12-2-25 - *FULL SHOW* Leland Vittert; Robert Bryce & Electricity; Ice Cream Museum

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We were Gina and I were just talking.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I was completely unprepared for the show to start, semi
professional radio.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Ross. That's Gina, Good morning, Gina, good morning. And
producer Dragon, Hi there, Dragon Hither. We have a ton
of stuff to do on today's show.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
There's obviously a lot in the news, national, international, weather
coming into Denver, and we're going.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
To keep you updated on all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I do want to just jump in with a couple
of quick stories, one smaller but local and interesting, and
then I want to get to this Pete Hegseth thing,
which is a very fast moving story with with some
new information that I think you'll be you'll be interested
to hear. But first, let me let me start with this,
uh the you've probably heard of ENREL if you live

(00:42):
around here, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It's it's in
Golden It's one of the fairly large federal energy research hubs,
and as of now, or as of yesterday, I guess
that's not its name anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
It's not.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
It is now National Laboratory of the Rockies, and Chris Wright,
the Secretary of Energy, has determined that he does not
want this lab to focus only or even just or
even have in the name renewable energy. His Assistant Energy Secretary,
Audrey Robertson said in a news release quote, we are

(01:22):
no longer picking and choosing energy sources.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Our highest priority.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Is to invest in the scientific capabilities that will restore
American manufacturing, drive down costs, and help this country meet
its soaring energy demand. And I will just let you
know that coming up in a couple of hours two
and a half hours, Robert Brice is going to be
joining us in studio, and he is one of the

(01:48):
nation's very, very top experts on power generation, the power
grid and so on, so it ties in well with that.
But in any case, I'm I'm all for this in
the in the big picture sense, in that I want
energy to be affordable more than I care about affordable

(02:10):
energy more than any other thing about energy. I also
do care that it's clean and that it you know,
it doesn't pollute our city and our state, in our
in our country.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
But we're pretty much past that.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
At this point, and you know, we don't we don't
do very much energy production that's dirty in this country
at this point. And so really the main thing is
do we have enough and is it cheap enough. And
remember that everybody uses energy for almost everything. Heating your house, right, heating,
cooking your food, driving your car a form of energy
with gasoline. But if we're talking about electricity, just think

(02:44):
about all the things that run on electricity in your
home and air conditioning in the summer. And when energy
gets very expensive, it is really really destructive, not just
to an economy, not just to manufacturing, which of course
it is, but just to quality of life.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
And it's incredible. And the countries that are going.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
To win in the future are the countries that have
the most affordable energy. So I'm all about this, not
because I hate renewable energy, but because I don't want
to have just focus on that. I want to focus
on what the bigger picture is. Okay, now let's talk
about this Hegseth thing.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Now.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Gina has talked about it a couple times.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
This morning already, and it's been a very, very big,
fast moving story that started with a Washington Post article
saying that Pete hag Seth had ordered a second strike
on one of those drug boats that the Trump administration
is targeting, mostly in the Caribbean, but some in the
Eastern Pacific, and the story from the Washington Post was

(03:45):
that hegg Seth had ordered no survivors or quote, kill
them all, and that after the first strike there were
a couple of survivors left hanging onto the smoldering wreckage
of the boat in the ocean, and that there was
then a second strike ordered.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
To kill them.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Now, my colleague Michael brown who was an actual attorney
and I'm not talked about this on his show yesterday
and Producer Dragon was listening because Producer Dragon produces his
show and minor and he was listening a little bit.
I might have been listening closer than Dragon was, But
it was very interesting because Brownie argued that that second

(04:25):
strike was a war crime. And here's how I would
put it. If what played out was in fact what
was reported in the Washington Post, then it seems obviously
to be a war crime. You simply cannot go murder

(04:46):
people who are not posing a threat. So the question is,
what was the Washington Post story true? Did heg Seth
order that? And if not, and you start getting into
the shades of gray, then what really is it?

Speaker 1 (05:05):
And now, just in the past.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Less than twenty four hours, maybe sixteen hours, something like that.
We've seen story after story that are very very interesting.
Another Washington Post story, heg Seth with White House help
tries to distance himself.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
That's an interesting one.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Distance himself from boat strike fallout.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
So that's one. Then from the Hill yesterday.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Now listen to this because then I'm gonna give you
the biggest headline in a moment. White House confirms heg
Seth authorized second strike on drug boat. Now, this is
from the Hill, is from Julia Manchester at the Hill.
There's not some wacky publications, mainstream publication, and they're quoting
the press secretary, So this isn't some you know, political

(05:56):
conspiracy theory site.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
White House Press Secretary.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Caroline it confirmed yesterday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized
the second follow up strike following a bombshell Washington Post
report that claimed that he ordered the military to kill everybody.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
I wonder if that was a bombshell, pun Levitt said.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that
presidentially designated narco terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting
in accordance with the laws of war.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
With respect to the strikes in.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Question, Hegseth Secretary, Hegseth authorized Edwiral Bradley to conduct these
kinetic strikes.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
So, now where they're going with this.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Is that Hegseth gave some kind of initial order, maybe
not on that day, go blow up those people, but
gave some kind of initial order to the admiral that
was along the lines of blow them up. And again
we're unsure at this point about the question of did

(06:55):
he say did he imply kill them all and leave
no survivors? The Washington Post says they've got more than
one source who says that he did order it that way,
although maybe not necessarily on that day, but maybe as
an ongoing thing, as the bigger picture order setting out
the policy of attacking these drug voats.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Now, now the well, here's one other thing.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
The Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kin,
who President Trump loves. His nickname is Raisin Raisin Kin
spoke with Democrat and Republican leaders of the key congressional
committees trying to explain this story.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
So that's going on.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
But here, to me is the most interesting thing, and
this came out late yesterday. Heg Seth ordered a This
is New York Times heg Seth ordered a lethal attack,
but not the killing of survivors, officials say. Now it's
unclear to me who the officials are. According to five

(08:00):
US officials who spoke separately and on the condition of anonymity,
Hegseth ordered a strike that would kill the people on
the boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo
of drugs, But each official said that Hegseth did not
specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned
out not to fully accomplish all those things, and the

(08:23):
official said his order was not a response to surveillance
footage showing that at least two people on the boat
survived the first blast. Admiral Bradley ordered the initial strike
and then several follow up strikes that killed the initial
survivors and sank the boat. As that operation unfolded, they said,
mister Hegseth did not give any further orders to him.

(08:47):
It is also it said that Bradley ordered the second
strike to fulfill a directive by Hegseth to kill everyone.
But in this Washington Post piece, they're saying it's unclear
whether brad even knew that there were people still alive.
So this thing gets messier rather than cleaner. This new

(09:07):
story from the Washington Post tends to offer.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
A little bit of breathing room for Pete hag Seth.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
I have to say, not a big fan of the guy,
but I just want to know the truth. It's a
very fast moving story and we are going to see
how it plays out over the course of coming days.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Gina, you sent me.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
You sent me a piece from Fox thirty one about wolves,
and it's a story you and I have both been
covering for for.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Quite a long time.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
You more on the newsy side and my more being
frustrated that this thing even came up for a vote
at all. But anyway, it is. It is where it
is now. And one of the things that one of
the sort of interesting forms of information that we get
are these are these maps that showing where the wolves,
show where the wolves are, And you found some interesting

(09:54):
information about that.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
Yeah, so the Fox thirty one headline said that updated
colored wolf maps travel closer to the Denver metro area.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
And I guarantee a lot of people hear that.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
And go, oh, my goodness, there is a wolf going
to be in my backyard.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Is it going to eat my pet, you.

