.
I watched the talk, and it wasso helpful to like get sort of
anchored in this thing that Iknow literally nothing about.
Sam (00:20):
Well, I have to say that's a commitment because that's like
an hour of your life thatyou're I watched the whole
thing.
Liz (00:24):
Oh yeah.
I watched the whole thing andjotted down some thoughts.
Not things that I couldactually ask because I have to
like process for four weeks, butin four weeks I'm gonna have
incredible questions for you.
Welcome to New Hampshire HasIssues, the podcast that dares
(00:49):
to ask how much energy will Iuse learning about this topic?
Yeah, it's such like a dadjoke.
Like my father, if he were toever listen to this, he'd be
like, I could have done itbetter.
But still, like I've I've triedwith my with my tagline.
Sam (01:06):
Yeah.
Uh it's funny.
I I should, because I am a l Iam a listener, you know.
Oh my god.
But I didn't come prepared witha tagline at all.
Liz (01:14):
Uh I don't grade you on the homework.
Sam (01:16):
And I hope you won't grade me on mine either.
Liz (01:19):
You know, you can spitball it, what you think might be your
tagline.
Sam (01:22):
Uh welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues.
Is is it always the podcastthat dares to ask?
Liz (01:26):
The podcast that dares to ask.
Sam (01:28):
Okay.
The podcast that dares to ask,could we do it any worse than
we're doing Yes we can.
Liz (01:36):
That's perfect.
Sam (01:38):
I will say, like, I am frustrated daily in my job,
which many people are in NewHampshire.
Yeah.
But there's actually there'slots of places that are doing it
worse than New Hampshire.
So, you know.
Liz (01:47):
Want to name some?
Wanna tell us some of the onesthat are doing it way worse?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's oneMassachusetts.
We hate Massachusetts here.
Sam (01:55):
So I am prepared to list things that Massachusetts does
not is not doing right.
And in fact, I think there'sthere's a tendency amongst
climate advocates to say, like,why don't we just do what
Massachusetts is doing?
And and I'm ready to be like,well, here's a litany of things
that they do wrong.
And and there's a thing in inlike, you know, my space, which
(02:17):
is like clean energy and alsosort of like abundance-pilled
bros, uh, which is like we liketo point to Texas, which is
building clean energy fasterthan any state in the country.
Whoa.
Uh, and they're doing it justthrough markets, which uh our
Republican friends say is whatthey want to do.
So uh so there's there's plentyof there's plenty of laggards
(02:40):
that are both red states andblue states, and they each have
their own pathologies.
Liz (02:45):
My God.
Sam Evans Brown's top laggardsof clean energy.
Maybe it's a bonus episode.
I don't know.
We could just go into all ofthe folks who are doing it
worse.
Sam (02:54):
Well, so it's by it's kind of by we're immediately gonna go
wicked nerdy, right?
So it's by balancing authority.
Uh so it's really like theSoutheast part of the nation,
which have which they have likethe least liberalized
electricity markets.
Uh, and so it's all monopolyutilities, and monopolies do
what monopolies do, which is uh,you know, it sort of ignore
(03:18):
public input and do reallyexpensive things because that's
how they get paid more.
Liz (03:23):
My guest today, here we are.
So I'm Liz Canada, I'm yourhost, and my guest today is a
celebrity, and I am extremelyintimidated to have him on the
podcast, but I'm so thankfulthat he's here.
Sam Evans Brown, thank you forbeing here, Sam.
I'm so appreciative of yourtime.
Sam (03:38):
Uh thank you for having me.
Like I said, longtime listener,first-time caller.
Um, celebrity with like thesmallest possible C, the state
of New Hampshire, uh don't gotno celebrities, is what I would
say.
Liz (03:50):
Okay.
Well, I don't know that that'strue, but we don't have to
debate that.
Sam (03:54):
No Laura Kanoy.
I'll just say that.
Liz (03:58):
Shout out.
So uh I've confessed to you viaemail that I know nothing about
this topic of clean energy.
And I want to be really candidthat when I say I know nothing,
like I'm not being humble, andactually I have all these
amazing questions for you.
Like I know nothing.
And in high school, when Ishould have learned things about
(04:19):
energy, like I had a scienceteacher named Mrs.
Gubick, and I slept through herclass.
I just slept right throughscience, was not a great high
school student.
And so starting with a simplequestion, as I always like to
do, when I hear the phrase cleanenergy, what is that actually
referring to?
What is clean energy?
Sam (04:40):
Yeah, well, and and immediately I'm gonna dodge your
question because there'sthere's no standard answer to
that question.
Uh, in fact, there's not evenreally like a standard answer to
what is renewable energy.
And depending on how you defineit, um, you get public policy
outcomes that are different.
And a perfect example of thisright here in New Hampshire, um,
we are one of many states thathas something called a renewable
(05:02):
portfolio standard.
It was passed under GovernorJohn Lynch.
Uh, and the the motto, the sortof slogan for that standard
when it passed was 25 by 25, 25%renewable energy by 2025.
And uh, but when they made thatdefinition, they didn't include
certain things.
For instance, um, New Englandgets a whole bunch of
(05:24):
hydropower, which meets almostevery definition of renewable
energy from Canada.
And that was not included inthe in the definition of what
would count as renewable underour statute.
And there's lots and lots ofreasons for that.
And essentially, you know,those the it's a subsidy, the
renewable portfolio standard isa subsidy trying to encourage
more local, new renewablegeneration.
(05:46):
And the renewable portfoliostandard said, well, like
Canadian hydro is a matureindustry.
It's not new, it doesn't needhelp getting built.
And so we're not gonna defineit as renewable in our state
statute.
But to give a less evasiveanswer, I think most folks who
say clean energy are referringto any source of electrical
(06:08):
generation that doesn't emitcarbon dioxide.
So that would also includenuclear, which is where things
get really controversial.
Liz (06:17):
Yeah, that is a little controversial.
Sam (06:22):
That's not what we're up to.
We're mostly about encouragingrenewable generation, wind,
solar, hydro, batteries, uh,electric vehicles, the stuff
that the stuff that you probablyassociate with clean energy.
Liz (06:35):
Clean energy versus dirty and messy?
What's the what's the oppositeof it?
But like what are they?
Fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels, yeah.
Yeah.
Sam (06:45):
And that sort of gets at what we're trying to do, which
is that we're trying to reducecarbon emissions so that, you
know, the oceans don't rise andwe don't boil in our homes, and
you know, we don't see waves andwaves of climate refugees
coming to places like NewEngland, which are actually well
poised to uh to adapt to awarming climate.
And when you say dirty energy,um, as you had said before,
(07:08):
there's all of these otherbenefits that one doesn't have
to just care about climatechange.
Uh air pollution is one of thenumber one killers of human
beings around the globe.
Uh, so we'll have longerlifespans.
And as I like to argue, thesetechnologies are just also
pretty awesome.
And so we'll have better livestoo.
So uh, you know, that's the allthe things that fit under our
(07:30):
ages.
Liz (07:31):
So you're the executive director of Clean Energy New
Hampshire.
You work with a ton ofdifferent groups and
individuals, um, all sorts of uhactual companies, but
advocates.
And maybe you can talk a littlebit about what does Clean
Energy New Hampshire do?
Sam (07:46):
I came to Clean Energy New Hampshire uh because I knew the
two previous executivedirectors, Kate Epson and
Madeline Minaud.
And when I was a journalistprior to taking this job, they
were the people who I would callin New Hampshire energy
policies and programs and andyou know what was happening in
New Hampshire, and also wouldnot lie to me as a reporter.
Liz (08:07):
Check and you know things and you don't lie, like you're
superstar individuals.
Sam (08:12):
And and and obviously both have an agenda, right?
It says it says it on the tin,right?
Trying to do clean energystuff.
Yeah.
But we're a we're a nonprofit501c3 that's just trying to
advance clean energytechnologies in the granite
state.
So we're we're laser focused onNew Hampshire policies and New
Hampshire programs uh and NewHampshire communities.
Uh so much so that occasionallyuh people will try to draw us
(08:34):
into ISO New England.
Uh so ISO New England is theentity that when you flick the
switch, uh, they're sort of theair traffic controller of the
grid and they ensure that theelectricity turns on.
They're they do thereliability, they decide which
power plants turn on to meet ourdemand, um, they run the
wholesale markets, uh, and theymatter a lot to where our
electricity comes from.
But whenever I'm tried,whenever people try to draw me
(08:56):
into that world, I say, no,that's in Massachusetts.
I don't go there.
Liz (09:01):
That's it, big X.
Sam (09:02):
Yeah, that's right.
And so what we do is we focuson New Hampshire policy.
We go to the State House, wetalk to lawmakers, we engage in
regulatory dockets at the PublicUtilities Commission, which is,
you know, we make the laws atthe State House.
They're interpreted by thisquasi-judicial body called the
Public Utilities Commission.
Uh, and then uh with theDepartment of Energy, which
writes a lot of rules, and theDepartment of Environmental
(09:24):
Services, which permitsprojects.
Um, but then we have thisgrowing arm of what we do, which
is we advise local communitieson how to do clean energy in
their towns.
So, how to put like solar onthe library and how to swap out
your light bulbs in your schoolfor LEDs, and really like any
project that that will save youmoney on your municipal energy
(09:44):
bill and therefore help you saveyour local property taxes.
And so we have a team of sevenstaff called the Energy Circuit
Riders that do that with mostlymunicipalities and small
businesses all over the granitestate.
Liz (09:54):
You said solar panels on the library, and it feels a
little close to home in ourtown, where I think we just had
a big library upgrade, and thenafter the fact they were like,
we can't put the solar panelson.
And we're like, what?
Anyway, it's a little, a littletouchy subject.
Sam (10:10):
Well, Exeter has a very high-flying uh local energy
committee that has done lots ofgreat stuff, including a what, a
two megawatt landfill solarproject that is the first one in
the state that is actuallyowned by the town, which is
great because it means the townrealizes most of the financial
benefit.
Liz (10:29):
Yep.
Sam (10:29):
So every everybody misses once in a while, but uh but
exeter's doing a lot of greatthings.
Liz (10:35):
That's good.
I can send that to uh my wifewho serves on the select board.
Don't worry, you're doing agreat job over there.
It's perfect.
You know, this is much largerthan one little community,
obviously.
So the podcast is New Hampshirehas issues.
You focus your work in NewHampshire.
So what issues are we facingwhen it comes to clean energy?
(10:56):
Like what are the things thatyou're advocating for?
Sam (10:59):
Yeah, there's a lot of ways that one could answer that
question.
Yeah.
I think it's hard to ignore thefact that the federal
government is currently reallywaging an all-out war on wind
and solar specifically.
The national GOP has gone frombeing the all of the above party
to the some of the aboveparties, some of these things
that we like.
And for some reason they havefixated on wind and solar as the
(11:23):
as the technologies thatthey're trying to stamp out,
which is unfortunate becausewind and solar actually are the
cheapest thing that you canbuild today.
It's very high upfront cost,but there's zero fuel costs.
And when you when you averageit out over the lifespan of the
technology, which can be 25, 30,40 years, uh, it's the cheapest
thing you can build today.
(11:44):
And so there's a lot of cuttingoff our nose to spider face
that's happening at the federallevel.
Um, we have found that thatlevel of polarization hasn't
fully trickled down to NewHampshire yet and actually have
a lot of uh conservativesupporters.
Liz (11:58):
Nice.
Sam (11:58):
Um, you know, New England historically has the joke, the
energy joke, is that we're theend of the pipeline, right?
There's we do not have fossilfuels, we don't have coal,
there's no natural gas, there'sno oil here.
Right.
Everything has to be shipped infrom away.
That's why our electricity hasbeen expensive since forever.
Um, we don't even have a ton ofhydropower.
(12:18):
Uh, so uh so anything that wecan do to reduce the amount of
fuels that we're bringing infrom elsewhere is going to save
us money in the long run.
Um, so so that has been theargument that we have found is
is the winning one.
And we have found that there'sa lot more support here locally
for that energy independence uhthat that we think that we that
(12:40):
our technologies provide.
So locally, what we focus onreally are the smaller projects,
because that's the easiestthing to do in in a place like
New England.
Yeah.
Um Barack Obama's energysecretary was a guy named Ernie
Moniz, who encouraged you toGoogle and his hair in
particular.
Liz (12:59):
Oh, okay, yeah.
Sam (13:01):
Sort of like Benjamin Franklin uh is kind of the the
look.
