Good afternoon everyone and welcome to our briefing this afternoon. My name is Carol Werner I'm the executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and we are very very happy to be Putting together this briefing for this afternoon on the topic of Renewable gas or biogas hydropower and geothermal energy and Really looking at these particular renewable energy resources in a way that I think that you will find very informative Because it is our sense of having worked in the energy policy arena for many many years that these are Renewable resources that are abundant across the country in many different kinds of venues And at the same time that they often are overlooked underplayed in terms of their whole role in indeed What should be a really comprehensive energy portfolio and that they really offer exciting Opportunities that can truly be win-win wins So I think that you will find the briefing informative It certainly ties into a lot of the policy issues before the Congress and certainly Topics that you hear many policy makers and members of Congress talking about with regard to concern about energy about reliability About well, what do we have in the way of resources in our region or our state? This briefing will help you see and better understand the enormity And the diversity of energy resources that really can provide Basal of power that can provide energy in a variety of ways coming from a variety of sources using a number of energy technology applications so it and as I said it ties very much into everything from Discussions underway with regard to the Farm Bill on both the Senate and the House side as well as Appropriations there is an important hearing this morning before House Ways and Means Senate Farm Bill was being Marked up in Senate Ag today There are discussions underway and hearings coming up with regard to clean energy standard so with regard to thinking about all of these issues as we think about energy policy and What does this mean for the United States? Where should we be going? I think this is a really hugely important opportunity for us to really hear from some wonderful experts So I think this should be a really really fun discussion And we will look forward to your questions and comments after our speakers have made their presentations and Our first speaker this afternoon will be Katherine Clay who is the executive director of the American Gas Foundation and Catherine will be talking about renewable gas Katherine well, thank you Carol, and let me also thank ESI for Organizing this important event today. I think Carol did an excellent job setting the context for our discussion here together Both parties have been speaking about the need for an all-of-the-above energy strategy And it certainly couldn't be more important for us to be talking about that comprehensive kind of portfolio approach I think often when we talk about that portfolio approach Renewables are mentioned in the list of tools that we need to have in the toolbox to diversify our energy sector To make it more resilient more environmentally sound more energy secure but when we say renewables often I think that Except for those that are very deeply into the issue most Americans tend to think that renewable stops at Important resources but a limited list of resources that perhaps stops at solar and wind and as important as those resources are our country is really blessed with a diversity just within the renewable space and the The topics that I will be speaking to and my colleagues on the panel will be speaking to Give you some really strong important examples of that the one commonality between Renewable gas hydropower and geothermal that you're here about today that I think is really crucial is that these are Renewable sources that will allow us to go beyond Intermittency in electrical generation. They have a tremendous amount of versatility and that's one of the main things I'd like to bring Bring into my messages to you today that I hope that you'll take with you is the versatility of renewable gas in particular So let me first say a word or two about the American Gas Foundation I am pleased to be the executive director of the foundation, which is a 501c3 Established in 1989 the mission of the foundation is to be an independent source of information on in research on programs related into energy and environmental issues with particular relevance to natural gas and The way that natural gas can have a role in a secure and sustainable energy future for the country The remarks that I'm going to make to you today also I mentioned are going to be based on a major study that we completed in 2011 just fall in the fall of last year We have a few copies here with us today that studies entitled the potential for renewable gas and It will also be available at the EESI Website for today's briefing and it's available at the website that you see on the screen before you Which is at the American Gas Foundation So I first wanted to talk about the benefits of renewable gas and why why speak about and and and also I think many of you are probably Unless you're very very deep into these issues may not even be aware of what we mean when we speak about renewable gas so first of all renewable gas is a Kind of a renewable energy source that can bring us the economics the social benefits including new job Opportunities and job growth energy security benefits and of course environmental benefits Renewable gas is a carbon neutral fuel that is produced or captured from Renewable sustainable biomass resources so these can either be Purpose grown crops or they can be residual crop residue or agricultural other agricultural waste products It also can be captured from landfills and it can be captured from wastewater treatment facilities After treatment well and in an important point about the second two Sources of renewable gas is that it's