Speaker 4 (10:08):
Know, is that gonna be a situation that I'm would
be dealing with And the answer is not really, But
maybe because the maps are not as helpful as they look.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Like they are.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
They are doing a great job tracking the wolves. There's
twenty collared adult wolves, two uncollared ones, and they've had
three litters of puffs since the reintroduction process has taken place.
But when they show these maps, they purposely try to
track them but not give their exact location because it
is such a controversial topic. You know, farmers and ranchers
and everybody who's been dealing with the depredation of these wolves.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
They don't want them around.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
And a lot of city, you know, residents did vote
in favor of them because they're wolves. So it's just
been a back and forth of what we've seen in
the state.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
So how they track them.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
Is they say that if a wolf, if a collared
wolf was tracked at a watershed at it touched the
water in some way, shape or form, they count that
entire watershed. So it's the whole idea of Okay, it
does show that they technically crossed I twenty five east
and they are closer to the Denver metro area. But

(11:15):
because the watershed stretches so far from from the northwest
all the way down into like the southeast areas, they
can't technically say if it's in that area of the
metro all right, So yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
So I mean, you tell me if I have this wrong.
But just as an example, so I think about Arapaho
County is a really wide, sort of short, really wide
county that on the western side goes all the way
almost to like Columbine High School in Littleton, and on
the eastern side goes way out to Aurora into like

(11:52):
rural areas. So what you're saying is if they found
a wolf in one far edge of a Rapo County,
if that were called a watershed, then the entire Rapo
County would show up on the map as where a wolf.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Head watershed area.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Then yes, and that can be very misleading, but it
also kind of intentional. So nobody goes to look in
a particular neighborhood to shoot a wolf exactly.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
So the watershed really stretches, the one that they're focused
on stretches into portions of jeff Co, Boulder, Adams A,
Rapa ho It's really that entire area, so they do
say it does technically look like they crossed east on
I twenty five, but because they only track exactly that watershed,
they can't really tell you exactly.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
And I have heard a little bit.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
Of people saying that they don't believe it's actually walking
around the metro area, but they do count it as
that because that's how the watershed path goes. So I
don't know it's a it's a deceptive headline because I
don't want people to instantly think wolves are in your backyard.
But they do say if you're in an area where
there is wolf activity, obviously leash your dog, don't just have.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Them out and about, and just be cautious.

Speaker 4 (13:01):
And if you do see a wolf, you have to
report it to CBW so they can continue the tracking
to make sure they're following and monitoring where they're actually
going to. And it is possible that they could move
into that area because they're following food sources, and the
food sources as they're migrating for the winter and things
like that, there is the possibility that they could be
moving to other areas.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Part of me still wishes that we could mark the
houses of everyone in bolder who voted to bring them in.
Every market put a little mark that wolves will recognize
everybody who's got a dog or a cat.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Who lives in Boulder.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
So the wolves go there and eat their pets as
a thank you for I know that's not I like
the pets. I don't really wish harm to the pets,
but the people who voted to bring the wolves in
deserve a little I'll just.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Stop, you know what, I think?

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Today is Giving Tuesday, and I realized that Colorado Gives Day,
which is a week from today, probably gets a little
more attention in this state. But they're both in important
days during this holiday season and as people start thinking
about making some donations near the end of the year,
sometimes for a tax deduction, sometimes just to do something nice.

(14:12):
And my colleague Brenda Stewart, the editor on our news desk,
has talked to me a couple of times about this
really cool organization called Blue Star Recyclers. And Jonathan Sabar
is business manager over at Blue Star Recyclers, and it's
a very personal story for both of them. So Brenda,

(14:32):
maybe I'll just kind of hand us off to you
for a minute here, and maybe I'll jump in with
a question here and there, But why don't you pick
it up?

Speaker 5 (14:38):
As you know, I've got a couple of charities that
are near and deared in my heart. Special Olympics is one,
but Blue Star Recyclers gets top billing. I found out
about them doing a news story one day. They were
opening a facility in Denver. They had one in Colorado
Springs and Jonathan feel free to jump in anytime here.
And I watched them work and they hire people, most

(15:02):
of them on the autism spectrum, people with disabilities who
would otherwise be sitting home playing video games and collecting
Social Security and taking our tax dollars, and instead they're
trained to work at a recycling electronics recycling facility here
in Denver, recycling things that would otherwise go into a

(15:24):
landfill and materials that we will.

Speaker 6 (15:26):
Run out of one day.

Speaker 5 (15:28):
And they're working and instead of collecting our tax dollars,
they are actually contributing there and paying taxes and working
full time and very productive members of society.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
And they're very very good at it.

Speaker 5 (15:46):
Osha loves this place because they have no accidents, and
the reason is most of the time accidents happen by
taking shortcuts people on the spectrum do.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Not take shortcuts. It's a great insight.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
We don't need a metal detector because people on the
spectrum will not take anything that doesn't belong to them.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
So Jonathan, let me let me bring you in here,
and I want to ask you can you can add.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Whatever you want to about the business part.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
But Brenda was telling me that this is also a
you know, a personal cause and mission for you, and
I'd love to hear a little of that story as well.

Speaker 7 (16:22):
Absolutely, I'm wondering if we found out about it from
the same news story, because Yeah, my mother called me
one day saying she had just heard about this company,
Blue Star Recyclers, that was going to be opening in
Denver and that it would be perfect for our son Ian. So,
my son Ian is autistic. He was at the time

(16:44):
getting close to aging out of the Jefferson County School's
transition program and they had him. They found him a
job working at a pizza place. But the pizza place
had him holding pizza boxes. They looked at him and
all they saw was a disability. And at Blue Star
they see each person for their unique strengths and what

(17:08):
they will do well, not what can't you do, but
what are you going to do better than most people?

Speaker 1 (17:15):
And I and your son.

Speaker 5 (17:17):
I should mention my son works right along my son
Jack works alongside your son Ian. Have you noticed I've
noticed a big change in my son since he started
working there.

Speaker 7 (17:29):
Absolutely, it has been life changing for Ian and it's
been life changing for our family. And he is excited
to get up and go to work. And there are
there have been times when he's had an opportunity to
do something, have a recreational thing instead of going to work,
and he makes sure that he still gets to go

(17:49):
in on another day so that he doesn't miss a
work day.

Speaker 5 (17:52):
Well, I don't know if you were there when they
had a huge snowstorm and at the time, Bill Morris
was the CEO when he was running it, and he
said it's an optional day because it's snowing. And then
he sent us all an email saying, snow day, schmow day.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Our guys they have a schedule to work.

Speaker 5 (18:11):
They show up one hundred percent of the time, and
not one of them would say, no, I'm staying home today.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
They will not do that.

Speaker 5 (18:19):
And they're pretty The company itself is it's a nonprofit
their self sustaining for the most part, they accept electronics,
and I will say, please, if you do nothing else,
please donate those used computers, use television sets that will
otherwise go on a landfill. But I'm here asking people
to donate money to keep this place alive and running

(18:42):
and so that we can employ even more people on
the spectrum.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
And you will come to your generous offer in a second.
But I want to bring Gina into the conversation as well.

Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, we're speaking with Jonathan Save, our business manager of
Blue Star Recyclers on this Giving Tuesday, which is a
double whammy of Giving Tuesday and Colorado Gives Day coming
up next Tuesday. But Jonathan, when Brenda talks about you know,
being able to give, whether it's being able to recycle
items or give your money, what would you be able
to do with I don't know. Let's say one hundred

(19:11):
dollars donation to Blue Star Recyclers, what does that do
for the nonprofit?

Speaker 7 (19:16):
So one hundred dollars that's going to allow us to
get more tools, that that's going to allow us to
pay for a few hours of salary for a potential employee. Yeah,
so we are not quite one hundred percent sustainable on
earned revenue, and that comes both from what people pay

(19:37):
to recycle something like a TV set as well as computers,
which are free to recycle because there's enough valuable material.
But the charitable donations through Colorado Gives Day and other
filmthropic opportunities, that's what allows us to grow and hire
more people and expand the mission. And that's why it's

(19:58):
just so critical.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
I am going to throw this out there, whether you
donate today or next week on Colorado Gibs Day, I
am going to match the first five hundred dollars in donations.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
So I'm asking everybody to.

Speaker 5 (20:12):
Step up and come on double triple my donation.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
And so the way we'll do this, folks is Brent
Brenda's going to match five hundred dollars in donations.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
So the easiest way to do this, I think if you.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Donate and again the website, I don't think I've mentioned it,
blue Star Recyclers with an S on the end dot
org Bluestar Recyclers dot org. If you donate some money
over there, what you can do is email me Ross
at iHeartMedia dot com. You don't need my last name,
Ross at iHeartMedia dot com.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Email me a copy of your digital receipt.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Please make sure it does not include your credit card number.
I do not want your financial information, just the just
you know, the proof that you did it. I'll get
them over to Brenda and he's going to match the
first five hundred dollars. You know, anytime between now and
at least next Tuesday.

Speaker 5 (21:05):
And if you go on the Colorado Gives site, they'll
give you a list. There's a dropdown bar who do
you want to donate to them this day?

Speaker 1 (21:13):
And they match it as well. So come on, you're
getting like a triple quadruple way.

Speaker 6 (21:18):
Im me here.

Speaker 5 (21:19):
And all you got to do is hit Blue Star Recyclers.
And I made sure they're there because I do it
every year.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
And Ross we should mention because a listener text in
it too when we talk about Colorado Gives Day, early
giving is happening right now, so you can.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Go on to the website and give.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
You don't have to wait till next Tuesday in order
to give. There's all those opportunities. Like Brenda mentioned, you
could just search Blue Star Recyclers on their website and
then have the easy portal from there and I will say.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
Wallet hub lists.