And Ernie Moniz, when there wasa panel and they asked him
which will be the hardest partof the country to decarbonize,
and he said, New England.
And people said, my, you know,look at all these, you know,
these blue states, theseaggressive goals.
And he said, New England is theland of no.
Hard to build things here.
(13:22):
We're the most population-densepart of the country, um, with
maybe like the exclusion of likethe New York, Connecticut zone.
Yeah.
Um, and it means it's just, youknow, there's not a lot of
space to do really big things.
So we focus on smallerprojects.
And when I say smaller, the thecutoff, uh, that's it's kind of
arbitrary, but it's it's uhestablished by the by the FERC,
(13:43):
the Federal Energy RegulatoryCommission, uh, between
electricity that has that thatmight cross state boundaries
that will impact thetransmission system and might
cross state boundaries andtherefore be interstate commerce
is about five megawatts.
And so for many, many, many,many years, we've been fighting
about trying to make it easierto build things up to five
megawatts in size, becausethat's kind of this sweet spot
(14:07):
of big enough that it's acommunity-scale project and can
power lots and lots and lots ofhomes.
You don't have to have, youknow, solar on your rooftop to
benefit from it.
Liz (14:14):
Right.
Sam (14:15):
Um, but small enough that you don't suddenly trigger all
sorts of federal permitting uhand it's all state
jurisdictional.
So that's that's really oursweet spot.
Liz (14:24):
What is five megawatts?
What does that really mean?
Sam (14:30):
What is a megawatt?
Liz (14:31):
What is uh what is a watt and what's a megawatt?
Yes.
Sam (14:35):
So uh you've got a watch, which you know, if you screw in
a light bulb, 100 watt lightbulbs are what we used to have.
All the LEDs are now like 10watt light bulbs.
Yep.
You know, a thousand of thoseis a kilowatt.
Um, a nice round number toremember is that your average
New Hampshire home on on averagethroughout throughout the the
year is usually about onekilowatt or 1.25 kilowatts of
(14:56):
demand.
Um, so that's like your averagehome pulls about a kilowatt.
And then a megawatt is athousand kilowatts.
So we're talking about like athousand-ish homes worth of
power.
Um that's all, those are allreally round ballpark numbers.
Another way to visualize it isthat a five kilowatt solar array
is about the average that you'dsee on a roof.
(15:17):
So you when you drive by,you'll see about five kilowatt
bunch rooftop array, that's fivekilowatts.
Um one megawatt array is aboutfive acres.
Uh so when we're talking Whatis an acre?
No, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
It's the amount of time ittakes a mule to make it.
Liz (15:38):
What is a mule?
Sam (15:39):
Exactly.
Liz (15:40):
How do you get one?
Yes, right, right, right.
Sam (15:43):
So five acres, yeah.
When we're talking megawatts,you're starting to talk about
substantial land use.
But, you know, for instance,here in Concord, we're about to,
and and in Exeter, we justmentioned the landfill.
Yeah.
Uh Concord is about to do afive megawatt array on our
capped landfill, which is like a25-ish acre project.
But there's lots of like little25-acre parcels of land tucked
(16:05):
in throughout New Hampshire thatare not really suitable for
other kinds of development thatwe can use to build these
community scale uh solarprojects, um, which we think is
like the immediate term thing wecan do right now.
Like there's lots of technologythat might come down the line
in the future.
When it comes to like what canwe do right now?
It's wind and solar andbatteries.
That's like the only stuffthat's getting built.
(16:25):
If you were to try to build anatural gas power plant
tomorrow, which I I can see inyour eyes, you're hoping maybe
we'll it's on my to-do list.
And you were to like go to GEand be like, give me a turbine,
it would take them seven yearsbefore they could even get it to
you.
Whoa.
Electricity demand is growing,and the stuff we can build now,
in New Hampshire in particular,is like solar and batteries, and
(16:46):
that's the only thing that'sgonna meet that demand.
And if we don't build thatstuff, prices are just gonna go
up.
Liz (16:50):
I was at a friend's house recently, he works in the solar
world and mentioned that thefederal budget bill that has
been passed impacts solar.
He explained it to me.
I understood about 12% of whatwas happening.
So I'm hoping you can fill inthe gap.
Sam (17:10):
Yeah.
So if you want to do rooftopsolar, the time to make that
decision is right now.
There's a 30% federal taxcredit that was included in the
what was called the InflationReduction Act, which all of
these bills have misleadingnames, right?
Uh unlike the OBBVAA, the theone big bad bill, uh, the
(17:30):
Inflation Reduction Act actuallywas fully paid for, which is
how they argued and how JoeManchin argued this will reduce
inflation at the time.
But the Inflation Reduction Actincluded mostly unprecedented
tax credits for clean energytechnologies, not just wind and
solar, but wind, solar,batteries, geothermal, you know,
nuclear, like the whole gamutof of anything that does not
(17:52):
produce carbon dioxide wassubsidized under that bill.
The OBBBBA, O B B B B B B A, uhspecifically reeled back the
tax credits just for wind andsolar.
Batteries actually continue tohave subsidies for another, you
know, for quite a while.
Um, it's really just wind andsolar that were specifically
(18:12):
targeted.
Rooftop residential solar,those tax credits go away the
end of this year.
Larger scale commercial solar,the types of the types of
projects like what Exeter justput on their landfill and what
Concord is putting on theirs,have basically a two-year runway
where they're still eligiblefor the tax credits.
So unfortunately, what thatmeans is there's going to be a
(18:33):
rush to the doors whereeverybody who's been thinking
about solar is like, now I gotto do it right now.
And I can tell you I've hadlike dozens of those
conversations with friendos whoare like, hey, Sam, I was
thinking about it.
And it's just like, you know,everyone's trying to get their
array installed now, whichunfortunately I think will mean
that there's going to be a bitof a uh like supply crunch where
there's not enough installersin the state to get to all those
(18:55):
jobs and people are gonna getbooked out.
I think that some of thoseprices will be higher than they
should have been otherwisebecause people because
installers will be able tocharge a premium if if it means,
you know, they'll still be ableto fill their book of work,
which is an unfortunate outcomethat is sort of like a needless
own goal by getting the rug outso quickly.
For the commercial projects,there's a similar thing going on
(19:19):
where a lot of them have beenwaiting to get what are called
interconnection studies from theutilities.
You know, when you when you putin one of these big projects,
you have to make sure thatyou're not gonna like fry a
substation or melt any powerlines, which is perfectly
reasonable.
Unfortunately, the utilities,Eversource in particular, has
been taking a really long timeto do those studies.
There have been there projectsthat have been waiting two years
(19:42):
just for the privilege ofknowing how much they're gonna
have to pay to get connected tothe grid.
Liz (19:46):
Whoa.
Sam (19:47):
And so now there's a big, hey, hurry up, finish these
studies so that we can see if wecan commence construction.
And so there'll be a similarrush to the doors that'll come,
you know, next year essentiallyfor the big commercial solar
projects.
Liz (20:01):
I fear asking this question out loud, but why is it?
Why did this happen?
Why are we uh you knowtargeting solar and wind?
Sam (20:18):
Politics has become very tribal in a way that is is
unfortunate and nonsensical.
In this instance, the UnitedStates is one of the largest
producers of fossil fuels in theworld at this point, because of
because of the quote unquotefracking revolution.
Right.
Uh, and the fact that we havevery unique geology.
I mean, the the geology thatthe United States has doesn't
(20:41):
exist in other places in theworld.
Like it's not actually thateasy to like frack other rocks
in other places.
We have we have weird geologydown in Texas in particular and
in and in Pennsylvania.
Liz (20:50):
Yeah.
Sam (20:51):
It has made us a petrostate.
And the fact that wind andsolar at utility scale are now
the cheapest thing that you canbuild is a threat to those
industries.
And so I think we're seeing abit of a like thermostatic
response where the lastadministration said, hey, let's
go.
You know, we have a wholeclimate movement that was trying
to that was trying to really uhdial up the urgency going into
(21:14):
the 2020 election.
You know, the sunrise movement.
Um, I don't know if this iscommon knowledge, but uh, in my
world, it was a big deal.
But you know, the sunrisemovement was this uh group of
young people who were sort ofdemanding climate justice.
They would go to Nancy Pelosi'soffice and asking.
Oh, yeah, I remember that'sgonna do, and she gave a
slightly dismissive answer.
And so they pulled theDemocratic Party left.
(21:34):
Uh, and that is how theInflation Reduction Act got
passed.
And now I think the fossil fuelindustry sees it as an
existential threat.
And so says, not only do wehave to get rid of the
subsidies, but we have toactually try to stomp this
industry out of existence orelse we're in trouble.
And and the thing that I thinkis crazy about that is that the
rest of the world is now at thispoint racing towards these
(21:56):
technologies at unprecedentedspeeds that I think are really
shocking to people who aren'tpaying attention to it.
I mean, there's so manycountries now that are
installing solar and areadopting electric vehicles there
that are gonna leapfrog theUnited States.
And these are not richcountries.
You know, um, Pakistan hasjoined the ranks of countries
that are getting 25% of theirenergy from solar.
(22:18):
Um, Ethiopia has bannedinternal the import of internal
combustion vehicles.
And and so we're gonna wind upfalling behind the rest of the
world because just because we'retrying to stomp out these
industries doesn't mean the restof the world doesn't want cheap
energy.
Liz (22:32):
Yeah, it's really interesting to think about how
our country handled like thespace race or like wanting to be
number one and go towards that.
And like we are going to be thebest in the world in this
thing, and we are, you know,neck and neck.
And it seems like we're takingour fossil fuel toys and going
home and saying, like, we're notgoing to work on this right
(22:54):
now.
And why is that not a threat toour country of like our pride
of like we are number one?
Sam (22:59):
I think that in the grand arc of history, this will be a
historical anomaly because theonly thing that's going to
happen as a result of thisadministration's policies is
that people's electric bills aregoing to get more expensive.
And we're seeing that already.
And yeah, we are.
And you know, you the thereality distortion field can
only go on for so long.
People are gonna pay theirelectric bills, they're gonna
(23:20):
get mad, and it's gonna bereally easy to say your bills
are going up because theseprograms were eliminated, um,
which which and they keepgetting canceled every day.
You know, last Friday, uh, thestate's grant, Solar for All
grant, was canceled.
$43 million that the state ofNew Hampshire received that was
going to go to low-income solaron multifamily housing
(23:41):
complexes, uh, and and also inresident-owned communities,
which are manufactured housingcommunities where people have a
lot their their land for theirtrailers.
And it's probably an illegaldecision, uh and and it's just
gonna make affordable housingless affordable.
So it's it's all nonsensical tome.
Liz (23:59):
You know, this issue of clean energy, but just how we
pay for turning on our devicesand and living our everyday
lives, the intersection withthings like the housing crisis
and housing affordability.
And I think about folks who arerenting, and sometimes when
you're renting, like yourutilities are included in that.
(24:21):
And so if we have propertytaxes going up and we have
utilities going up, like folks,their rent is gonna Sam.
How are people gonna live inNew Hampshire?
Tell me.
If they're not ultra wealthy,what are they gonna do?
Sam (24:34):
It's yeah, I mean, you've you've hit on it.
It's I mean, it's crazy.
It's there's a couple things tosay here.
One, if you're a renter,there's there's what's called a
split incentive.
Typically, many, many, manylandlords, I think the majority
of renters in in in NewHampshire pay their own
utilities, which means thelandlord has zero incentive to
invest in any of thesetechnologies.
(24:56):
And the renter, because theydon't own the building, cannot.
So you can't make your homemore efficient home.
So you have no control overyour bills.
Liz (25:06):
What an excellent point.
Wow.
Wow.
Sam (25:09):
And and so so I actually prefer it when landlords bundle
the utilities in with the rentbecause it means they have an
incentive to invest inefficiency.
And we're starting to see that,particularly with the
multifamily developers.
I've I've had we havedevelopers that are members of
Clean Energy New Hampshirebecause they want to learn how
to do these things better.
And they've realized that,like, hey, we can roll the
(25:31):
utilities in with the rent,invest in a really efficient
building.
So the utilities are quite low.
We can charge market raterents, and we'll actually make
more profit as a landlord for amore comfortable, healthier
building that these people willlive in.
And so that's a developmentthat I'm really supportive of.
And uh, and actually, there's alot of reasons to think that
(25:51):
that for multifamily, that'sgonna keep getting better
because the trends are moving inthat direction.