actually beyond carbon neutral and what I mean by that is of course with biomass It's it's the carbon cycle. We have a carbon neutral over the cycle of that Of course, we have to account for the actual energy usage for the the transition that the Using the feedstock and making the renewable gas from that in the case of landfill and what in wastewater treatment facilities We have another ancillary benefits That's actually quite significant and that is avoiding the admissions of methane from these natural sources or these indigenous sources and That methane has as many of you are aware a very strong global warming potential It's on the order of 20 to 30 times on a unit per unit basis as strong a global warming Greenhouse gas as co2 so the opportunity to capture that gas and to use it as a fuel in place of letting it naturally emit into the atmosphere from these these facilities that are found in every community Landfills wastewater treatment That has a tremendous benefit not just because of the direct use of that fuel But because of the avoided admissions and so that's what we mean by saying that this is not just carbon neutral But carbon neutral plus the other benefit of renewable gas and why it's really important to to make sure that we include it in our discussion of Renewables is the versatility of the fuel It can be used for direct use at that site at that wastewater treatment facility for example I can be used for residential heating and cooling. I'm sorry heating and cooking it also can be used for commercial applications Manufacturing including heavy manufacturing Electrical generation including as I mentioned at the outset for baseline generation of electricity and also for transportation Fuel just as CNG compressed natural gas can be used for natural for transportation as an alternative fuel You can also do the same thing with renewable gas that's reclaimed from Landfills or that's produced on as a purpose-driven process from agricultural waste products The potential if we were to to fully utilize the the resource that we have Then this is something that was one of the major outcomes of the study that we undertook last year Is that if we were to push the envelope and take advantage of the full potential as a nation of these Opportunities for renewable gas production we could in fact meet the demand for between four to ten percent of today's natural gas usage All right, so natural gas We consume on the order of about 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas every year in this country And so four to ten percent of that we could actually displace with this better than carbon-neutral fuel So with solar and wind as I mentioned before one of you know as important as these are to our energy future They do have some limitations one being the intermittency another being that when we talk about things like a debate over a national clean energy standard or renewable portfolio standard Often the politics come into play that there are some regions of the country that are more blessed with solar and wind resources Than other areas of the country the good news story for renewable gas is That when we think about where is their potential for renewable gas? Which are the states that have and they have not states for renewable gas? Well, I'll show you where the haves are All of them. So this is truly a 50-state renewable energy resource And what it means is that when it comes to renewable fuels of renewable energy geography is no longer destiny for renewable power So as a 50-state resource Again, every state has potential In terms of landfills and wastewater generation plants found in every community across the country But also most states have potential for either from existing agricultural endeavors Reclaiming some of the agriculture agricultural waste or byproducts that could be used as feedstock for renewable gas production and Other parts of the nation have the potential to actually grow purpose-driven crops that would be grown for the purpose of gasification for example Sometimes it could be coal gasification with natural gas or with with coal to improve the greenhouse gas profile of natural gas or coal energy production or potentially we could It's not today economic, but we could get to the day where entirely biomass derived Gassified fuel could be economic for electrical production If we were again to push that envelope and take it as far as as we could if we had the right policies in place And we use the available land and did the the best job that we could at reclaiming that agricultural waste Our study indicates that we would have based on those feedstocks About 9.5 quadrillion BTUs per year at our disposal With that equates to about 80 million households the total energy usage for 80 million households across the country every year Of course, one of the reasons that we talk about renewables in general and renewable gas is no exception are the greenhouse gas benefits We estimate in our study that using renewable gas both for the direct and the avoided emissions benefits, we could have an estimated 146 million tons of CO2 equivalent avoided per year That's equivalent to taking 29 million cars off of our roads annually and According to an analysis done by the California Air Resources Board as they were developing their low carbon fuel standard They list renewable gas for transportation as the lowest carbon transportation fuel that's available today And as we've mentioned, there are also benefits If we think of this not just as an energy policy, but also as an agricultural policy This can provide revenue streams to the agricultural sector It can help deal with agricultural waste issues which also have cost benefits for for people working in agriculture and in those Those businesses so it's it is as Carol said it's truly win-win-win I wanted to say a few words about transportation because I think