Speaker 5 (21:45):
Colorado is one of the top giving states in the country,
So come on, let's prove them right, guys.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Let's do it, and folks blue Star Recyclers dot org.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
To learn more that you can.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Go to the Colorado Gives Day website, as Gina just
mentioned and find Blue Star Recyclers way.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
And part of the.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Reason I wanted to have these guys and have this
on the show not just because it's such a personal
thing to one of my colleagues, but also the fact
that I just love that they are taking these folks
who might otherwise have very few opportunities in life and
giving them actual work in a for profit venture in
the real business world. And I just think it's a

(22:22):
win all the way around, and I love it. If
you need any more information, you can also go to
my blog at Rosscominsky dot comments all up there on
the website. Jonathan sab Our, business manager of Blue Star Recyclers,
Thanks for your time and thanks for what you do.

Speaker 7 (22:37):
Absolutely thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Glad to do it, very glad to do it, all right.
Keep it here for your news, weather and traffic listener
texted it in a few minutes ago.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Look at that.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Beautiful Broncos sunrise, and it sure is gorgeous. It's getting
slightly less range right now, just slightly, but Gina ran
out to take a picture of it. I'm sure she'll
post it on social media. But if you haven't seen
this sunrise yet with the gorgeous orange clouds and the
and the blue sky, the Broncos sunrise, I'd never heard
that term before. Dragon, have you heard that term before

(23:07):
a Broncos sunrise? Of course yeah, I have. Somehow I
missed it, but it's kind of I don't know. Dragon's
shaking his head like Ross, what rock have you been
living under? Right?

Speaker 8 (23:15):
We do need to thank you one more time for
the win now on this past Sunday, because you've listened
to the k Wave podcast. Now that's why the Broncos
won nine and oh when you listen to the broadcast.

Speaker 6 (23:27):
Jeez.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
A quick update on the Faith Winter thing. I shouldn't
say a thing State centered.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Faith Winter was killed in a car accident on Wednesday
night on I twenty five. There's still more information that
we need to get, but so far, what it seems
like the Arapo County Sheriff's Office is saying is that
there were kind of back to back crashes on northbound

(23:54):
I twenty five, and I'll quote from our news partners
at katv R Fox thirty one. The agency, meaning a
Repo County sheriff, first shared the incident as a single crash,
but then said yesterday that the two crashes occurred in
close proximity to each other. The first crash involved two vehicles,
the second crash involved three vehicles, and they initially had

(24:18):
reported it as a single five car crash, but it
looks like it wasn't. The sheriff's office said that two
people were injured in the first crash and two more
in the second crash, and one of the people in
the second crash was State Senator Faith Winter. Three of
them were taken to a local hospital, and State Senator Winter,

(24:39):
former State Representative Winter, died apparently at the scene as
a result of her injuries. The Traffic Safety Unit is
still doing what they call an accident reconstruction, which they
describe as standard procedure in any crash of this a verity.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
The Sheriff's office.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Set, and I quote the process is detailed and complex,
particularly when injuries or fatalities occur, or when multiple vehicles
commercial vehicles, potential criminal charges or unclear circumstances are involved,
and so they're interviewing drivers and passengers and witnesses, and
they're saying that figuring it all out could take several weeks.
I would I would like to know. I'm sure lots

(25:21):
of people would like to know. And I will repeat
what I said yesterday that my thoughts and best wishes
are with the family and friends and colleagues of State
Senator Faith Winter. Did you get a good picture, Gina? Yeah,
yeah you did? Or did you post it on social.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
I posted a video on our Instagram page and on
our Facebook, so you can see it there.

Speaker 9 (25:42):
And I got some photos not on not on former
Twitter I can, yeah, please do because I'm too old
to do those other So those other ones not too old,
I just don't use them.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Uh that Twitter? Twitter is my home of social media.
You know why?

Speaker 2 (25:56):
You know why I'm on Twitter a lot Because I
like being digitally surrounded by the worst people in the
whole world.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Okay, right, Yeah, I get to.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Work with very nice people here in person, so I
might as well go on a platform that has the
worst people in the world.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
Show me the picture on your phone.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
Look at that beautiful Yeah, absolutely, absolutely beautiful. A listener texted,
in a beautiful Broncos sunrise. But as the old saying goes,
hold on, I lost my lost this here red sky
at morn, sailors be warned, meaning there's a storm coming.
I don't know that that's really true, but there is
a storm coming. So it does landlocked state.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
What does that mean?

Speaker 7 (26:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (26:39):
Right, we said that all the time in Florida, even
in Michigan with the Great Lakes.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
But what do you say, what does that mean for?
Uh huh, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, that's kind of along the lines of buying sushi
in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Wait, what does that really belong here?

Speaker 2 (26:52):
All right, I got a couple of quick things I
want to cover here in this segment. I will let
you know, coming up less than half an hour from now,
we'll have the great Leland Vider from News Nation on
the show. That'll be seven thirty four. An hour after that,
at eight thirty four, we got Robert Brice, one of
the world's true leading experts on electric power generation and
power grid and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
So just a ton of stuff to do in the
other segments.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
One quick comment regarding the Pete Hagseth story.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
I'm not going to get into a lot of details
of it right now.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
But I've gotten quite a few listener texts saying, you know,
who's going to defend the smugglers? And the drug smugglers
are killing Americans, so shouldn't they just be killed? And
who you know, why would you stand up for the
drug dealers?

Speaker 1 (27:39):
And I just want to make something very clear, you.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Know when I say that, that looks like it may
have been a war crime, especially if they knew they
were Let's put it this way, if they knew they were.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Killing a couple guys who were hanging on the side
of a.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Blown up boat, so obviously they weren't a threat to
anybody at that time. They weren't armed, they weren't attacking anybody.
If they then took those guys out, that was a
war crime. Almost certainly that was a war crime. But
what I want people to understand this is I'm not
standing up for the smugglers. I'm not just standing against
Pete Haggsath or whatever. I'm just standing up for the

(28:14):
rule of law. And we should just we should all
do that all the time. And it doesn't matter this
is the other thing. Right, the smugglers. These drug smugglers
are the least sympathetic victims ever, right, And I would
be perfectly happy if they got rounded up by the
coastcard right, if boats surrounded them, pointed the guns at them,

(28:37):
arrest them, blow up the drugs, put them on trial
or whatever, put them in jail for a long time.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Look, if you want to try to.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Pass a law, if you know death penalty for drug dealers,
then go ahead and pass the law and then behave
that way. But until then, you can't just go killing people.
And it is not because I like the drug dealers.
I've never touched an illegal drug in my life. I
hate drugs, you know, with the damage that they do. That,
by the way, that's not the same as saying that
they should be illegal. It's a whole different question as

(29:07):
a libertarian. But you know, people, but especially the fentanyl stuff,
I don't even think of fentanyl as a drug.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
I think of fentanyl as a poison.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
I note that these drugs coming out of Venezuela probably
don't have fentanyl.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
That's not where the fentanyl is coming from.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
And in fact, drugs coming out of Ensula through that
route where we are blowing up. The boats are more
likely to be headed into the Caribbean and then into
Europe rather than to the United States. But we keep
blowing them up anyway. Regardless. Please remember that it's about
the rule of law. It's not about standing up for
drugs smugglers, it's not about liking any of that. It's

(29:43):
just about saying we can't run around killing people who
write who are not combatants in war period.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Let me do a quick political story.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
So interesting, peace over at Axios, Mike Johnson. So that's
the Speaker of the Houseke Johnson's red.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Alert on members quitting Congress.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
And what they're talking about is so far twenty six
Republicans and eighteen Democrats. But twenty six Republicans, where the
focus needs to be for right now, have announced that
they will not be running for reelection to the House
of Representatives. Some of them are retiring, some of them
are seeking other offices. In any case, it's a very

(30:25):
big number, right and it's.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
In twenty seventeen, there.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
Were twenty six Republicans and twelve Democrats who retired, and
then in the ensuing midterm election in twenty eighteen, the
first Trump midterm, Democrats took back the majority in the House,
and so there's just a lot of concern here.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
And I'm going to talk more.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Later in the show about a special election going on
in Tennessee today in a district that Donald Trump won
less than a year ago by twenty two points, and
it's a race that seems like it may be pretty close.
I'll tell you more about that a little bit later.