Um, single family is is is areal problem.
And and it's not just if you'rea renter, it's also if you're a
home buyer.
There's a problem with theincentives between home builders
and home buyers, right?
A home builder who's gonnabuild you a new house wants to
(26:14):
sell you, wants to sell you thehouse.
And so the sticker price is themost important thing.
But you, as the buyer, you'regonna live in that house for on
average eight years, but manypeople much longer.
And the operating costs of thehouse are what you pay.
And so the home builder has anincentive to build a cheaper,
lower performing house.
Whereas you, if you were aneducated home buyer, you would
(26:36):
want them to build a moreefficient house with lower
utility bills because that'llpay for itself in a few short
years.
And so there's a lot of there'sa lot of problems that we could
fix with public policy if therewas a will to do so.
Liz (26:48):
We touched a little bit at the federal level.
We have an administration thatis pretty openly hostile to
solar and wind.
Like, I I don't think they'vemade any secret about wanting to
squash that as much aspossible.
But what is it like in NewHampshire?
And I think about like theissue that I work in, I work in
reproductive rights.
(27:08):
Like historically, we had a lotof bipartisan efforts and we've
worked, you know, I work withRepublicans still, but it's it's
changed over the last fewyears.
Like it has shifted, and Ithink part of it is like trying
to blend in with the cool kidsfrom the federal level.
But what is it like in yourwork?
What is the will of thelawmakers in Concord?
Sam (27:29):
I think it all comes down to affordability.
I think that's where the thepolitical will comes from.
Yeah.
Um, and so we find that we canget bipartisan support if we're
pushing for policies that willreduce costs.
Um, there can be a great dealof debate as to whether a given
policy will or won't reducecosts.
So a great example is we haveour ratepayer funded energy
(27:52):
efficiency programs, which arealso known as New Hampshire
Saves.
So if anybody who's listening,quick plug for you, uh, whether
you're a renter or a home buyer,nhsaves.com, you're paying for
these programs already throughyour electric bill or your
natural gas bill.
They are subsidies for you togo do energy efficiency, even as
a renter.
They have little kits thatthey'll send you to like little
(28:13):
things here or there in yourapartment that don't require you
to own the building.
Very cool.
And if you're a homeowner, thisis just like picking up a
dollar bill off the sidewalk.
Like you, you should bechecking out to see if you're
eligible to get your housetightened up.
So those programs cost moneyand we pay for them uh with a
little time, time, timesurcharge on our electric bill.
It's about $80 million a year.
And for a long time, um,businesses in particular were
(28:37):
fixated on that tiny, tinylittle surcharge.
And they're saying you got toget rid of that surcharge
because that's making ourelectricity more expensive.
We've now come to a nice placewhere I think there's a fairly
strong bipartisan consensus.
The New Hampshire Savesprograms are great because there
are enough businesses that haveused them and they're like,
wow, that really helped usreduce our bills.
Uh, that in 2021 there was aneffort to dismantle these
programs.
(28:57):
We sued the state and made alot of noise with a not a very
great legal argument that welost in court, but uh we got a
lot of attention and got a billpassed that overturned a
regulatory decision on acompletely unanimous bipartisan
basis.
Every Republican and everyDemocrat voted to to save New
Hampshire Says.
Wow.
That's not nothing.
That's a that's a huge deal.
(29:19):
Yeah.
And and sort of flew under theradar.
I mean, and this is the bigproblem, right, in energy world
is that all of this flies underthe radar.
It is a low salience issue.
But nobody, everyone just wantsto know like I flick the
lights, the lights turn on, yesor no.
It's magic, is what I thoughtbefore we started talking.
Liz (29:35):
It's just a magician was like, and electricity is here
now.
Yeah.
Sam (29:39):
Yeah.
And so as long as your bill isnot going up crazy fast, yeah,
most people are paying verylittle attention to this issue.
I think the it all comes downto the pocketbook and making
this a kitchen table issue.
And fortunately, thetechnologies that we're
advocating for are, in myopinion, the only way out of
this mess.
Liz (29:56):
Aaron Powell And they're they're here.
Like the technology exists.
We can't Ready to go.
Yeah.
Sam (30:02):
You know, I got I got clean energy pilled early because I
was a journalist studying stuff.
Liz (30:08):
Right.
Sam (30:08):
And we got really lucky in our life.
You know, we became homeownersright at the end of the housing
crash.
And so it was before theaffordability of homes uh became
really untenable and madeinvestments in an energy
efficient home.
And that became genuinely likethe bedrock of our of our
family's economic well-being isthat our energy costs are so low
(30:31):
that it's it's like a hedgeagainst all this uncertainty
that that we've been livingthrough.
And then we kept going, right?
Like I like put my own rooftopsolar up there.
I was up there on the roof witha buddy, plugging up the
panels.
Oh my god.
I and then we which isn't thathard, by the way.
Like if anybody's handy, solarinstallation is not that hard.
There are plumbing's worse.
Liz (30:51):
Uh let's rank them.
Solar.
That sounds too dangerous.
It's fine.
It's fine.
I don't do wiring, right?
Yeah, right.
Sam (31:00):
Wiring up a rooftop array, you're literally just plugging
them into each other.
And then and like all thewiring is wire management, which
is just like zip tying them tothings.
Liz (31:09):
Sam, are you trying to persuade me to put up my old
solar panels?
Because I love a challenge.
I was just saying I need a newchallenge in my life.
And is it me up on a roof?
Maybe.
Maybe it is.
Sam (31:19):
But then but then we said, you know, we kept going, right?
So in in 2021, we bought ourfirst electric vehicle.
It was a used Nissan Leaf,which was like the first
generation.
And my joke is it's the car ona leash, like it doesn't go very
far, but it's a great just likepicking up daycare, and it was
so cheap.
Like used, used Nissan leaves.
You can get them for like fivegrand at this point for a car
(31:40):
that's got less than 100,000miles on it.
Wow.
And then they drive at like theequivalent of like a buck 25 a
gallon gas.
And and so for me, we're inthis like bizarro world where
I've been living this life wherepursuing these technologies has
saved me tons of money and hasbeen like the bedrock of our
financial well-being.
(32:00):
And then we have like thenational political rhetoric
around it is about how this isall too expensive, um, which
then I think saps the will forany action for a lot of people
in their own personal lives.
Uh, and and also like saps anydesire to do anything from a
systemic level for manypoliticians.
And I find myself sort ofscreaming into the void that
(32:22):
like it's all cheap.
And like nobody believes me.
Liz (32:26):
I was thinking about like, I'm scared of change.
Like that is a big part of justmy personality.
I don't like change.
I want it to be exactly thesame every single time.
So, you know, my wife and Ihave said, like, eventually
we're going to need a new car.
Like that is going to need tohappen.
So we've sort of said, like, dowe dare go into the electric
vehicle world?
(32:46):
Like, is this a thing we aregoing to do?
And so, like, for folks like mewho are scared of change, of
things that are different thanwhat we have been accustomed to.
And I feel like New Hampshire,we love doing things the same
way we've been doing it.
But like, what are the piecesthat folks should know about,
you know, if you're thinkingabout moving from your
gas-powered car to an electricvehicle, if you're thinking
(33:09):
about solar, like how how can Ijump over these hurdles of fear
of change?
What are what are your ways tocompel me to take the leap?
Sam (33:16):
I firmly believe that the inflection point will be when
more and more and more peopleknow somebody who's done it.
Right.
And and so, like, imagine ifyou could borrow a friend's, if
you're like, hey, I'm thinkingabout doing an electric car.
Would you swap your car with mefor like three days?
So I could just try it.
(33:36):
Uh, and like, and like help mefigure out how I would charge it
and where I would charge it.
Uh, and that friend walks youthrough it.
And I think that in partbecause like I'm that guy for
all my friends.
Like, we had sold so many solarrings and electric cars.
Uh, like I should do it oncommission.
And there's there's greatstudies about rooftop solar
adoption that show that it hasthis sort of like viral quality
(33:57):
where like one person does it ina neighborhood and then all of
a sudden all the neighbors startdoing it.
And so I I think that's theinflection point that will
really drive it.
I mean, there's a fascinatingeffect in I I mean, Australia is
weird in a bunch of differentways.
Like, in one way, it's likelots of venomous animals that
will kill you if they touch it.
But another way is that theyhave they have like the highest
rooftop solar adoption rates inin the world.
(34:19):
Um, tons of solar in Australia,and it's mostly super small
scale stuff on people's roofs.
And it's totally, it's totallyjust this flywheel effect where
it's sunny there, it peoplestarted installing it, more
people started installing it,that made the price get lower
and lower, that meant that morepeople were seeing it.
And it led to the point whererooftop solar in Australia, so
one of the big, it's like maybean aside, one of the big divides
(34:40):
is that rooftop solar can belike three to four times more
expensive than utility scalesolar, the really, really big
arrays.
Um, in Australia, rooftop solaris the same price because
they've just been they've justlike figured out how to do it
because they've installed somuch of it.
Uh oh, but do we can we go backto the political question?
Liz (34:59):
Of course.
Go wherever you'd like.
Take the journey.
Where do you want to go?
Let's go there.
Sam (35:05):
Let's do it.
Um, so politically in NewHampshire, what we find is that
we have strong bipartisansupport in the Senate.
And then in the House, we have10 knuckleheads on one
committee.
Liz (35:18):
Oh my god, can I guess who they are?
Never no, I won't I won't namethem.
I never name them.
I never name the Yahoos.
I call them Yahoos personally.
Sam (35:25):
But then I think I think actually like most of the
Republican House caucus reallyjust like doesn't care about our
issue, and they look to thecommittee to tell them what to
do.
Liz (35:34):
Yeah.
Sam (35:34):
And I know this because I because I I talk to folks
everywhere, everywhere I go, andmostly what I find is no
opinion.
And they haven't really thoughtabout these issues, and and
they really are just looking tothese 10 knuckleheads on a
certain committee to tell themwhat to do.
And and so I think that there'sa point where that dam will
break and the politicization ofthese technologies will will
(35:55):
start to fade, maybe after thissort of like thermostatic
reaction that we're getting inthe Trump administration goes
away.
Um and I I think that that alot of this will start to calm
down as as people's bills getmore expensive.
Liz (36:09):
And it seems like they will.
I I've seen some folks sort ofposting about their, you know,
electric bills saying like thisis a big increase that's already
happening.
Sam (36:18):
Right.
Liz (36:18):
In the video that you sent in your talk, you mentioned that
Governor Ayatt, when she was aUS senator, she was behaving in
a way of like caring about thisissue or you know, doing the
right thing.
Sam (36:31):
Yeah.
Back in the days uh of the theearly days of the Obama
presidency, there was thisquestion of like, you know,
health care or climate.
And they said we're gonna dohealthcare first.
And so that was the ACA.
Liz (36:44):
Yep.
Sam (36:44):
And then the next thing they tried to do was pass a cap
and trade bill, and it went downin flames.
Liz (36:48):
Yeah.
Sam (36:48):
Uh and then the Tea Party happened, and then that was the
last time that we got seriousabout trying to address this
through uh through bipartisanlegislation.
Liz (36:57):
Right.
Sam (36:58):
Um after the failure of uh uh the Waxman-Markey bill, which
was the cap and trade bill, uh,they the Obama administration
said, fine, we'll do it throughregulations.
Um, there had been a SupremeCourt case, Massachusetts versus
EPA, which had said carbondioxide is a pollutant, you can
regulate it with the Clean AirAct.
Uh and so they they spent manyyears formulating a very
(37:21):
reasonable approach to trying toregulate carbon dioxide as a
pollutant, and it was called theClean Power Plan.
Kelly Ayott was, when she was aU.S.
senator, the sole Republicanwho broke with her party and
said, This Clean Power Plan is agood idea.
Wow.
All of the other Republicanssaid, This is communism and it's
gonna result in the death, thedownfall of human civilization.
(37:41):
They escalated it a little bit.
And the funny thing to me aboutall this is like, is like I was
a reporter this time followingthis, and I like read the plan,
and like and then like eachstate had to like say how they
were gonna comply with the plan.
I read the New Hampshire planand I was like, they're really
just saying like we're gonnacontinue on current market
trends.
And sure enough, all of thetargets that were in the clean
(38:02):
power plan, we hit, even thoughthe clean power plan was never
implemented.
And so it's one of those thingslike the sky is falling like
cats and dogs living together.