this surprises a lot of people when we talk about renewable gas This is actually something that the US Does not lead the world in as we could Given our tremendous potential for the resource in countries such as Sweden and Germany also other countries in the developing world They're looking at this very seriously But there are active programs where cars on the road commercial vehicles on the road today in Germany and Sweden are using Biogas or this renewable natural gas as it's also called are using that as a transportation fuel There are currently 22 models of light-duty vehicles that normal consumers can buy in Europe that are CNG designed vehicles that are completely compatible with renewable gas so this is also a pathway for us for a Renewable and sustainable transportation system as well as an option for power generation and direct use I mentioned job creation another important aspect that we really wanted to focus on to the study because it's so important in our In our dialogue today is that investing in this resource investing in developing this resource We estimate could help create about 250,000 jobs and those would be in the green technology sector farming and agricultural production in particular and An important note is that renewable gas is completely compatible with the existing infrastructure that we have in the ground today So of the 2.4 million miles of natural gas pipeline that we have already invested in as a nation Pipeline that actually we've seen decreased demand. We have excess capacity in those pipelines With the proper treatment of that renewable gas at the site. It is completely consistent with natural gas parameters that govern the usage of pipelines and And so the good news story there as well is that using this resource does not mean massive national capital investments in a new Infrastructure we have the infrastructure in place today So developing the potential, you know, the bottom line is that renewable gas Has a great deal. It can offer the country in terms of that energy security by helping guide us towards a sustainable pathway for transportation job creation the environmental benefits and and It's also It's important that as we think about renewable Policy renewable energy policy that we think about it through the lens beyond just our Are very important but usual suspects and think about some of these other less often discussed Renewables like renewable gas to ensure that the policies that we're putting in place don't inadvertently Disadvantage some of these other Important but not as often discussed Potential players in the renewable energy space So just as an example of the kind of level playing field that we would seek and that we think is in our national interest the Investment tax credit that's in place for some renewables including solar that's due to expire at the end of 2016 Renewable gas is not currently eligible for that That's an example where it could make a tremendous difference in seeding the marketplace and getting a jump-started investment Which we believe is appropriate given the tremendous potential benefits that natural gas the renewable natural gas Can can bring to communities across the country? So with that just in summary It's a 50-state resource Clean carbon neutral even better than carbon neutral given certain feedstocks abundant domestic Resource to improve our energy security particularly in the transport sector Versatile in fact one of the few renewables that can be used across every single segment of the economy and every single energy and use It's compatible with today's infrastructure, and then finally it's a source for job creation With that I I thank you for your attention, and I invite you to also think of the American Gas Foundation as a resource Please visit our website You can find this study and other very important studies that we hope will influence and enrich the debate So thank you very much That was a great presentation and and run through of again all of the Opportunities and advantages that this is that this particular resource can can provide We're now going to take a look at another huge resource across the country that again is is found in every state of our nation and Can again as Catherine was saying with regard to renewable gas as we find with with hydro with water power technologies that there are major major benefits opportunities that deal with with job creation with a renewable resource that can provide very important benefits in terms of of Reliability in terms of base load power generation and and indeed Very much an untapped resource to many people's great surprise So I now would invite Jeff like he who is the director of government affairs for national hydropower Association NHA to Make a presentation on this Thank You Carol, and I also want to say thank you to EESI for having us on the panel I think you're going to see many commonalities between the presentations that Catherine gave I'm going to give and that Carl is going to give as well a quick discussion about the National hydropower Association We're the only national trade association that exclusively represents the interest of the hydropower industry for us That includes technologies meet conventional hydro pump storage hydro and also the new water power technologies like ocean energy Ocean wave ocean title hydro kinetic technologies as well We have IOU's public power independent power producers in our membership As well as equipment and service providers as well and one of the key goals that I would like to get out of this Presentation is to bust some of the myths that people see about our have in their heads about hydropower that we are all tapped out That there isn't any growth potential or that Hydro is only in the in the northwest. I think you'll see some surprising statistics in this presentation So NHA has recently adopted a vision and that is to