(31:10):
But the one other point that I wanted to make,
there's actually two points. So if you're in the minority
in the US Senate, it's bad, but it's not terrible.
You still have the filibuster, you still conkind of sort
of get things done as a senator in the minority,
but not in the House. If you're in the minority
in the House, you are essentially powerless. Just like being

(31:33):
in the minority in either chamber. In the state legislature,
there's really nothing you can do, and especially if the
majority party doesn't want to work with the minority party
and doesn't care about their input and doesn't need their votes.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
And that's going on a lot lately.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
And so when you think about the likelihood of Republicans
losing the majority and being in the minority in the
next Congress starting in January twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
I do wonder who actually.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Wants that job. And I don't blame these people who
are saying, look, this has been brutal and difficult. While
we're in the majority, we're not getting anything done. Imagine
how bad it's going to be when they're when they're
in the minority. So I actually expect the number to
go up quite a bit of Republicans in particular, maybe
a few Dems, but Republicans in particular who will be

(32:27):
quitting Congress will keep a close close eye on it.
Keep it here for all your news, weather and traffic.
You're listening to Koa, Hi, folks, I'm Ross. That's Gina
over there. Hi Gena, Hi, good to see you. Did
you post the picture on X so I can.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
See it now?

Speaker 10 (32:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (32:43):
I tagged you Enna.

Speaker 6 (32:44):
Oh you are right.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
I mean you're not in the sky, but I just
wanted to make sure you saw it.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
So, folks, if you want to, if you want to
see the beautiful picture of the beautiful sunrise that Gina took.
She posted it on Koa's X page, Instagram page, and
Facebook page. The Broncos sunrise this morning, and it really
really was gorgeous. The clouds were roughly the color of
Dragon's beard, give or take a little bit of orange.

(33:10):
Let me just share this story with you why Dragon
was playing Electric Avenue.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
So I think this won't surprise you at all, but.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Just you know, sometimes it's worth noticing things that kind
of went as you expected. And this is from the
Wall Street Journal, the October EV meaning electric vehicle sales
crash and the subhead as subsidies expire, buyers stay away
from electric showrooms, and so what the What the Wall
Street Journal reports is that dealers sold just under seventy

(33:42):
five thousand new electric vehicles in the US in October.
That's a decline of thirty percent year over year. And
I just want to make something really clear, because I
get misunderstood on this a fair bit. I have no
disclay like of electric vehicles. I actually think electric vehicle

(34:03):
technology is incredibly cool. And once they get the range
thing figured out and the fast charging thing figured out
and sort of more availability of chargers, so it's roughly
as convenient to be, you know, bouncing around town or
even doing a road trip with an EV as it
would be for a gas vehicle, because it'll be easy
enough to just go somewhere, get a charge, and do

(34:25):
it pretty fast. When they get that sorted out, and
they will and they will. Electric vehicles are going to
be the superior technology. So they and I like them.
They have some downsides. They're almost ready for primetime. They
are ready for primetime in some situations, crobably not so
much for road trips, but for you know, someone going
around town and charging at home in the evening.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
So they're really good.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
They're really good, and I'd be happy to have one
if my situation, kind of my lifestyle kind of fitted,
and it might. But what I'm against is the subsidies. Right,
what I'm against is burying my children and you are
and theirs under billions, literally billions.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Of dollars of additional debt.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
I know we have debt for other reasons too, but
burying them under additional billions of dollars of debt in
order to help mostly not entirely, but mostly upper middle
class people buy another car that they wouldn't otherwise buy
without stealing from our children's future earnings. And that's what

(35:27):
bothers me. So I like electric vehicles, and if you
want one, go buy one. They're cool. They are cool,
but just do it without needing somebody else's money. And
if that works out, then great. The tax credit expired
at the end of September. Lots and lots of people
jumped in to buy evs to get that federal tax
credit while it lasted.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
But now it's gone.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
And now it'll be very interesting to see what the
auto manufacturers do to deal with it, because you remember
when Biden was in, and actually even before that, when
Obama was in, you had a bunch of these these
auto manufacturers saying they're going all in on electric and

(36:12):
they're only going to make electric vehicles by such and.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Such a year.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
And essentially every auto manufacturer that makes internal combustion engines
and said they were going to stop doing that and
only make electric by such and such a year.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
They've all backed off, and they need to, and they
need to.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
We might get there, and it won't trouble me if
we do, but just let the market get it done.
When we come back, the one and only Leland Vittert,
please welcome back to the show, my good friend Leland Viddert,
who was indeed born lucky. You can go to born
Lucky dot com to learn more about that. He is
the host of on Balance on News Nation weeknights at

(36:51):
seven pm here in the Mountain time zone, replays again
at ten pm, and I very much encourage you to
go to warnoes dot com and sign up or his
daily email, or at least daily on the days when
he has a show. Leland is a guy who got
the most out of his education at the London School
of Economics.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Right Leland.

Speaker 11 (37:13):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
It seems like the biggest story right now is this
whole drug boat thing and the second strike and you know,
kill everybody, leave no survivors kind of thing. I don't
know if you happen to see the update this morning
from the New York Times that seems to give a
little more breathing room to Pete Hegseth. But how are
you seeing the political implications of this story more than

(37:37):
kind of the facts of it.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Process stories don't normally work when attacking Donald Trump, and by.

Speaker 11 (37:45):
That I mean when you are you, and by that I.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
Mean Democrats remembers the media arguing process, the rules of law.

Speaker 11 (37:56):
Do process immigration? Who gets deported?

Speaker 1 (37:59):
When?

Speaker 11 (38:00):
Why? And on and on.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Those are usually losing arguments because it puts those against
Donald Trump on the other side of common sense issues.
And by that I mean ask most Americans, do we
think boats coming to America filled with drugs should be
blown up? Most people will say yes. In the same
way Democrats thought that they had Trump by the tail

(38:24):
and Christin Holman was going to resign over kilmar Abrego Garcia,
the Maryland man wrongfully deported. Ask most Americans are those
who are here illegally and have committed crimes?

Speaker 11 (38:36):
Should they be deported? Answer yes.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
So again, it's oftentimes Democrats want to attack Trump on
how he is doing something. The American people tend to
care more about what he is doing.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
There was this blow up a few days ago that
I'll tie these things together in a moment with those
I think it was six Democrat members of Congress who
put up this video encouraging members of the military not
to follow illegal orders, which probably most members of the
military already know. And then at least three of them
that I saw, were asked on TV, well can you
name an illegal order that Trump gave?

Speaker 1 (39:12):
And none of them could.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Now it sort of feels like this is their little
crack there to say, oh, we told you so, right,
We told you so.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Here's an illegal order. And that's why that's why I wonder.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
If this might stick a little bit more than the
process that we're talking about, but also because it's kind
of aiming more at heg Seth than and less a Trump.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
But you think it won't.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
No, And to your point, the New York Times now
reporting gives heg Seth even more breathing room on this.

Speaker 11 (39:44):
And this is this is a case where once again
Democrats think they.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
Have the proverbial bull by the horns or by something else,
and they are going to get him this time, whether
it's heag Seth or Gnome or any other one of
the or Bondie, whoever it is, and that's going to
get them to Trump.

Speaker 11 (40:05):
And every time, it's like Lucy in the football.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
They think they have it and then all of a
sudden more facts come out and it gets far murkier.
And I shudder to think now at the discussion of
all of these congressional inquiries. If we're going to start
having congressional hearings about every order that a general or
admiral gave, that is going to be a.

Speaker 11 (40:30):
Terrible thing in America.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
And the biggest danger of that video that the Democrats
put out, and I said it at the time, was
that it's going to have a chilling effect on generals,
admirals and everybody down in the chain of command. Basically,
if I don't like the order you gave, now, I'm
going to haul you before Congress and we're going to
have hearings about it. That is not how America has

(40:52):
ever prosecuted wars. It's not how America has won wars.
And it is a dangerous, dangerous thing. You do not
want the Furguson effect for the US military.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, no doubt.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
And I'll just say again, if if the Washington Post
story just the specifics of there were two survivors and
we killed them, if that's true, don't know if it's true.
If it's true, I do think that was illegal, which.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Is separate from saying whether it's important.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Respectfully, none of us have any idea because in order
to make that qualification, you have to know what the
video was showing. You have to know exactly what position
the boat was in. You have to know whether there
were weapons present, You have to know whether or not
the boat was able to be moved. You have to
know whether there was reports of other cartel members coming

(41:44):
to save that boat, and we don't know any of that.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
That's all true.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
That's why I specified if the story is first reported
is true where you have a couple of guys like
hanging on smoldering wreckage. But let me just finish my
point and then you can agree or disagree. I care
more about the rule of law than I care about
blowing up those guys. It doesn't trouble me that people
like that get what's coming to them, right, I just

(42:12):
in my mind, I think, well, if a cop saw
someone who they're pretty sure was dealing drugs, you know,
maybe running away from a car accident, just as an
example to that, I'm pretty sure that person's been dealing
with drugs, so I'm gonna shoot them like that would
be murder. And I think this is kind of similar.