And we hit those targets evenwithout the regulation ever
being put in place.
Wow.
But Kelly Ayatt was the onlyone who endorsed it.
And then, and then subsequentlyto having left uh the the US
Senate, went on to serve on anumber of boards of clean
(38:25):
energy-friendly-ish companiesand organizations.
Um, and then on the campaigntrail, has has several times
said, I'm gonna have a differentapproach to this issue than
Sununu.
And so we've just had a verylong and bruising budget fight.
Don't we know it?
My goodness.
And it has been our perceptionthat the Aude administration
hasn't really turned to thisquestion yet.
(38:46):
And I think we're gonna seeover the course of the next
session um how it is that theymight want to do that.
Liz (38:53):
And that's something that is possible outside of like a
budget financial piece.
Like we could just reach to theapple tree and pull down a good
thing we could do.
Sam (39:02):
Yeah.
So I mean, one of the coreissues that we have we have at
been working on forever is ournet metering policy.
Our net metering is the policythat's the bedrock of the solar
industry.
Liz (39:11):
Sam, can you explain what the hell is net metering?
What like what is it?
This phrase.
It's so embarrassing for me toask, but also it's my podcast.
I can be as embarrassed ofmyself as I want.
What the h is net metering?
What does it mean?
Sam (39:27):
And and and frankly, uh, the fact that that's the bedrock
of the soul industry is likeembarrassing.
It's like it's like if I it'slike a 1990s policy that I wish
we could move beyond, but butinstead of having rational adult
conversations, we're all justlike swirling around the same
things forever because energyhas become politic politicized.
Uh yeah, but net metering.
(39:49):
Net metering.
Uh, one of the stories I got todo at NHBR, I met the person
who installed the first netmetered solar ray in the
country.
Oh my god.
Wow.
Stephen Strong.
He was an architect.
Excellent name, superhero name,too.
Still around.
Uh uh, he had been like, he hadworked on the Trans-Alaska
pipeline and was like, this oilstuff seems like a bad idea.
Uh, and so he wanted to work onrenewable energy.
(40:11):
And it was like the very, veryearly days uh where it was like
solar was so expensive that theonly thing you would do is like
put it on a satellite in spacebecause that's the only thing
that could power a satellite inspace, which was which is where
solar started.
And he got really excited aboutit and wanted to wanted to
figure out ways to uh try to domore solar.
He put the first grid tide, sowhich is to say, if when the
solar panels were makingelectrons, they went back out
(40:34):
onto the electric grid.
Um, the first grid tide solararray in the United States on a
public housing complex inQuincy, Massachusetts, designed.
And uh the policy of netmetering came about because he
basically was like, okay, thesolar panels are on the roof and
they generate in DC and thegrid is AC.
But I think if I put thisinverter thing here, that like
(40:55):
it'll just like, you know, themeter, when you're buying
electricity, the meter is just awheel on a stick and it spins
this direction.
You know, you start to like,and they they come to read what
the number is.
But I think if the electricityis going the other way, the
meter, this wheel on a stickwill just spin the other
direction.
And that's net metering, right?
So so when you're buyingelectricity, the number on your
electric meter gets bigger.
(41:15):
And when you're sellingelectricity, it gets smaller,
and they come at the end of themonth and they read the net, the
net of imports and exports.
And that's why it's called netmetering.
Liz (41:24):
I I regret not trying to explain at first of what I
thought it was because it wasdefinitely not that.
It's not what it was.
Sam (41:32):
So net metering is a thing that we can do, right?
We can improve our net meteringprograms so that they are
encouraging the right kind ofsolar development in the right
places.
We could improve our efficiencyprograms so that maybe they're
doing efficiency in ways thatare more targeted to certain
communities, or maybe we careless about, you know, swapping
(41:54):
out an old inefficient gasboiler with a slightly more
efficient gas boiler.
Maybe we want to encourageelectrification of heat, you
know, the so we could change ourefficiency programs to uh to do
those types of things.
We could uh we could encouragemore publicly accessible EV
charging.
It's crazy to me that this isas controversial as it is
(42:16):
because uh having chargers onmain streets and in parking
garages does so many valuablethings for communities.
A people will pay for theelectricity, right?
Like it's we're not giving itaway for free.
Like you can give it away forfree if you want, but you like
you don't have to.
Uh, so they can pay forthemselves.
B there's not enough chargingin New Hampshire, and we're a
(42:38):
tourism economy in the middle ofNew England, which is a really
blue part of the world, andthere's a lot of people with
electric vehicles in uh southernNew England, which is a place
that you need to visit NewHampshire.
And by the way, Quebec iselectrifying their
transportation fleet incrediblyquickly.
Yep.
And so it's like a real threatto the tourism industry that
(43:01):
that there's not enoughcharging.
But then the third thing isjust that a lot of the charging
that's the most affordable toinstall is the slower chargers,
what are called so level,there's one, two, and three.
One is like plug it into thatwall outlet, yeah, right there,
which is like an underrated, bythe way.
Level one charging, underrated.
Like average American drives 34miles a day.
(43:22):
You can just plug a car intothe wall and you'll get 40 miles
overnight.
So many people who are like, Icould never, it's like we have
two electric vehicles, one ofthem we just plug it into a
normal outlet, and it's fine.
Wow.
So, so PSA.
Yeah, you too can charge levelone.
Liz (43:39):
Uh this gets over my hurdle of being worried.
I can literally plug it into myown outlet that I have.
Okay, all right, all right,love that.
Sam (43:47):
Level two is like a dryer, a dryer outlet, like it's a 240
volt um, you know, 40 ampoutlet.
That's the stuff that mostlygets installed for public
chargers.
You know, that'll that'll fullycharge um, you know, my little
old 2013 leaf in like threehours.
It would fully charge like amodern EV with a really, really
(44:07):
long-range battery in like sixhours.
And that's the stuff that Ithink should be on downtowns and
in main streets.
Uh, and the reason is becauseyou've got someone who's
visiting your downtown.
You want them to hang out.
Yeah, you want them to get acoffee, you want them to go to
the park, you want them to go tothe museum.
You don't want a fast charger.
You don't want, you don't wantsome like, you know, million
(44:30):
dollar thing that uses the sameamount of electricity as like an
aluminum smelter.
Like you want a slow chargerbecause that's gonna be good for
your town's economy.
So um, the fact that it's beenso hard to get level two slow
chargers on main streets hasbeen a source of constant
frustration for me.
Yeah.
Um and and then the third thingthat this would do is it would
(44:53):
unlock EV ownership for folkswho don't have the ability to
install that level two chargerat their home.
Right.
So they they might be able tocharge level one, you know, for
their daily needs.
And if they start to get iftheir battery starts to get a
little low because they'redriving more than they expected,
then they could just godowntown and plug in at the
public charger.
Liz (45:12):
What could somebody who's listening do to help influence
that?
Sam (45:15):
We have got a program for you.
This is what what I refer to asthe energy circuit riders.
We launched an energy circuitrider program in 2019 in Coas
County after the Tillotson Fundbasically said, like, energy
efficiency pays for itself, youknow, it's the dollar on the
sidewalk.
Why are these towns not bet notbending over to pick up the
dollar?
And the answer was like, thesetowns have 600 people and one
(45:38):
part-time town administrator,and they cannot figure this
stuff out.
So we start in the NorthCountry, and they're basically
like a shared municipal staffperson.
And what what the way that welike for them to work is to go
to each town, help establish avolunteer local energy committee
that is sanctioned by theselect board that looks around
(45:59):
and says, what could we do tosave to save money or encourage
economic development?
And a lot of those early onwere like, let's do the LED
lights, let's let's do theweatherization of the library,
you know, solar panels on thetown hall.
And many of them are now tryingto figure out how to do EV
charging so that they can bringin more tourists and the
economic uh development thatwould be entailed by all those,
(46:21):
you know, high net worth EVowners strolling about sipping
lattes.
Liz (46:26):
Right.
Rolling into town and silently.
Yes, yes.
Sam (46:31):
So to get involved, uh many towns have local energy
committees.
So the circuit rider team umhave a database of of over a
hundred energy committees andand you know, hundreds of
contacts for in each of thosetowns that either your town
might have one already and youcan get involved, and it's all
volunteer work.
It's just like, hey, how do wedo the EV charger?
(46:52):
And and and we get traction inred towns, you know, down in
your neck of the wood.
Kensington just put a solararray on the roof of their town
hall.
Liz (46:59):
Oh, that's right.
I think I saw that.
Yeah, yeah.
Sam (47:01):
And so they came up with a number of measures, you know,
it's all black solar panels, sothey blend right in with the
shingles.
They put up these littlescreens on the sides so that you
can't can can't see under themand they're black screens.
So, and and they've said we'vehad a number of people drive by
and say, when are the solarpanels going up?
And it's like, guys, they're upthere already.
Liz (47:16):
That's that's really incredible.
Yeah.
Sam (47:18):
So and and I think we love working with municipal projects
for a couple of reasons.
One is that towns are gonnacontinue to be towns for a long
time, right?
Like you're gonna be own thesebuildings for long enough to
realize the payback.
Liz (47:33):
Yeah.
Sam (47:33):
Whereas homeowners, you know, I'm the average homeowner
owns their house for eightyears, which means some of the
more expensive uh retrofits youcan do, maybe, maybe you're not
sure you're gonna be there thatlong to get that um to get your
money back.
Um, towns always will.
Um, and then the other thingthat I really love, which is
that's you have thisdeliberative process by which
(47:55):
anybody who's engaged at thelocal level learns about the
beneficial economics of thesetechnologies.
And then and then in townmeeting, you know, sometimes
literally just literally go andvote and say, yes,
affirmatively, I agree that thiswill save us money.
Yeah.
And so then you've justeducated all those people too.
I find that many people areterrified to engage with the
(48:16):
subject of climate changebecause it feels so big, it
feels like something they cannothave any impact on.
And also it feels existential.
I'm here to say, as someonewho's like read the
International Panel for uh onclimate change, you know, the
IPCC scientific reports onclimate science, that it's not
as bad as you think.
(48:36):
Anyone who tells you like thehuman race is going to wink out
of existence because of climatechange hasn't read the science.
What they're doing is they'rethey're looking, you know, the
scientists come up with likehere's the worst case scenario,
here's the best case scenario,here's a bunch that are in
between.
If you just look at the worstcase scenario stuff, and there's
a lot of really bad uh thingsthat'll happen.
We're not on track for theworst case scenario.
(48:57):
We're deploying solar fasterthan any energy source in human
history on planet Earth, whichmeans that we have bent that
curve to bring back anexpression that maybe is
traumatic for people to hearagain.
Uh and and we're not on trackfor the worst case scenarios,
but not the worst.
So A, that's one thing, is thatI don't think, you know,
(49:20):
whenever I hear people say,like, oh, I didn't want to have
kids because of climate change,it's like, whoa, like you're
reading too many heads.
Liz (49:26):
It looks like there might be another layer to that, but
yes, totally.
Sam (49:31):
Okay, all right.
It feels like a thing I couldsay.
Yeah.
Liz (49:34):
It's like, oh, you're wow.
Sure.
So noble, right?
Sam (49:41):
So, you know, anyway, if anybody wants to have that talk
with me, I'm ready, I'm preparedto give that talk.
Liz (49:45):
If you're looking to have children, call say No, that's
not the way we say.
Sam (49:51):
Uh but you know, climate change is a big hard challenge,
and we do need systemic changeto to to solve it.
But also the I think uh what Iencounter is there's so much
skepticism about the solutionsthat frankly are like a lot of
fossil fuel talking points.
(50:11):
Like, I can't tell you how manytimes people have told me that,
like, oh, your electric vehicleis just running on coal.
And it's just like not true.
And and I think a lot of peoplethey're terrified by climate
change, they're paralyzed by thesize of the problem, and they
like to grab on to the talkingpoints about how the solutions
(50:33):
are bad because it makes themfeel like it was okay to have
not done anything.
And I'm just here to say thatlike it is a big problem.
It's quite tractable, though,and the solutions are ready and
they're rad and they're gonnamake your life better.
Liz (51:04):
I like change, change the words, change the theory.
Sam (51:07):
That's like that's like all good, I don't have to change.
Liz (51:09):
Right.
Like, there's all these stepsthat I'm worried about.
Yeah.
Liz (00:01):
Which gets us into the topic of climate change.
Sam (00:03):
Is this the perfect We have the benefit of recording on a
peak demand day?
So we're Oh my God.
Liz (00:08):
What does it mean?
I'm so excited to learn somethings.
I watched the video that yousent me.
I watched the talk, and it wasso helpful to like get sort of
anchored in this thing that Iknow literally nothing about.
Sam (00:20):
Well, I have to say that's a commitment because that's like
an hour of your life thatyou're I watched the whole
thing.
Liz (00:24):
Oh yeah.
I watched the whole thing andjotted down some thoughts.
Not things that I couldactually ask because I have to
like process for four weeks, butin four weeks I'm gonna have
incredible questions for you.
Welcome to New Hampshire HasIssues, the podcast that dares
(00:49):
to ask how much energy will Iuse learning about this topic?
Yeah, it's such like a dadjoke.
Like my father, if he were toever listen to this, he'd be
like, I could have done itbetter.
But still, like I've I've triedwith my with my tagline.
Sam (01:06):
Yeah.
Uh it's funny.
I I should, because I am a l Iam a listener, you know.
Oh my god.
But I didn't come prepared witha tagline at all.
Liz (01:14):
Uh I don't grade you on the homework.
Sam (01:16):
And I hope you won't grade me on mine either.
Liz (01:19):
You know, you can spitball it, what you think might be your
tagline.
Sam (01:22):
Uh welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues.
Is is it always the podcastthat dares to ask?
Liz (01:26):
The podcast that dares to ask.
Sam (01:28):
Okay.
The podcast that dares to ask,could we do it any worse than
we're doing Yes we can.
Liz (01:36):
That's perfect.
Sam (01:38):
I will say, like, I am frustrated daily in my job,
which many people are in NewHampshire.
Yeah.
But there's actually there'slots of places that are doing it
worse than New Hampshire.
So, you know.
Liz (01:47):
Want to name some?
Wanna tell us some of the onesthat are doing it way worse?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's oneMassachusetts.
We hate Massachusetts here.
Sam (01:55):
So I am prepared to list things that Massachusetts does
not is not doing right.
And in fact, I think there'sthere's a tendency amongst
climate advocates to say, like,why don't we just do what
Massachusetts is doing?
And and I'm ready to be like,well, here's a litany of things
that they do wrong.
And and there's a thing in inlike, you know, my space, which
(02:17):
is like clean energy and alsosort of like abundance-pilled
bros, uh, which is like we liketo point to Texas, which is
building clean energy fasterthan any state in the country.
Whoa.
Uh, and they're doing it justthrough markets, which uh our
Republican friends say is whatthey want to do.
So uh so there's there's plentyof there's plenty of laggards
(02:40):
that are both red states andblue states, and they each have
their own pathologies.
Liz (02:45):
My God.
Sam Evans Brown's top laggardsof clean energy.
Maybe it's a bonus episode.
I don't know.
We could just go into all ofthe folks who are doing it
worse.
Sam (02:54):
Well, so it's by it's kind of by we're immediately gonna go
wicked nerdy, right?
So it's by balancing authority.
Uh so it's really like theSoutheast part of the nation,
which have which they have likethe least liberalized
electricity markets.
Uh, and so it's all monopolyutilities, and monopolies do
what monopolies do, which is uh,you know, it sort of ignore
(03:18):
public input and do reallyexpensive things because that's
how they get paid more.
Liz (03:23):
My guest today, here we are.
So I'm Liz Canada, I'm yourhost, and my guest today is a
celebrity, and I am extremelyintimidated to have him on the
podcast, but I'm so thankfulthat he's here.
Sam Evans Brown, thank you forbeing here, Sam.
I'm so appreciative of yourtime.
Sam (03:38):
Uh thank you for having me.
Like I said, longtime listener,first-time caller.
Um, celebrity with like thesmallest possible C, the state
of New Hampshire, uh don't gotno celebrities, is what I would
say.
Liz (03:50):
Okay.
Well, I don't know that that'strue, but we don't have to
debate that.
Sam (03:54):
No Laura Kanoy.
I'll just say that.
Liz (03:58):
Shout out.
So uh I've confessed to you viaemail that I know nothing about
this topic of clean energy.
And I want to be really candidthat when I say I know nothing,
like I'm not being humble, andactually I have all these
amazing questions for you.
Like I know nothing.
And in high school, when Ishould have learned things about
(04:19):
energy, like I had a scienceteacher named Mrs.
Gubick, and I slept through herclass.
I just slept right throughscience, was not a great high
school student.
And so starting with a simplequestion, as I always like to
do, when I hear the phrase cleanenergy, what is that actually
referring to?
What is clean energy?
Sam (04:40):
Yeah, well, and and immediately I'm gonna dodge your
question because there'sthere's no standard answer to
that question.
Uh, in fact, there's not evenreally like a standard answer to
what is renewable energy.
And depending on how you defineit, um, you get public policy
outcomes that are different.
And a perfect example of thisright here in New Hampshire, um,
we are one of many states thathas something called a renewable
(05:02):
portfolio standard.
It was passed under GovernorJohn Lynch.
Uh, and the the motto, the sortof slogan for that standard
when it passed was 25 by 25, 25%renewable energy by 2025.
And uh, but when they made thatdefinition, they didn't include
certain things.
For instance, um, New Englandgets a whole bunch of
(05:24):
hydropower, which meets almostevery definition of renewable
energy from Canada.
And that was not included inthe in the definition of what
would count as renewable underour statute.
And there's lots and lots ofreasons for that.
And essentially, you know,those the it's a subsidy, the
renewable portfolio standard isa subsidy trying to encourage
more local, new renewablegeneration.
(05:46):
And the renewable portfoliostandard said, well, like
Canadian hydro is a matureindustry.
It's not new, it doesn't needhelp getting built.
And so we're not gonna defineit as renewable in our state
statute.
But to give a less evasiveanswer, I think most folks who
say clean energy are referringto any source of electrical
(06:08):
generation that doesn't emitcarbon dioxide.
So that would also includenuclear, which is where things
get really controversial.
Liz (06:17):
Yeah, that is a little controversial.
Sam (06:22):
That's not what we're up to.
We're mostly about encouragingrenewable generation, wind,
solar, hydro, batteries, uh,electric vehicles, the stuff
that the stuff that you probablyassociate with clean energy.
Liz (06:35):
Clean energy versus dirty and messy?
What's the what's the oppositeof it?
But like what are they?
Fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels, yeah.
Yeah.
Sam (06:45):
And that sort of gets at what we're trying to do, which
is that we're trying to reducecarbon emissions so that, you
know, the oceans don't rise andwe don't boil in our homes, and
you know, we don't see waves andwaves of climate refugees
coming to places like NewEngland, which are actually well
poised to uh to adapt to awarming climate.
And when you say dirty energy,um, as you had said before,
(07:08):
there's all of these otherbenefits that one doesn't have
to just care about climatechange.
Uh air pollution is one of thenumber one killers of human
beings around the globe.
Uh, so we'll have longerlifespans.
And as I like to argue, thesetechnologies are just also
pretty awesome.
And so we'll have better livestoo.
So uh, you know, that's the allthe things that fit under our
(07:30):
ages.
Liz (07:31):
So you're the executive director of Clean Energy New
Hampshire.
You work with a ton ofdifferent groups and
individuals, um, all sorts of uhactual companies, but
advocates.
And maybe you can talk a littlebit about what does Clean
Energy New Hampshire do?
Sam (07:46):
I came to Clean Energy New Hampshire uh because I knew the
two previous executivedirectors, Kate Epson and
Madeline Minaud.
And when I was a journalistprior to taking this job, they
were the people who I would callin New Hampshire energy
policies and programs and andyou know what was happening in
New Hampshire, and also wouldnot lie to me as a reporter.
Liz (08:07):
Check and you know things and you don't lie, like you're
superstar individuals.
Sam (08:12):
And and and obviously both have an agenda, right?
It says it says it on the tin,right?
Trying to do clean energystuff.
Yeah.
But we're a we're a nonprofit501c3 that's just trying to
advance clean energytechnologies in the granite
state.
So we're we're laser focused onNew Hampshire policies and New
Hampshire programs uh and NewHampshire communities.
Uh so much so that occasionallyuh people will try to draw us
(08:34):
into ISO New England.
Uh so ISO New England is theentity that when you flick the
switch, uh, they're sort of theair traffic controller of the
grid and they ensure that theelectricity turns on.
They're they do thereliability, they decide which
power plants turn on to meet ourdemand, um, they run the
wholesale markets, uh, and theymatter a lot to where our
electricity comes from.
But whenever I'm tried,whenever people try to draw me
(08:56):
into that world, I say, no,that's in Massachusetts.
I don't go there.
Liz (09:01):
That's it, big X.
Sam (09:02):
Yeah, that's right.
And so what we do is we focuson New Hampshire policy.
We go to the State House, wetalk to lawmakers, we engage in
regulatory dockets at the PublicUtilities Commission, which is,
you know, we make the laws atthe State House.
They're interpreted by thisquasi-judicial body called the
Public Utilities Commission.
Uh, and then uh with theDepartment of Energy, which
writes a lot of rules, and theDepartment of Environmental
(09:24):
Services, which permitsprojects.
Um, but then we have thisgrowing arm of what we do, which
is we advise local communitieson how to do clean energy in
their towns.
So, how to put like solar onthe library and how to swap out
your light bulbs in your schoolfor LEDs, and really like any
project that that will save youmoney on your municipal energy
(09:44):
bill and therefore help you saveyour local property taxes.
And so we have a team of sevenstaff called the Energy Circuit
Riders that do that with mostlymunicipalities and small
businesses all over the granitestate.
Liz (09:54):
You said solar panels on the library, and it feels a
little close to home in ourtown, where I think we just had
a big library upgrade, and thenafter the fact they were like,
we can't put the solar panelson.
And we're like, what?
Anyway, it's a little, a littletouchy subject.
Sam (10:10):
Well, Exeter has a very high-flying uh local energy
committee that has done lots ofgreat stuff, including a what, a
two megawatt landfill solarproject that is the first one in
the state that is actuallyowned by the town, which is
great because it means the townrealizes most of the financial
benefit.
Liz (10:29):
Yep.
Sam (10:29):
So every everybody misses once in a while, but uh but
exeter's doing a lot of greatthings.
Liz (10:35):
That's good.
I can send that to uh my wifewho serves on the select board.
Don't worry, you're doing agreat job over there.
It's perfect.
You know, this is much largerthan one little community,
obviously.
So the podcast is New Hampshirehas issues.
You focus your work in NewHampshire.
So what issues are we facingwhen it comes to clean energy?
(10:56):
Like what are the things thatyou're advocating for?
Sam (10:59):
Yeah, there's a lot of ways that one could answer that
question.
Yeah.
I think it's hard to ignore thefact that the federal
government is currently reallywaging an all-out war on wind
and solar specifically.
The national GOP has gone frombeing the all of the above party
to the some of the aboveparties, some of these things
that we like.
And for some reason they havefixated on wind and solar as the
(11:23):
as the technologies thatthey're trying to stamp out,
which is unfortunate becausewind and solar actually are the
cheapest thing that you canbuild today.
It's very high upfront cost,but there's zero fuel costs.
And when you when you averageit out over the lifespan of the
technology, which can be 25, 30,40 years, uh, it's the cheapest
thing you can build today.
(11:44):
And so there's a lot of cuttingoff our nose to spider face
that's happening at the federallevel.
Um, we have found that thatlevel of polarization hasn't
fully trickled down to NewHampshire yet and actually have
a lot of uh conservativesupporters.
Liz (11:58):
Nice.
Sam (11:58):
Um, you know, New England historically has the joke, the
energy joke, is that we're theend of the pipeline, right?
There's we do not have fossilfuels, we don't have coal,
there's no natural gas, there'sno oil here.
Right.
Everything has to be shipped infrom away.
That's why our electricity hasbeen expensive since forever.
Um, we don't even have a ton ofhydropower.
(12:18):
Uh, so uh so anything that wecan do to reduce the amount of
fuels that we're bringing infrom elsewhere is going to save
us money in the long run.
Um, so so that has been theargument that we have found is
is the winning one.
And we have found that there'sa lot more support here locally
for that energy independence uhthat that we think that we that
(12:40):
our technologies provide.
So locally, what we focus onreally are the smaller projects,
because that's the easiestthing to do in in a place like
New England.
Yeah.
Um Barack Obama's energysecretary was a guy named Ernie
Moniz, who encouraged you toGoogle and his hair in
particular.