(42:32):
I sense that you're.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Quite skeptical though, and I like it when we disagree.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Well, yes, I would add to that if you want
to talk about the.

Speaker 12 (42:44):
Rule of law ross the rules of war in international
waters with people who the President of the United States
as commander in chief have deemed a danger to America.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
I don't know if it's the clear and present day statue,
but it's.

Speaker 11 (43:01):
Under the terrorism statue.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
That is a different standard than and rules of engagement
than police are held to as they engage in police
activity in the United States.

Speaker 11 (43:16):
Those are two very different things.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
A soldier can kill someone on the battlefield without probable cause. Okay,
so you're conflating wildly different things. If we want to
say that there is such a thing as an illegal
order and that ordering innocent combatants who have been taken
off the battlefield killed, specifically ordering that to that to

(43:43):
that effect, without any other outside issues or facts, and we.

Speaker 11 (43:52):
Want to adjudicate that, go adjudicate it.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
But my point being is is that from a much
larger sense, I forget the hypothetical of if everything the
Washington Post says is true, because that's rarely a path
anyone has been successful going down Ross.

Speaker 11 (44:10):
I'm saving you here, right, Okay.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
In a larger sense, we've seen this play before, which
is salacious. Story comes out that appears to blow up
everything Trump administration is doing, and everybody goes glombs onto it.

Speaker 11 (44:29):
Oh the rule of law, oh international law.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Oh due process, Oh how can you deport someone who's
just a Maryland father with two kids. And then it
turns out that he was beating his wife in an
MS thirteen gang member. Things get a lot more complicated.
Oh and by the way, he had a final order
of deportation. And suddenly the game to impeach Christy Gnome
is over and Democrats are being told by their congressional

(44:53):
caucus stop going down to Al Salvador and making this
guy a hero. That's we've seen play before, so and
tell I know that it's a different play.

Speaker 11 (45:03):
I'm going to keep looking at it that way.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Give me a few seconds on what you have coming up.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
On your show tonight other than this story.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Oh my favorite story of the week. It turns out
Marilyn Monroe might have been killed.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
What yeah, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Oh it's folks, you got to tone into on balance
with Leland Vendor tonight on News Nation seven pm Mountain Time,
replays at ten pm Mountain Time.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Go to Warnoes dot com.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
And subscribe to Leland's fantastic daily email. It will definitely
make you smarter. Thanks for being here, Leland, as always
appreciate it, all right, See yeah, all right, that guy
is absolutely the best.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
I really really love talking to him.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Gina, did you happen to see this This Denver Post
story Lodo landlords look to sweeten down town with Museum
of ice Cream?

Speaker 1 (45:52):
Have you seen this thing? Yes, the subhead from the
Denver Post. The attraction is.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Not a traditional museum, but instead offers unlimited ice cream
and desserts in a series of Instagram.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Friendly and pink heavy place gapes.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
So I think, given your well, it's not there yet,
but given your Instagram nos, I think you should. You
should like if they do it, you should go and
do social and post it and then write it all
off as a tax dection.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Okay, perfect, I'm in.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
I've I know some people who've gone to the Chicago location.
They have several locations in the Museum of ice Creams,
and they're similar to these Instagram museums.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
That have been opening up as of late.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
On the sixteenth Street Ball sixteenth Street, they have the
Museum of Illusions.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
It's very similar.

Speaker 4 (46:38):
You know, you can take fun photos where someone looks
giant and someone looks really tiny, But the Museum of
ice Cream, I've seen people take photos in it. It's
definitely more of like an Instagram Okay, cool, get dressed up,
go in a tub full of sprinkles and take a
fun photo. I think they're missing on the point that
you're talking onlimited ice cream here. That's what you need

(46:59):
to lead with, not an instagram worthy museum where you
can get fun photos. I need to know more about
the unlimited ice cream.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Too, And I need to know if it's good ice cream.
I will eat cheap ice cream. So that's what's around,
you know. But I but I do love me some
some really good fine ice cream.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
They let's see, so Museum of ice Cream.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
You're talking about locations New York, Chicago, Singapore, Miami, Boston
and Las Vegas and and some people say it's expensive,
like maybe sixty bucks ish, but unlimited ice cream.

Speaker 4 (47:32):
Come on, I want to know. There's got to be
a catch, are you? Is there a time constraint? You
can't sit in there all day and eat ice cream? Right,
there's got to be like ours.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
I would try. You're only just in the sprinkle pool. Yeah,
just trying to eat unlimited ice cream.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
The Denver Post says, so, so bringing this back to
kind of the local thing here, Uh, they talk about
a guy named Dan Hernie h u r and I
who runs a group called Magnetic Capital that developed the
F one Formula one arcade in the Rhino neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Have you been there? I've been there, of course you have.
You've been everywhere. Really cool.

Speaker 4 (48:08):
Actually, that's a fun one because it's a whole I mean,
it's exactly what it sounds like. You have one simulators,
so you're racing cars in these really.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Like the seats move and it's got.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
This around screen and it's like a fun place where
you can get food and drinks and then race all
these cars. So he's got good intentions of bringing some
fun little tourist attractions to the Loto area.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah, so this dude wants to bring the Museum of
ice Cream and they're looking at a at a particular building,
apparently fifteen twenty three to fifteen twenty five Market Street,
and I guess the museum has already signed a letter
of intent to lease that on a.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Fifteen year lease.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
This dude, mister Hernie, bought the building back in in
twenty nineteen. The fifteen twenty three building, the fifteen twenty
five building is owned by some other group, but they're
looking to part to redevelop the buildings for the museum.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
The project looks like twenty.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Five million dollars and they're asking the Denver Downtown Development
Authority to, as they call it, chip in seven point
six million dollars towards that.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
But I would check it out. I would definitely check
it out. I think it seems fun. I think it's
gonna be it's right.

Speaker 4 (49:23):
Yeah, it's definitely one of those museums where it's like
a one and done. I don't think you're going multiple
times unless you're just eating a ton of ice cream
each time. But I think it's very similar if it's
got these instagram worthy photo locations and you take photos,
you enjoy it with friends, and you check it off
off your list. But I am curious when I look
at the unlimited ice cream. The photos I see are

(49:43):
usually like soft serve, soft serve, just in a in
a sugar cone. I don't know if that changes your
opinion of what's good ice cream?

Speaker 1 (49:51):
What's to stay Dragons?

Speaker 8 (49:53):
Somebody had texted into five six six nine zero saying
ross no time limit. I've done the New York say
so fun sixteen dollars sample ice cream?

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Like sixteen okay.

Speaker 7 (50:04):
All right?

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Any if anybody else has been into one of these.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Please text us at five six six nine zero and
let us know, Gina, somebody wants a little elaboration on
the sprinkle pool.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
Oh so it's literally like a giant think a ballpit, Yeah,
but with sprinkles.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, that's at least how I see it.

Speaker 4 (50:21):
I've never been, but that's that's what it looks like.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
And I've been to some of.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
These other instagram worthy ones where they've done, Like I
went to the Bubble Museum once and they did a
bubble ball pit and it was like truly you could
jump into it and just sink to the bottom. That
was here for a little bit. They do all these fun.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
There's a kid.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Those those ball pits with the maybe two to three
inch diameter plastic balls.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
I thought those were heaven on Earth. Oh I love
those so so much. And if you go to Museum.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Of ice Cream dot com, you'll see the picture kind
of They've got these rotating pictures going through on the
front page and they and they show the sprinkle pitt
but the sprinkles are big. They look like maybe five
inches across and an inch tall, oversized sprinkles, but they
look awesome.

Speaker 4 (51:05):
The other thing that they have on their main page,
it says exclusive sweet treats. Try one of the kind desserts,
like our ice cream hot dog.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
What the photo looks like?

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Oh? I see it a pink hot dog bun with
a pickle mustard. And to me, that literally just looks
like vanilla ice cream.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
Ice cream hot dog. So I wonder if it's ice
cream and a hot dog bun. And is the bun?
Why is the bun pink?

Speaker 1 (51:31):
And then the whole is the ice cream hot dog flavored?

Speaker 6 (51:35):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (51:35):
That would be good, right.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
The pickle in that picture looks like a pickle. Yeah,
it doesn't look like an ice cream pickle. It looks
like an actual pickle.