Liz (12:59):
Oh, okay, yeah.
Sam (13:01):
Sort of like Benjamin Franklin uh is kind of the the
look.
And Ernie Moniz, when there wasa panel and they asked him
which will be the hardest partof the country to decarbonize,
and he said, New England.
And people said, my, you know,look at all these, you know,
these blue states, theseaggressive goals.
And he said, New England is theland of no.
Hard to build things here.
(13:22):
We're the most population-densepart of the country, um, with
maybe like the exclusion of likethe New York, Connecticut zone.
Yeah.
Um, and it means it's just, youknow, there's not a lot of
space to do really big things.
So we focus on smallerprojects.
And when I say smaller, the thecutoff, uh, that's it's kind of
arbitrary, but it's it's uhestablished by the by the FERC,
(13:43):
the Federal Energy RegulatoryCommission, uh, between
electricity that has that thatmight cross state boundaries
that will impact thetransmission system and might
cross state boundaries andtherefore be interstate commerce
is about five megawatts.
And so for many, many, many,many years, we've been fighting
about trying to make it easierto build things up to five
megawatts in size, becausethat's kind of this sweet spot
(14:07):
of big enough that it's acommunity-scale project and can
power lots and lots and lots ofhomes.
You don't have to have, youknow, solar on your rooftop to
benefit from it.
Liz (14:14):
Right.
Sam (14:15):
Um, but small enough that you don't suddenly trigger all
sorts of federal permitting uhand it's all state
jurisdictional.
So that's that's really oursweet spot.
Liz (14:24):
What is five megawatts?
What does that really mean?
Sam (14:30):
What is a megawatt?
Liz (14:31):
What is uh what is a watt and what's a megawatt?
Yes.
Sam (14:35):
So uh you've got a watch, which you know, if you screw in
a light bulb, 100 watt lightbulbs are what we used to have.
All the LEDs are now like 10watt light bulbs.
Yep.
You know, a thousand of thoseis a kilowatt.
Um, a nice round number toremember is that your average
New Hampshire home on on averagethroughout throughout the the
year is usually about onekilowatt or 1.25 kilowatts of
(14:56):
demand.
Um, so that's like your averagehome pulls about a kilowatt.
And then a megawatt is athousand kilowatts.
So we're talking about like athousand-ish homes worth of
power.
Um that's all, those are allreally round ballpark numbers.
Another way to visualize it isthat a five kilowatt solar array
is about the average that you'dsee on a roof.
(15:17):
So you when you drive by,you'll see about five kilowatt
bunch rooftop array, that's fivekilowatts.
Um one megawatt array is aboutfive acres.
Uh so when we're talking Whatis an acre?
No, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
It's the amount of time ittakes a mule to make it.
Liz (15:38):
What is a mule?
Sam (15:39):
Exactly.
Liz (15:40):
How do you get one?
Yes, right, right, right.
Sam (15:43):
So five acres, yeah.
When we're talking megawatts,you're starting to talk about
substantial land use.
But, you know, for instance,here in Concord, we're about to,
and and in Exeter, we justmentioned the landfill.
Yeah.
Uh Concord is about to do afive megawatt array on our
capped landfill, which is like a25-ish acre project.
But there's lots of like little25-acre parcels of land tucked
(16:05):
in throughout New Hampshire thatare not really suitable for
other kinds of development thatwe can use to build these
community scale uh solarprojects, um, which we think is
like the immediate term thing wecan do right now.
Like there's lots of technologythat might come down the line
in the future.
When it comes to like what canwe do right now?
It's wind and solar andbatteries.
That's like the only stuffthat's getting built.
(16:25):
If you were to try to build anatural gas power plant
tomorrow, which I I can see inyour eyes, you're hoping maybe
we'll it's on my to-do list.
And you were to like go to GEand be like, give me a turbine,
it would take them seven yearsbefore they could even get it to
you.
Whoa.
Electricity demand is growing,and the stuff we can build now,
in New Hampshire in particular,is like solar and batteries, and
(16:46):
that's the only thing that'sgonna meet that demand.
And if we don't build thatstuff, prices are just gonna go
up.
Liz (16:50):
I was at a friend's house recently, he works in the solar
world and mentioned that thefederal budget bill that has
been passed impacts solar.
He explained it to me.
I understood about 12% of whatwas happening.
So I'm hoping you can fill inthe gap.
Sam (17:10):
Yeah.
So if you want to do rooftopsolar, the time to make that
decision is right now.
There's a 30% federal taxcredit that was included in the
what was called the InflationReduction Act, which all of
these bills have misleadingnames, right?
Uh unlike the OBBVAA, the theone big bad bill, uh, the
(17:30):
Inflation Reduction Act actuallywas fully paid for, which is
how they argued and how JoeManchin argued this will reduce
inflation at the time.
But the Inflation Reduction Actincluded mostly unprecedented
tax credits for clean energytechnologies, not just wind and
solar, but wind, solar,batteries, geothermal, you know,
nuclear, like the whole gamutof of anything that does not
(17:52):
produce carbon dioxide wassubsidized under that bill.
The OBBBBA, O B B B B B B A, uhspecifically reeled back the
tax credits just for wind andsolar.
Batteries actually continue tohave subsidies for another, you
know, for quite a while.
Um, it's really just wind andsolar that were specifically
(18:12):
targeted.
Rooftop residential solar,those tax credits go away the
end of this year.
Larger scale commercial solar,the types of the types of
projects like what Exeter justput on their landfill and what
Concord is putting on theirs,have basically a two-year runway
where they're still eligiblefor the tax credits.
So unfortunately, what thatmeans is there's going to be a
(18:33):
rush to the doors whereeverybody who's been thinking
about solar is like, now I gotto do it right now.
And I can tell you I've hadlike dozens of those
conversations with friendos whoare like, hey, Sam, I was
thinking about it.
And it's just like, you know,everyone's trying to get their
array installed now, whichunfortunately I think will mean
that there's going to be a bitof a uh like supply crunch where
there's not enough installersin the state to get to all those
(18:55):
jobs and people are gonna getbooked out.
I think that some of thoseprices will be higher than they
should have been otherwisebecause people because
installers will be able tocharge a premium if if it means,
you know, they'll still be ableto fill their book of work,
which is an unfortunate outcomethat is sort of like a needless
own goal by getting the rug outso quickly.
For the commercial projects,there's a similar thing going on
(19:19):
where a lot of them have beenwaiting to get what are called
interconnection studies from theutilities.
You know, when you when you putin one of these big projects,
you have to make sure thatyou're not gonna like fry a
substation or melt any powerlines, which is perfectly
reasonable.
Unfortunately, the utilities,Eversource in particular, has
been taking a really long timeto do those studies.
There have been there projectsthat have been waiting two years
(19:42):
just for the privilege ofknowing how much they're gonna
have to pay to get connected tothe grid.
Liz (19:46):
Whoa.
Sam (19:47):
And so now there's a big, hey, hurry up, finish these
studies so that we can see if wecan commence construction.
And so there'll be a similarrush to the doors that'll come,
you know, next year essentiallyfor the big commercial solar
projects.
Liz (20:01):
I fear asking this question out loud, but why is it?
Why did this happen?
Why are we uh you knowtargeting solar and wind?
Sam (20:18):
Politics has become very tribal in a way that is is
unfortunate and nonsensical.
In this instance, the UnitedStates is one of the largest
producers of fossil fuels in theworld at this point, because of
because of the quote unquotefracking revolution.
Right.
Uh, and the fact that we havevery unique geology.
I mean, the the geology thatthe United States has doesn't
(20:41):
exist in other places in theworld.
Like it's not actually thateasy to like frack other rocks
in other places.
We have we have weird geologydown in Texas in particular and
in and in Pennsylvania.
Liz (20:50):
Yeah.
Sam (20:51):
It has made us a petrostate.
And the fact that wind andsolar at utility scale are now
the cheapest thing that you canbuild is a threat to those
industries.
And so I think we're seeing abit of a like thermostatic
response where the lastadministration said, hey, let's
go.
You know, we have a wholeclimate movement that was trying
to that was trying to really uhdial up the urgency going into
(21:14):
the 2020 election.
You know, the sunrise movement.
Um, I don't know if this iscommon knowledge, but uh, in my
world, it was a big deal.
But you know, the sunrisemovement was this uh group of
young people who were sort ofdemanding climate justice.
They would go to Nancy Pelosi'soffice and asking.
Oh, yeah, I remember that'sgonna do, and she gave a
slightly dismissive answer.
And so they pulled theDemocratic Party left.
(21:34):
Uh, and that is how theInflation Reduction Act got
passed.
And now I think the fossil fuelindustry sees it as an
existential threat.
And so says, not only do wehave to get rid of the
subsidies, but we have toactually try to stomp this
industry out of existence orelse we're in trouble.
And and the thing that I thinkis crazy about that is that the
rest of the world is now at thispoint racing towards these
(21:56):
technologies at unprecedentedspeeds that I think are really
shocking to people who aren'tpaying attention to it.
I mean, there's so manycountries now that are
installing solar and areadopting electric vehicles there
that are gonna leapfrog theUnited States.
And these are not richcountries.
You know, um, Pakistan hasjoined the ranks of countries
that are getting 25% of theirenergy from solar.
(22:18):
Um, Ethiopia has bannedinternal the import of internal
combustion vehicles.
And and so we're gonna wind upfalling behind the rest of the
world because just because we'retrying to stomp out these
industries doesn't mean the restof the world doesn't want cheap
energy.
Liz (22:32):
Yeah, it's really interesting to think about how
our country handled like thespace race or like wanting to be
number one and go towards that.
And like we are going to be thebest in the world in this
thing, and we are, you know,neck and neck.
And it seems like we're takingour fossil fuel toys and going
home and saying, like, we're notgoing to work on this right
(22:54):
now.
And why is that not a threat toour country of like our pride
of like we are number one?
Sam (22:59):
I think that in the grand arc of history, this will be a
historical anomaly because theonly thing that's going to
happen as a result of thisadministration's policies is
that people's electric bills aregoing to get more expensive.
And we're seeing that already.
And yeah, we are.
And you know, you the thereality distortion field can
only go on for so long.
People are gonna pay theirelectric bills, they're gonna
(23:20):
get mad, and it's gonna bereally easy to say your bills
are going up because theseprograms were eliminated, um,
which which and they keepgetting canceled every day.
You know, last Friday, uh, thestate's grant, Solar for All
grant, was canceled.
$43 million that the state ofNew Hampshire received that was
going to go to low-income solaron multifamily housing
(23:41):
complexes, uh, and and also inresident-owned communities,
which are manufactured housingcommunities where people have a
lot their their land for theirtrailers.
And it's probably an illegaldecision, uh and and it's just
gonna make affordable housingless affordable.
So it's it's all nonsensical tome.
Liz (23:59):
You know, this issue of clean energy, but just how we
pay for turning on our devicesand and living our everyday
lives, the intersection withthings like the housing crisis
and housing affordability.
And I think about folks who arerenting, and sometimes when
you're renting, like yourutilities are included in that.
(24:21):
And so if we have propertytaxes going up and we have
utilities going up, like folks,their rent is gonna Sam.
How are people gonna live inNew Hampshire?
Tell me.
If they're not ultra wealthy,what are they gonna do?
Sam (24:34):
It's yeah, I mean, you've you've hit on it.
It's I mean, it's crazy.
It's there's a couple things tosay here.
One, if you're a renter,there's there's what's called a
split incentive.
Typically, many, many, manylandlords, I think the majority
of renters in in in NewHampshire pay their own
utilities, which means thelandlord has zero incentive to
invest in any of thesetechnologies.
(24:56):
And the renter, because theydon't own the building, cannot.
So you can't make your homemore efficient home.
So you have no control overyour bills.
Liz (25:06):
What an excellent point.
Wow.
Wow.
Sam (25:09):
And and so so I actually prefer it when landlords bundle
the utilities in with the rentbecause it means they have an
incentive to invest inefficiency.
And we're starting to see that,particularly with the
multifamily developers.
I've I've had we havedevelopers that are members of
Clean Energy New Hampshirebecause they want to learn how
to do these things better.
And they've realized that,like, hey, we can roll the
(25:31):
utilities in with the rent,invest in a really efficient
building.
So the utilities are quite low.
We can charge market raterents, and we'll actually make
more profit as a landlord for amore comfortable, healthier
building that these people willlive in.