Speaker 11 (51:44):
Yep, all right.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Well from one to six and a half, Gina, with
six and a half being the most. How much do
you want there to be a museum of ice cream
in Denver?

Speaker 1 (51:54):
I'd go I'd give it. I give it a four.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
I'm not banging on the door to be the first
one in, but I check it out for sure. I've
heard people go before and they've enjoyed it, So I'm in.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
I'm right there with you.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Text us at five, six, six nine zero and tell
us what you think. Keep it here on Kaway for
all your news, weather and traffic. Quick follow up, I
want to make on what Ginas told you what's going
on in the markets, and I just wanted to make
one little comment. It's really interesting watching these big moves
in the market. It's it's sort of range bound, right,
it's not moving way out of this band, but it'll

(52:26):
go up several hundred, down, several hundred. Bitcoin is up
five percent today, but it was down a lot yesterday.
It's all over the place, and I just wanted to
mention that to you as.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
A sign of something I've talked about in the past.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
The market just trying to figure out what's really going
on with the economy, because consumer spending looks pretty good,
Holiday spending looks pretty good, Employment numbers look a little
bit weak, and it's just hard to understand it all.
Interest rates also down up, down, up. It's just a
lot of volatility. But for the average person, if you're
not you know, looking at your every single day, it

(53:00):
doesn't mean very much because you look at the beginning
of the month and the end of the month, you're
gonna find not much change for the month. So that's
why a lot of times I recommend, and you know
professionals who are working with savers and investors recommend, just
don't look at it every day. That Money and Market's
commentary brought to you by Blue Heron Capital. Okay, I

(53:21):
want to do two quick things here. First of all, Gina.
So one of the things I love about working with
Gina is she does everything. So if I if I say, oh,
what about this thing, Gina will say more often than that, oh,
I've done that, right. So Gina's that person. She's not
sitting around the house. She and her husband go do things.

(53:41):
And so we got a listener text saying ross the
Coke Museum in Atlanta, you can have unlimited Coca cola,
but there's no bathroom and once you leave, you can't
go back in.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
And of course Gina said, I've been there.

Speaker 6 (53:53):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
It's a fun one. Actually it's pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (53:58):
But I'm not a huge In the Midwest, we love
to say pop pop.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
I know it's different, pop, soda, you name it.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
And when I was living in Florida, it was soda
hands down, and I always got made fun of first
saying pop.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
But I'm not a huge pop drinker.

Speaker 4 (54:11):
So when I went through that it's really cool because
they have like popped from all over the world. You
could try so many different just variations of coke flavors
and things like that, and but to me it was like,
after a couple I'm like, I'm good, you know, it's
just not It's not really something.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Unlimited ice cream. I'll eat ice cream all day, every.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
Day, but I can only drink so many different especially
when they have really funky flavors and just things that
are really different, and you're like, ooh, I didn't like
that one. None. You just kind of go around and
it's truly pop dispensers too, like you're just hitting the
fountain dispenser with a small cup and trying anything you
want as much.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Right it with no bathroom, with no so speaking of flavors,
another listener text, I, I've been to the Museum of
ice Cream in Chicago, and yes, the ice cream in
the hot dog is hot dog.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Flavored and it's gross.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
No way, I kind of want to try it more now, vegetarian,
Oh why wouldn't it be?

Speaker 1 (55:03):
You mean, I don't know if it's hot dog flavored?
Are they used? Are there bits of hot Okay? All right,
how about this?

Speaker 2 (55:08):
If they put a bunch of hot dogs in a
let's just gross out for a minute. Okay, let's just
get let's just get kind of gross. Not FCC problem
level of gross, just a little gross. What if they
put a whole bunch of hot dogs in a bucket
and then they put a bunch of cream or something
on it to absorb the flavor of the hot dog,

(55:30):
and then made ice cream out of the cream, but
there was no physical bit of hot dog, only hot
dog infused cream, but infused from actual hot dogs.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Okay, is that vegetarian ice cream? Not vegetarian? But yes,
I would try it. It's really not vegetarian even though
there's no meat in it.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
Well, it's no because can you make the same argument
of like fries that are fried in a beef because
at a restaurant I'm never gonna say no to fries
when i know they are not technically vegetarian because they were.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Fried in a beef. That.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Yeah, So maybe the line is like how much of
that beef particle is in the thing, Like it's just
enough that you can kind of sniff the hot dog
flavor versus cooking it in beef. I get your point.
I think your comparisons actually pretty good. Yeah, sorry you
would say not vegetarian, but you would try it anyway.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Yep, yeah, I try it too.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
There was one listener who said, from one to six
and a half, how excited he or she would be?
Said six and a half. So there's that, all right,
very good, very good. Lots of stuff to do still
on the show. Let me actually, you know what, here's
another one that Gina brought up. But it's something that
was on my mind yesterday and I didn't talk about it.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
And it's AI and shopping and.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
Actually the New York Times did a whole big story
on this about a week ago, and now it's popping
up on local news stations as well. But you've got
all of these companies where if you go on their websites,
they've got these chatbots that try to guide you to
buying a particular gift.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Based on what they think they know about you.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
So not just the huge companies like Target and Walmart
and Amazon there this is called rufus at Amazon, but
even more niche things like Ralph Lauren for example, and
and chat GPT is doing a thing where you can
kind of tell it what you're looking for. And it
partners with a few businesses, not every business, but it'll

(57:27):
pop up a link so you can you know, oh,
I'm looking for a handmade vegetarian hot dog, and it'll
it'll post an Etsy link and where you can buy
it right from right from chat gpt. Gina, I think
I think this is a great application of AI and

(57:48):
I and I think I think it's gonna be really
successful because there are a lot more people like me,
I think, than like you, which is to say I
am very uncreative.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
You're creative. I'm not. I need help choosing a gift. Okay.

Speaker 4 (58:04):
Well that's funny because that was going to be my
question with this whole article, is are you offended if
somebody gets you a really, really, really cool gift? Wow,
this is totally me. You did such a good job
picking this out. But they used chat gpt to help
them find this creative gift.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
At this point, it would not bother me.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Maybe in the future, depending on how it evolves in
terms of how much people use it, But right now,
what I would say is, oh, that was clever of
you to think of using AI okay to find me
a good gift.

Speaker 4 (58:34):
Because the article I love how they say, uh, chat
gpt AI.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
It knows the data, it knows the algorithms, but it
doesn't know doesn't know people.

Speaker 4 (58:42):
Yeah, so that's the catch is like, okay, that is,
if you get something really cool, that it's really cool,
it's unique, and it's something that you like, then who cares?

Speaker 1 (58:50):
I chat upt helped.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
But if it's like, oh, you just literally searched woman
in her fifties who likes to hike.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
And just you know, and plug in something and just
got a generic gift that doesn't feel as all the.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
And I wonder where where it'll get the data from? Right,
So if it's a person I already know pretty well,
and I can give the AI enough information.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
About my wife or a good friend.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
That it helps choose a gift, that's something although maybe
I could have thought.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Of it by myself.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Now, what about if I were going to buy a
present for someone I don't know very well, like well,
like you, I know you a little, but I don't
know a heck of a lot about you, and about
I know you go to everything, right, and I know
you go to everything, But I wonder how it would
work if I went on one of these things and
said I want to buy a present for Gina doesn't

(59:40):
know and I give them your last name and even
where you work, and does it know anything about you
that could help make that choice that isn't information that's
provided by me.

Speaker 4 (59:52):
Well, what I think would be pretty fascinating is if
you could put in my social media pages, like what
if you put my Instagram is chat gi you know,
is it capable of going through photos and saying, well,
she posted a lot of music festivals, She's on a
lot of hikes, she enjoys the outdoors. Based on her Instagram,
I would say.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
This and I can't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
I bet it can and if not, if not now,
I bet it will in a year.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
But I bet I bet it could already.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
And that's the thing without even telling it the link
to your Instagram. If I said, hey, help me find
a present for ginagon Neck who works at KOA and
lives in Denver, that can find that can certainly find
your Instagram.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Right, yeah? I would think so?

Speaker 6 (01:00:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
And have you at this point used AI to help
you buy a gift for anybody?

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
Are you likely to in the next few weeks? No,
I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
I think I think I have a decent idea of
what people I don't know. I'm a little skeptical about it.

Speaker 8 (01:00:50):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
I actually had a h The best man in our
wedding told us that he used chat GPT to help
make his script, and I was upset by that because
I was like, you should know us well enough that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
You don't really need the assistance.

Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
He's an engineer and my husband and I are much
more in an artsy realm, right, So I realized that
some people just can't have the words or can't have
the ideas and just need a little bit of assistance
to figure it out. So if you need that assistance
to find the perfect gift, you're still getting the perfect gift.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
I guess you used to.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
I was at a meeting yesterday about an event that
I'm going to be participating in, and they, you know,
suggested some things for me to say in my remarks,
which I probably don't really need help with. And then
she said, oh, yeah, you don't have to use this,
but I just had AI generate it based on the
topic for the conversation and all.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
So it is. It is, in fact, a brave, brave
New world.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
Just got a text for my husband because we were
talking about AI gift giving and just like the uses
of being able to, you know, analyze somebody's preferences or
what they want for a gift or just their I
don't know, hobbies and be able to put that into
chat GPT and and get a result. Well, he tried
it with with can you recommend me a present for

(01:02:05):
Gina Gondeck who lives in Denver and works for KOA. Okay,
here's the issue. Works for KOA chat GPT's almost there,
but not quite cool?

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Question is what chat GPT says.

Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
Since Gina lives in Denver and works at KOA, she's
likely into camping, outdoor light, appreciates travel and nature. A
present and then it has a whole link of presents.
You know it's got I don't know that looks like a.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Camping carrying case, a lighter, a lamp. So he's your
husband's listening? Am I allowed to say his name?

Speaker 7 (01:02:34):
Or not?

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Sure? I mean, it doesn't matter if you can, if
you are all.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Right, So Kyle, if you're listening, now try it again
without the works a KOA part.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Yes, and just say because it's an unusual.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
Name, not a lot of Gina Gondex spelled your way
living in Denver. Right, So try it again without the
KOA part and let's see if it fine.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
Not quite be there yet, yeah, Or try it with
eight fifteen ninety four one FM.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
KOA radio and see if that helps. The clearly things
that's at the campground right now.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Yeah, so yeah, and that's not really unique.

Speaker 4 (01:03:05):
If you work at a campground and they said here
here's camping equipment, you worked at a campground, right, so yeah,
that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Producer Dragon, real quick, have you have you experimented with
any use of AI to buy presence?

Speaker 8 (01:03:17):
No, no need, but missus Redbeard has a list a
mile long day ago at any moment, any time of
the year.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
No, that's that's.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
The thing for people who've been married a long time,
as I have to my wife and Dragon has been
to his wife, is if you're thinking about getting your
wife a present, just ask.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Her what she wants.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Yeah, there's very little upside to doing it any other way.
Very wise, very wise, Dragon, So let me just do
a quick political thing with you. And then in the
next segment of the show, assuming he shows up on time,
Robert Bryce is going to join us in studio. He
is one of the world's leading experts on electricity generation
and power grids and where we talk about data centers

(01:03:58):
and small modular nuclear react and all this fabulous stuff.
It sounds a little nerdy, but it is incredibly important. Anyway,
I want to talk about one other thing before that, though.
So there is a special election going on in Tennessee today, yeah, today,
and it's it's for I think it's Tennessee's seventh I

(01:04:20):
could be wrong, Congressional district. And the seat has been
held by a guy named Mark Green, who is I
think a medical doctor, green Beret veteran if I remember correctly,
and he's retiring from he's resigning, retiring whatever from Congress.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
And so there's a special election to fill the seat.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
And I want you to keep an eye on this
because polling has the Republican up. The most recent poll
has the Republican up by two points.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
This is a seat that Donald Trump won a year
ago two points.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
It's quite a conservative seat in fact, and this is
another issue I probably won't have a time to get
into a lot right now, but Tennessee did the kind
of redistricting that Texas and California and some other places
that are trying to do right now where they try
to manipulate it so that the party in power at
the time has way more seats in Congress than they

(01:05:22):
actually should have based on the population of the state.
So they tried to redistrict and it may now come
back to bite him in the butt a little bit.
But keep an eye on this. And there are a
couple interesting things to note. So again it's an open seat,
it's not, and there's no incumbent here. It's running to
fill a vacancy that is caused by a retirement or

(01:05:45):
resignation from Congress. The Republican is a guy named Matt
Van Epps. I think he's a veteran or National Guard
something like that. And the opponent is a woman named
what's her She's got an interesting first name, often aft

(01:06:05):
y n, and her last name is Bain b eh N,
and she is a left leaning Democrat. Again, this is
a Republican slash conservative district, but the most recent poll
has the Republican up only by two. The other thing
that's been interesting in this story is somebody unearthed and

(01:06:26):
redistributed some I think it was a tweet from the
Democratic candidate from a few years ago. Talking about how
much she hates Nashville and hates country music and this
is where she's looking to represent.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Now, She's put out.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
A video since then saying, ah, that was just me
spouting off. And of course I love Nashville and I
go to the Grand Old Opry and I love country
music and all that. But normally, you know, all politics
is local, and that's a pretty interesting thing to have
this person saying they hate the place that they represent.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
Keep an eye on this, Keep an eye on this race.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
If if the Democrat wins, which not likely but not
impossible because special elections are very weird and you never
know who's going to show up, that will be as
bad a day as you can possibly imagine for Republicans.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
If she loses and the.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Republican wins, but it's close, that's still going to be.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
A bad day for Republicans, just not as bad.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Republicans need to win this seat by probably at least
eight in order to not have the story be very
bad for them tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
We'll keep an eye on it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
The Great Robert Bryce, who is one of the world's
leading experts on power generation, power grids, and so on.
His fabulous substack is Robert Bryce dot substech dot com.
He's in from Texas to speak an event in Denver
today that I'll be attending very much, looking forward to
hearing that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Good to see you, my friend.

Speaker 6 (01:07:47):
It's always a pleasure to be with your ross.

Speaker 10 (01:07:49):
But expert, my dad said, anybody from out of town
is an expert. So I guess that qualifies me this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Anyway, that's a good line. But seriously, Robert gets invited
around the world. I remember it's probably a year ago already.
You got invited to Japan to talk to the people
about you know, restarting nuclear or whatever it was over there.

Speaker 10 (01:08:07):
So well I was not the only one in Australia
in the summer.

Speaker 6 (01:08:10):
And yeah, I spoke in London night. Yeah, yeah, I
am kind of a big deal.

Speaker 10 (01:08:13):
Yeah, I mean, let's get let's get real, all right,
So Gina knows that we just met.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
Gina's very well, I actually want to want to and
we've got like six minutes here, but then maybe we'll
continue in the next segment as well. But Gina and
I were talking about data centers when and then I
was sort of telling Gina, uh, just how big a
deal you are? And so I thought just let Gina
jump in kind of with the first questions, because I
think it's right on point.

Speaker 7 (01:08:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:08:36):
So, you know, we were talking about it earlier last week,
about the data center that's going to be put in
place in the Oliria Swansea neighborhood, and it was something
that Denver, Yeah, there was something that a lot of
residents were talking about and just concerns when it comes to.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
The use of power.

Speaker 4 (01:08:51):
You know that the headline said that it could use
more power than our own airport, and neighbors were concerned
about water usage, their utility costs, you know, local air quality,
you name it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Are there concerns valid when.

Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
We talk about these data centers, because it just feels
like it's something new that's popping up around the area
that a lot of residents are pushing back on. In
some cities, are even finding ways to not even have
them in their neighborhoods because neighbors are so concerned about
what it means to them.

Speaker 10 (01:09:17):
Sure, well, their concerns are absolutely valid, Gina. I mean,
this is and it's not just happening here in Denver's
happening all across the US and in fact, all over
the world. And you know, to put these kind of
these numbers into perspective. So I live in Austin, Texas,
and the city owns its own utility. The city Austin
Energy oonnes about four thousand megawats, four gigawatts of new
of total generation capacity that's gas, solar, wind, et cetera.

(01:09:41):
For gigawatts. Well, this new data center that's being put
in Abilene is expected to have five gigawatts one data center.
So these these the scale of the electricity demand coming
from these projects is off the chain, I mean, unlike
anything we've seen before.

Speaker 6 (01:09:56):
And this has been an in the history.

Speaker 10 (01:10:00):
Part of this for the US is electricity demand in
the US has been flat for twenty years essentially, I mean,
growing very slowly one percent or so. And now suddenly
you have the hyperscalers, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta suddenly coming
into all areas all over the country and saying, oh,
we're going to add you know, ten thousand megawats, you
know whatever it is there, you know, you know, monster

(01:10:20):
amounts of new power demand, hundreds of megawats at a time.
And so, yes, consumers are right to be concerned about reliability, costs,
air quality, all of that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
So so what's what's the answer, right, I mean it's
not probably solar and maybe West Texas there's some wind,
but in most places it's not going to be those things.
I'm a big fan, and I think the environmental left
is a big fan as well of Unicorn farts as.