And so that's a developmentthat I'm really supportive of.
And uh, and actually, there's alot of reasons to think that
(25:51):
that for multifamily, that'sgonna keep getting better
because the trends are moving inthat direction.
Um, single family is is is areal problem.
And and it's not just if you'rea renter, it's also if you're a
home buyer.
There's a problem with theincentives between home builders
and home buyers, right?
A home builder who's gonnabuild you a new house wants to
(26:14):
sell you, wants to sell you thehouse.
And so the sticker price is themost important thing.
But you, as the buyer, you'regonna live in that house for on
average eight years, but manypeople much longer.
And the operating costs of thehouse are what you pay.
And so the home builder has anincentive to build a cheaper,
lower performing house.
Whereas you, if you were aneducated home buyer, you would
(26:36):
want them to build a moreefficient house with lower
utility bills because that'llpay for itself in a few short
years.
And so there's a lot of there'sa lot of problems that we could
fix with public policy if therewas a will to do so.
Liz (26:48):
We touched a little bit at the federal level.
We have an administration thatis pretty openly hostile to
solar and wind.
Like, I I don't think they'vemade any secret about wanting to
squash that as much aspossible.
But what is it like in NewHampshire?
And I think about like theissue that I work in, I work in
reproductive rights.
(27:08):
Like historically, we had a lotof bipartisan efforts and we've
worked, you know, I work withRepublicans still, but it's it's
changed over the last fewyears.
Like it has shifted, and Ithink part of it is like trying
to blend in with the cool kidsfrom the federal level.
But what is it like in yourwork?
What is the will of thelawmakers in Concord?
Sam (27:29):
I think it all comes down to affordability.
I think that's where the thepolitical will comes from.
Yeah.
Um, and so we find that we canget bipartisan support if we're
pushing for policies that willreduce costs.
Um, there can be a great dealof debate as to whether a given
policy will or won't reducecosts.
So a great example is we haveour ratepayer funded energy
(27:52):
efficiency programs, which arealso known as New Hampshire
Saves.
So if anybody who's listening,quick plug for you, uh, whether
you're a renter or a home buyer,nhsaves.com, you're paying for
these programs already throughyour electric bill or your
natural gas bill.
They are subsidies for you togo do energy efficiency, even as
a renter.
They have little kits thatthey'll send you to like little
(28:13):
things here or there in yourapartment that don't require you
to own the building.
Very cool.
And if you're a homeowner, thisis just like picking up a
dollar bill off the sidewalk.
Like you, you should bechecking out to see if you're
eligible to get your housetightened up.
So those programs cost moneyand we pay for them uh with a
little time, time, timesurcharge on our electric bill.
It's about $80 million a year.
And for a long time, um,businesses in particular were
(28:37):
fixated on that tiny, tinylittle surcharge.
And they're saying you got toget rid of that surcharge
because that's making ourelectricity more expensive.
We've now come to a nice placewhere I think there's a fairly
strong bipartisan consensus.
The New Hampshire Savesprograms are great because there
are enough businesses that haveused them and they're like,
wow, that really helped usreduce our bills.
Uh, that in 2021 there was aneffort to dismantle these
programs.
(28:57):
We sued the state and made alot of noise with a not a very
great legal argument that welost in court, but uh we got a
lot of attention and got a billpassed that overturned a
regulatory decision on acompletely unanimous bipartisan
basis.
Every Republican and everyDemocrat voted to to save New
Hampshire Says.
Wow.
That's not nothing.
That's a that's a huge deal.
(29:19):
Yeah.
And and sort of flew under theradar.
I mean, and this is the bigproblem, right, in energy world
is that all of this flies underthe radar.
It is a low salience issue.
But nobody, everyone just wantsto know like I flick the
lights, the lights turn on, yesor no.
It's magic, is what I thoughtbefore we started talking.
Liz (29:35):
It's just a magician was like, and electricity is here
now.
Yeah.
Sam (29:39):
Yeah.
And so as long as your bill isnot going up crazy fast, yeah,
most people are paying verylittle attention to this issue.
I think the it all comes downto the pocketbook and making
this a kitchen table issue.
And fortunately, thetechnologies that we're
advocating for are, in myopinion, the only way out of
this mess.
Liz (29:56):
Aaron Powell And they're they're here.
Like the technology exists.
We can't Ready to go.
Yeah.
Sam (30:02):
You know, I got I got clean energy pilled early because I
was a journalist studying stuff.
Liz (30:08):
Right.
Sam (30:08):
And we got really lucky in our life.
You know, we became homeownersright at the end of the housing
crash.
And so it was before theaffordability of homes uh became
really untenable and madeinvestments in an energy
efficient home.
And that became genuinely likethe bedrock of our of our
family's economic well-being isthat our energy costs are so low
(30:31):
that it's it's like a hedgeagainst all this uncertainty
that that we've been livingthrough.
And then we kept going, right?
Like I like put my own rooftopsolar up there.
I was up there on the roof witha buddy, plugging up the
panels.
Oh my god.
I and then we which isn't thathard, by the way.
Like if anybody's handy, solarinstallation is not that hard.
There are plumbing's worse.
Liz (30:51):
Uh let's rank them.
Solar.
That sounds too dangerous.
It's fine.
It's fine.
I don't do wiring, right?
Yeah, right.
Sam (31:00):
Wiring up a rooftop array, you're literally just plugging
them into each other.
And then and like all thewiring is wire management, which
is just like zip tying them tothings.
Liz (31:09):
Sam, are you trying to persuade me to put up my old
solar panels?
Because I love a challenge.
I was just saying I need a newchallenge in my life.
And is it me up on a roof?
Maybe.
Maybe it is.
Sam (31:19):
But then but then we said, you know, we kept going, right?
So in in 2021, we bought ourfirst electric vehicle.
It was a used Nissan Leaf,which was like the first
generation.
And my joke is it's the car ona leash, like it doesn't go very
far, but it's a great just likepicking up daycare, and it was
so cheap.
Like used, used Nissan leaves.
You can get them for like fivegrand at this point for a car
(31:40):
that's got less than 100,000miles on it.
Wow.
And then they drive at like theequivalent of like a buck 25 a
gallon gas.
And and so for me, we're inthis like bizarro world where
I've been living this life wherepursuing these technologies has
saved me tons of money and hasbeen like the bedrock of our
financial well-being.
(32:00):
And then we have like thenational political rhetoric
around it is about how this isall too expensive, um, which
then I think saps the will forany action for a lot of people
in their own personal lives.
Uh, and and also like saps anydesire to do anything from a
systemic level for manypoliticians.
And I find myself sort ofscreaming into the void that
(32:22):
like it's all cheap.
And like nobody believes me.
Liz (32:26):
I was thinking about like, I'm scared of change.
Like that is a big part of justmy personality.
I don't like change.
I want it to be exactly thesame every single time.
So, you know, my wife and Ihave said, like, eventually
we're going to need a new car.
Like that is going to need tohappen.
So we've sort of said, like, dowe dare go into the electric
vehicle world?
(32:46):
Like, is this a thing we aregoing to do?
And so, like, for folks like mewho are scared of change, of
things that are different thanwhat we have been accustomed to.
And I feel like New Hampshire,we love doing things the same
way we've been doing it.
But like, what are the piecesthat folks should know about,
you know, if you're thinkingabout moving from your
gas-powered car to an electricvehicle, if you're thinking
(33:09):
about solar, like how how can Ijump over these hurdles of fear
of change?
What are what are your ways tocompel me to take the leap?
Sam (33:16):
I firmly believe that the inflection point will be when
more and more and more peopleknow somebody who's done it.
Right.
And and so, like, imagine ifyou could borrow a friend's, if
you're like, hey, I'm thinkingabout doing an electric car.
Would you swap your car with mefor like three days?
So I could just try it.
(33:36):
Uh, and like, and like help mefigure out how I would charge it
and where I would charge it.
Uh, and that friend walks youthrough it.
And I think that in partbecause like I'm that guy for
all my friends.
Like, we had sold so many solarrings and electric cars.
Uh, like I should do it oncommission.
And there's there's greatstudies about rooftop solar
adoption that show that it hasthis sort of like viral quality
(33:57):
where like one person does it ina neighborhood and then all of
a sudden all the neighbors startdoing it.
And so I I think that's theinflection point that will
really drive it.
I mean, there's a fascinatingeffect in I I mean, Australia is
weird in a bunch of differentways.
Like, in one way, it's likelots of venomous animals that
will kill you if they touch it.
But another way is that theyhave they have like the highest
rooftop solar adoption rates inin the world.
(34:19):
Um, tons of solar in Australia,and it's mostly super small
scale stuff on people's roofs.
And it's totally, it's totallyjust this flywheel effect where
it's sunny there, it peoplestarted installing it, more
people started installing it,that made the price get lower
and lower, that meant that morepeople were seeing it.
And it led to the point whererooftop solar in Australia, so
one of the big, it's like maybean aside, one of the big divides
(34:40):
is that rooftop solar can belike three to four times more
expensive than utility scalesolar, the really, really big
arrays.
Um, in Australia, rooftop solaris the same price because
they've just been they've justlike figured out how to do it
because they've installed somuch of it.
Uh oh, but do we can we go backto the political question?
Liz (34:59):
Of course.
Go wherever you'd like.
Take the journey.
Where do you want to go?
Let's go there.
Sam (35:05):
Let's do it.
Um, so politically in NewHampshire, what we find is that
we have strong bipartisansupport in the Senate.
And then in the House, we have10 knuckleheads on one
committee.
Liz (35:18):
Oh my god, can I guess who they are?
Never no, I won't I won't namethem.
I never name them.
I never name the Yahoos.
I call them Yahoos personally.
Sam (35:25):
But then I think I think actually like most of the
Republican House caucus reallyjust like doesn't care about our
issue, and they look to thecommittee to tell them what to
do.
Liz (35:34):
Yeah.
Sam (35:34):
And I know this because I because I I talk to folks
everywhere, everywhere I go, andmostly what I find is no
opinion.
And they haven't really thoughtabout these issues, and and
they really are just looking tothese 10 knuckleheads on a
certain committee to tell themwhat to do.
And and so I think that there'sa point where that dam will
break and the politicization ofthese technologies will will
(35:55):
start to fade, maybe after thissort of like thermostatic
reaction that we're getting inthe Trump administration goes
away.
Um and I I think that that alot of this will start to calm
down as as people's bills getmore expensive.
Liz (36:09):
And it seems like they will.
I I've seen some folks sort ofposting about their, you know,
electric bills saying like thisis a big increase that's already
happening.
Sam (36:18):
Right.
Liz (36:18):
In the video that you sent in your talk, you mentioned that
Governor Ayatt, when she was aUS senator, she was behaving in
a way of like caring about thisissue or you know, doing the
right thing.
Sam (36:31):
Yeah.
Back in the days uh of the theearly days of the Obama
presidency, there was thisquestion of like, you know,
health care or climate.
And they said we're gonna dohealthcare first.
And so that was the ACA.
Liz (36:44):
Yep.
Sam (36:44):
And then the next thing they tried to do was pass a cap
and trade bill, and it went downin flames.
Liz (36:48):
Yeah.
Sam (36:48):
Uh and then the Tea Party happened, and then that was the
last time that we got seriousabout trying to address this
through uh through bipartisanlegislation.
Liz (36:57):
Right.
Sam (36:58):
Um after the failure of uh uh the Waxman-Markey bill, which
was the cap and trade bill, uh,they the Obama administration
said, fine, we'll do it throughregulations.
Um, there had been a SupremeCourt case, Massachusetts versus
EPA, which had said carbondioxide is a pollutant, you can
regulate it with the Clean AirAct.
Uh and so they they spent manyyears formulating a very
(37:21):
reasonable approach to trying toregulate carbon dioxide as a
pollutant, and it was called theClean Power Plan.
Kelly Ayott was, when she was aU.S.
senator, the sole Republicanwho broke with her party and
said, This Clean Power Plan is agood idea.
Wow.
All of the other Republicanssaid, This is communism and it's
gonna result in the death, thedownfall of human civilization.
(37:41):
They escalated it a little bit.
And the funny thing to me aboutall this is like, is like I was
a reporter this time followingthis, and I like read the plan,
and like and then like eachstate had to like say how they
were gonna comply with the plan.
I read the New Hampshire planand I was like, they're really
just saying like we're gonnacontinue on current market
trends.
And sure enough, all of thetargets that were in the clean
(38:02):
power plan, we hit, even thoughthe clean power plan was never
implemented.
And so it's one of those thingslike the sky is falling like
cats and dogs living together.
And we hit those targets evenwithout the regulation ever
being put in place.
Wow.
But Kelly Ayatt was the onlyone who endorsed it.
And then, and then subsequentlyto having left uh the the US
Senate, went on to serve on anumber of boards of clean
(38:25):
energy-friendly-ish companiesand organizations.
Um, and then on the campaigntrail, has has several times
said, I'm gonna have a differentapproach to this issue than
Sununu.
And so we've just had a verylong and bruising budget fight.
Don't we know it?
My goodness.
And it has been our perceptionthat the Aude administration
hasn't really turned to thisquestion yet.
(38:46):
And I think we're gonna seeover the course of the next
session um how it is that theymight want to do that.
Liz (38:53):
And that's something that is possible outside of like a
budget financial piece.
Like we could just reach to theapple tree and pull down a good
thing we could do.
Sam (39:02):
Yeah.
So I mean, one of the coreissues that we have we have at
been working on forever is ournet metering policy.
Our net metering is the policythat's the bedrock of the solar
industry.
Liz (39:11):
Sam, can you explain what the hell is net metering?
What like what is it?
This phrase.
It's so embarrassing for me toask, but also it's my podcast.
I can be as embarrassed ofmyself as I want.
What the h is net metering?
What does it mean?
Sam (39:27):
And and and frankly, uh, the fact that that's the bedrock
of the soul industry is likeembarrassing.
It's like it's like if I it'slike a 1990s policy that I wish
we could move beyond, but butinstead of having rational adult
conversations, we're all justlike swirling around the same
things forever because energyhas become politic politicized.
Uh yeah, but net metering.
(39:49):
Net metering.
Uh, one of the stories I got todo at NHBR, I met the person
who installed the first netmetered solar ray in the
country.
Oh my god.
Wow.
Stephen Strong.
He was an architect.
Excellent name, superhero name,too.
Still around.
Uh uh, he had been like, he hadworked on the Trans-Alaska
pipeline and was like, this oilstuff seems like a bad idea.
Uh, and so he wanted to work onrenewable energy.
(40:11):
And it was like the very, veryearly days uh where it was like
solar was so expensive that theonly thing you would do is like
put it on a satellite in spacebecause that's the only thing
that could power a satellite inspace, which was which is where
solar started.
And he got really excited aboutit and wanted to wanted to
figure out ways to uh try to domore solar.
He put the first grid tide, sowhich is to say, if when the
solar panels were makingelectrons, they went back out
(40:34):
onto the electric grid.
Um, the first grid tide solararray in the United States on a
public housing complex inQuincy, Massachusetts, designed.
And uh the policy of netmetering came about because he
basically was like, okay, thesolar panels are on the roof and
they generate in DC and thegrid is AC.
But I think if I put thisinverter thing here, that like
(40:55):
it'll just like, you know, themeter, when you're buying
electricity, the meter is just awheel on a stick and it spins
this direction.
You know, you start to like,and they they come to read what
the number is.
But I think if the electricityis going the other way, the
meter, this wheel on a stickwill just spin the other
direction.
And that's net metering, right?
So so when you're buyingelectricity, the number on your
electric meter gets bigger.
(41:15):
And when you're sellingelectricity, it gets smaller,
and they come at the end of themonth and they read the net, the
net of imports and exports.
And that's why it's called netmetering.
Liz (41:24):
I I regret not trying to explain at first of what I
thought it was because it wasdefinitely not that.
It's not what it was.
Sam (41:32):
So net metering is a thing that we can do, right?
We can improve our net meteringprograms so that they are
encouraging the right kind ofsolar development in the right
places.
We could improve our efficiencyprograms so that maybe they're
doing efficiency in ways thatare more targeted to certain
communities, or maybe we careless about, you know, swapping
(41:54):
out an old inefficient gasboiler with a slightly more
efficient gas boiler.
Maybe we want to encourageelectrification of heat, you
know, the so we could change ourefficiency programs to uh to do
those types of things.
We could uh we could encouragemore publicly accessible EV
charging.
It's crazy to me that this isas controversial as it is
(42:16):
because uh having chargers onmain streets and in parking
garages does so many valuablethings for communities.
A people will pay for theelectricity, right?
Like it's we're not giving itaway for free.
Like you can give it away forfree if you want, but you like
you don't have to.
Uh, so they can pay forthemselves.
B there's not enough chargingin New Hampshire, and we're a
(42:38):
tourism economy in the middle ofNew England, which is a really
blue part of the world, andthere's a lot of people with
electric vehicles in uh southernNew England, which is a place
that you need to visit NewHampshire.
And by the way, Quebec iselectrifying their
transportation fleet incrediblyquickly.
Yep.
And so it's like a real threatto the tourism industry that
(43:01):
that there's not enoughcharging.
But then the third thing isjust that a lot of the charging
that's the most affordable toinstall is the slower chargers,
what are called so level,there's one, two, and three.
One is like plug it into thatwall outlet, yeah, right there,
which is like an underrated, bythe way.
Level one charging, underrated.
Like average American drives 34miles a day.
(43:22):
You can just plug a car intothe wall and you'll get 40 miles
overnight.
So many people who are like, Icould never, it's like we have
two electric vehicles, one ofthem we just plug it into a
normal outlet, and it's fine.
Wow.
So, so PSA.
Yeah, you too can charge levelone.
Liz (43:39):
Uh this gets over my hurdle of being worried.
I can literally plug it into myown outlet that I have.
Okay, all right, all right,love that.
Sam (43:47):
Level two is like a dryer, a dryer outlet, like it's a 240
volt um, you know, 40 ampoutlet.
That's the stuff that mostlygets installed for public
chargers.
You know, that'll that'll fullycharge um, you know, my little
old 2013 leaf in like threehours.
It would fully charge like amodern EV with a really, really
(44:07):
long-range battery in like sixhours.
And that's the stuff that Ithink should be on downtowns and
in main streets.
Uh, and the reason is becauseyou've got someone who's
visiting your downtown.
You want them to hang out.
Yeah, you want them to get acoffee, you want them to go to
the park, you want them to go tothe museum.
You don't want a fast charger.
You don't want, you don't wantsome like, you know, million
(44:30):
dollar thing that uses the sameamount of electricity as like an
aluminum smelter.
Like you want a slow chargerbecause that's gonna be good for
your town's economy.
So um, the fact that it's beenso hard to get level two slow
chargers on main streets hasbeen a source of constant
frustration for me.
Yeah.
Um and and then the third thingthat this would do is it would
(44:53):
unlock EV ownership for folkswho don't have the ability to
install that level two chargerat their home.
Right.
So they they might be able tocharge level one, you know, for
their daily needs.
And if they start to get iftheir battery starts to get a
little low because they'redriving more than they expected,
then they could just godowntown and plug in at the
public charger.
Liz (45:12):
What could somebody who's listening do to help influence
that?
Sam (45:15):
We have got a program for you.
This is what what I refer to asthe energy circuit riders.
We launched an energy circuitrider program in 2019 in Coas
County after the Tillotson Fundbasically said, like, energy
efficiency pays for itself, youknow, it's the dollar on the
sidewalk.
Why are these towns not bet notbending over to pick up the
dollar?
And the answer was like, thesetowns have 600 people and one
(45:38):
part-time town administrator,and they cannot figure this
stuff out.
So we start in the NorthCountry, and they're basically
like a shared municipal staffperson.
And what what the way that welike for them to work is to go
to each town, help establish avolunteer local energy committee
that is sanctioned by theselect board that looks around
(45:59):
and says, what could we do tosave to save money or encourage
economic development?
And a lot of those early onwere like, let's do the LED
lights, let's let's do theweatherization of the library,
you know, solar panels on thetown hall.
And many of them are now tryingto figure out how to do EV
charging so that they can bringin more tourists and the
economic uh development thatwould be entailed by all those,
(46:21):
you know, high net worth EVowners strolling about sipping
lattes.
Liz (46:26):
Right.
Rolling into town and silently.
Yes, yes.
Sam (46:31):
So to get involved, uh many towns have local energy
committees.
So the circuit rider team umhave a database of of over a
hundred energy committees andand you know, hundreds of
contacts for in each of thosetowns that either your town
might have one already and youcan get involved, and it's all
volunteer work.
It's just like, hey, how do wedo the EV charger?
(46:52):
And and and we get traction inred towns, you know, down in
your neck of the wood.
Kensington just put a solararray on the roof of their town
hall.
Liz (46:59):
Oh, that's right.
I think I saw that.
Yeah, yeah.
Sam (47:01):
And so they came up with a number of measures, you know,
it's all black solar panels, sothey blend right in with the
shingles.
They put up these littlescreens on the sides so that you
can't can can't see under themand they're black screens.
So, and and they've said we'vehad a number of people drive by
and say, when are the solarpanels going up?
And it's like, guys, they're upthere already.
Liz (47:16):
That's that's really incredible.
Yeah.
Sam (47:18):
So and and I think we love working with municipal projects
for a couple of reasons.
One is that towns are gonnacontinue to be towns for a long
time, right?
Like you're gonna be own thesebuildings for long enough to
realize the payback.
Liz (47:33):
Yeah.
Sam (47:33):
Whereas homeowners, you know, I'm the average homeowner
owns their house for eightyears, which means some of the
more expensive uh retrofits youcan do, maybe, maybe you're not
sure you're gonna be there thatlong to get that um to get your
money back.
Um, towns always will.
Um, and then the other thingthat I really love, which is
that's you have thisdeliberative process by which
(47:55):
anybody who's engaged at thelocal level learns about the
beneficial economics of thesetechnologies.
And then and then in townmeeting, you know, sometimes
literally just literally go andvote and say, yes,
affirmatively, I agree that thiswill save us money.
Yeah.
And so then you've justeducated all those people too.
I find that many people areterrified to engage with the
(48:16):
subject of climate changebecause it feels so big, it
feels like something they cannothave any impact on.
And also it feels existential.
I'm here to say, as someonewho's like read the
International Panel for uh onclimate change, you know, the
IPCC scientific reports onclimate science, that it's not
as bad as you think.
(48:36):
Anyone who tells you like thehuman race is going to wink out
of existence because of climatechange hasn't read the science.
What they're doing is they'rethey're looking, you know, the
scientists come up with likehere's the worst case scenario,
here's the best case scenario,here's a bunch that are in
between.
If you just look at the worstcase scenario stuff, and there's
a lot of really bad uh thingsthat'll happen.
We're not on track for theworst case scenario.
(48:57):
We're deploying solar fasterthan any energy source in human
history on planet Earth, whichmeans that we have bent that
curve to bring back anexpression that maybe is
traumatic for people to hearagain.
Uh and and we're not on trackfor the worst case scenarios,
but not the worst.
So A, that's one thing, is thatI don't think, you know,
(49:20):
whenever I hear people say,like, oh, I didn't want to have
kids because of climate change,it's like, whoa, like you're
reading too many heads.
Liz (49:26):
It looks like there might be another layer to that, but
yes, totally.
Sam (49:31):
Okay, all right.
It feels like a thing I couldsay.
Yeah.
Liz (49:34):
It's like, oh, you're wow.
Sure.
So noble, right?
Sam (49:41):
So, you know, anyway, if anybody wants to have that talk
with me, I'm ready, I'm preparedto give that talk.
Liz (49:45):
If you're looking to have children, call say No, that's
not the way we say.
Sam (49:51):
Uh but you know, climate change is a big hard challenge,
and we do need systemic changeto to to solve it.
But also the I think uh what Iencounter is there's so much
skepticism about the solutionsthat frankly are like a lot of
fossil fuel talking points.
(50:11):
Like, I can't tell you how manytimes people have told me that,
like, oh, your electric vehicleis just running on coal.
And it's just like not true.
And and I think a lot of peoplethey're terrified by climate
change, they're paralyzed by thesize of the problem, and they
like to grab on to the talkingpoints about how the solutions
(50:33):
are bad because it makes themfeel like it was okay to have
not done anything.
And I'm just here to say thatlike it is a big problem.
It's quite tractable, though,and the solutions are ready and
they're rad and they're gonnamake your life better.
Liz (51:04):
I like change, change the words, change the theory.
Sam (51:07):
That's like that's like all good, I don't have to change.
Liz (51:09):
Right.
Like, there's all these stepsthat I'm worried about.
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