Speaker 10 (01:10:46):
And Fairy does, and Fairy does as a massive potential
power generation power generation.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
But until all the technology is there to do the
unicorn fart capture, what are we going to do to
power these data centers?

Speaker 6 (01:10:59):
It's all about gas ross, It's all about gas, and
it's interesting to watch. And I've watched this for a
long time.

Speaker 10 (01:11:06):
We've been writing about the electricity sector for you know,
fifteen years and my latest book, A Question of Power
Electricity in the Wealth of Nations, you know, published five
years ago about electricity. But what you don't hear Google
and Microsoft and Amazon talking about solar and wind anymore?

Speaker 7 (01:11:19):
Do you?

Speaker 5 (01:11:19):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:11:20):
No?

Speaker 10 (01:11:20):
Because what is that They know that they can't run
these massive data centers on solar and batteries, So what
are they doing? It's it's a dash for gas and
it's happening all across the US. So these data centers,
where are they being built? They're being built near large
gas resources, so in the in the Utica and Ohio,
in the Marcellus and Pennsylvania, in near the premium basmin
in Texas. But it's all about gas, and this is

(01:11:43):
one of the other other key issues here. This is
going this is going to result in increased demand and
therefore increased prices for natural gas.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
What about nuclear? What about SMRs? Is it a In
my mind, I think that's the answer. But they can't
be ready soon enough because the data centers are going.

Speaker 10 (01:12:02):
To be built now exactly, and I think that that's
the key, is that the ability to scale up gas
fire generation is the key. And these data centers, you know,
Microsoft and Amazon, the rest of them an open AI.

Speaker 6 (01:12:14):
We haven't even mentioned them.

Speaker 10 (01:12:15):
They want it yesterday, right, So the buildout for AI
is happening now. I'm pro nuclear, been saying the same
thing for fifteen years, natural gas and nuclear.

Speaker 6 (01:12:23):
But there is no way and I do mean no
way for.

Speaker 10 (01:12:26):
The nuclear the SMRs to be online in anything like
the near term, and by that I mean the next
ten years.

Speaker 6 (01:12:32):
So the build out for AI, it's all a gas story.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
Interesting and do I mean I assume we produce enough
gas here in the US. I mean, we have to
flare this stuff off because we can't necessarily use all
of it. So can are we self sufficient enough in
gas to power the foreseeable future in data centers if
we want to be well?

Speaker 10 (01:12:56):
The short answer is today yes. And but one of
the things I've been writing about talking about a lot,
and in fact I'm talking about it today.

Speaker 6 (01:13:04):
My caption for my presentation is AI Gas and the Grid.

Speaker 10 (01:13:07):
We're going to see this massive slug of new demand
for gas for power for AI and we're also seeing
a big increase in gas demand for LNG export.

Speaker 6 (01:13:16):
So though both of those are hitting at the same time.

Speaker 10 (01:13:19):
And now today I just looked at the price for
Henry Hubb that's the marker for gas in the US today.

Speaker 6 (01:13:23):
It's at four eighty that's double what it was two
years ago.

Speaker 10 (01:13:26):
Right, So we've seen big increases in the price of
natural gas and that's going to translate it more broadly
into higher electricity prices because the US gets about forty
two percent of its power from gas fire generation.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
Wow, all right, folks, if you had any questions about
electricity your bills, you know, not your bill, but what
impacts your bill that kind of thing, and you want
to text in a question at five six six nine
zero for the for the Robert Price, Great Robert Price, who.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Is it a big deal?

Speaker 10 (01:13:53):
And from out of town and from out of town
today only to today only all the way from aust
Ones sold one SRO's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Text your questions in at five six six nine zero.
We're gonna get some news, some some traffic, some weather,
and then we'll come back for our.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
Last few minutes the other today. But we'll do that with.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
Robert and answer your questions and mine and Gena's about electricity,
power grids and so on.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Keep it righting here on KOA. I'm Ross.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
That's Gina Dragon behind the glass. And Robert Bryce, though
one and only Robert Brice, one of the He's a
big deal in town for one sold out show, one
of the truly one of the world's leading experts on
on on electricity generation, power grids and so on. His
fantastic substack that you should subscribe to is Robert Bryce.

(01:14:47):
That's b our y Ce Robert Bryce dot substack dot com.
So we got about four minutes, We got a ton
of questions, so give us fairly quick answers, and let's
start with Gina.

Speaker 4 (01:14:56):
Okay, So we were talking about the data centers, the
one coming to the Leiria Swansea, a neighborhood, one hundred
and eighty thousand square foot building to house this the
size of a Walmart right exactly. And when we talk
about this, is there also the concern that in today's
day and age and the growing technology, that one day
we're going to look at that building and go wow,
Remember when I was a data center that held all

(01:15:17):
this technology. Now it's an analogy because they've been able
to really narrow down the technology and make it way
smaller than what it is right now.

Speaker 10 (01:15:25):
Well, one of the things that is common now with
these data center locations to is noise and noise pollution
is pollution, and these data centers use massive air handling
unis massive air conditioners, and this is one of the
complaints that has been common when these when these big
projects are put into, especially near residential areas. So noise

(01:15:46):
pollution is pollution at full stop, and so that's a
valid concern.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Let's get through as many listener questions as we can
in a short time. You please explain the relationship between
increasing electricity costs and the increasing share of power from
wind and solar.

Speaker 10 (01:16:02):
Well, this is a great question, and Jordan Lomberg had
a great piece on this recently where he just charted
using International Energy Agency data that showed that the countries
that had high penetrations of wind and solar had the
biggest increases in prices. We're paying, the people are paying
the highest prices. You can look at California, you can
look at Germany, you go to Australia, the UK. This
is what is happening. This is the trend. The problem

(01:16:23):
with wind and solar is they don't really displace any
existing conventional generation. They are additional generation, and to put
them on stream online you need high cost transmission. So yes,
wind in solar translate but generally speaking into higher energy prices.

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):
And this is a thing a lot of people don't
focus on. You can build the solar farm, you can
build the wind farm, but then you got to build
the connectivity to get the power from there to wherever
it needs to go, and that is unbelievably expensive.

Speaker 10 (01:16:50):
Well, and in this fall's land use, I'll just add
one quick point that's important to Colorado's here. What happened
this summer in Elbert and El Paso Counties. Both both
county commissions voted unanimously to deny a permit to Excel
Energy to allow the power Pathway project that Excel Energy
is building. Why because they want to bring wind energy
from southern Colorado into Denver, and these local communities and

(01:17:12):
counties are saying, well, put us somewhere else.

Speaker 6 (01:17:14):
This doesn't benefit us.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Do you have a prediction on what's going to happen
with that here in Colorado?

Speaker 10 (01:17:20):
Well, Excel is already trying to go around the counties
and go to the state and the courts to say
and force them to accept this project they don't want.
But this is part for the course with all these
old energy projects. Local communities are pushing back, and big
wind and big solar are trying to force them down
the throats of rural Americans.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
This is a very broad kind of question, so let's
you answer it however however you like.

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
We got about one minute left.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Most of us don't think much about electricity unless the
power goes out or when the utility bill shows up.
What concerns or opportunities should the average person be thinking
about right now?

Speaker 10 (01:17:53):
Well, that's a we don't have. I can't cover it
all in a minute. But I live in Austin, Texas.
I bought a generak. I have a standby generator my house.
Why I got blacked out during winter Storm Yuri. So
I think you know the key for you know, consumers,
resident you know people, be prepared.

Speaker 6 (01:18:07):
It's a boys Scout model.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
So just a quick follow up on this, given what
you know about Colorado and the push that has been
going on here for more and more renewable stuff, separate
from the fact that it's causing our bills to go up,
do you think it poses a measurable threat to reliability?

Speaker 6 (01:18:23):
Sure it does.

Speaker 10 (01:18:24):
And yet this is something that governor polos, they just
refuse to accept this. But I think the broader yes,
reliability absolutely, but the affordability is the one that I
think is the most important. And yeah, and this is
a regressive tax on the poor in the middle class.
I'm adamantly opposed.

Speaker 2 (01:18:39):
Robert Bryce is fantastic substack about almost always about energy issues.
Robert Bryce dot substack dot com, Thanks for joining us
in studio.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
Really good to see you here again.

Speaker 10 (01:18:50):
And congratulations on the new Morning show. Gina putting up
with Ross. Yeah, you are a brave woman.

Speaker 7 (01:18:57):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
Other three hours of radio magic in the can.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
Thank you Gina, Thank you Dragon. See you all tomorrow.
Michael Brown up next.