double the current contribution that Hydro power provides to the electric system today in the US and some of you may ask well What does that mean and that's what this chart shows right here? The hydropower industry provides about 8% of total electricity generation In the US and that represents about two-thirds of renewable energy or renewable electricity generation in the US as well So we would like to see that double and we think that's going to play a major role in trying to meet our clean energy goals as we go forward Some key characteristics of the hydropower fleet I think one of the surprising things that people don't know is that currently there are about 80,000 dams in the United States and Only 3% of those dams have hydropower generating facilities attached to them in generating power So there's a tremendous untapped potential there Not necessarily is every dam Ready or should be powered But certainly there's a tremendous amount universe of projects there for which we could gain a lot of additional power maximizing the existing infrastructure that we have in place One of the other myths I think when people think about hydro is they think about Hoover or Grand Cooley and those are fantastic federal projects They're also very large But the average hydro project is actually very small and this chart here on the screen shows how the individual units In some of the hydropower projects across the United States are actually very small projects And also we are a large Industry that employs currently a tremendous workforce with approximately 300,000 workers across the United States So this map Basically shows you the build out of the hydropower system over time There they go So I just thought I would quickly go through this so you can see What that means and exactly how all of these projects are spread out across the United States and how they impact power Generation from the West Coast to the East Coast even into the center of the of the United States as well And again I think that butts the myth that the hydropower system is only a system that is a big player in the Northwest I mean clearly you can see from across United States from New England to the south To the middle of the country there are hydropower projects But what does that mean for future growth in the hydropower industry? NHA working with Navigant Consulting in 2009 and 2010 put together a growth study that looked at Potential new projects as well as the jobs impact of those projects as you can see on this slide We estimated that there could potentially be 60,000 megawatts of new capacity brought online By about 2025 that includes the suite of technologies that we consider in the hydropower industry conventional hydro Pump storage and the marine ocean hydrokinetic technologies as well You may be wondering why so much pump storage and I think as Catherine had pointed out Particularly with the growth that we're seeing of wind and solar in the West There are a tremendous amount of opportunities in need for energy storage and pump storage is the largest Most commercially available right now systems scale Energy storage technology that we have in the United States and around the world and we have about 20,000 megawatts of existing pump storage in the United States and right now there are preliminary permits and license applications for another 30 to 40,000 megawatts of pump storage alone and One an anecdote that I like to mention too is the about the need for energy storage is when you look at Europe and particularly when you look at Denmark Denmark is seen as a Prime example of how you can get to major Wind penetration for example the other side of the story that isn't really told all the time is how they got there and Denmark doesn't do any of its own grid system balancing. They have an Eastern and Western connection and basically Norway and Sweden to Hydro countries that are primarily rely on hydro for their electricity Interconnects with Denmark and helps balance that power out in that direction on the other side Germany with several large Pump storage projects provides system balancing for Denmark as well So it's really the hydro system in the pump storage system, which is working cooperatively with the wind and solar resources that they're putting on there to create the the The balanced grid that they they have and the penetration of those renewables that they have I Wanted to throw this up here to show the fact that there is a tremendous amount of potential there's about 80,000 megawatts of Potential projects before FERC again as you can see it includes all technologies it includes At least 47 states, so that's almost everyone Not all of these projects will necessarily be built However, again, I think it shows that the universe of untapped potential that is out there So we'd like to show that statistic off and now FERC is tracking online all of the projects that come in for licensing and those Projects that are coming online as part of that study that I talked about from Navigant We also looked at potential jobs that would come from this development And as you can see we came up with 1.4 million cumulative jobs. That's basically a job year That comes from direct and indirect and induced jobs in the hydropower industry So it slides a little funky, but that's okay But as you can see that the the jobs are across all regions of the country obviously a lot in the west But also a lot in the other portions across the United States NHA recently as a matter of fact last week had our annual conference in Washington DC and the Department of Energy Put out a final report looking at some potential for new projects on existing non-powered dams And what this slide doesn't show is Is that That's okay, is that it's about 12 gigawatts, which we think is a tremendous resource and the dots that you see on this On this chart show the types where those projects are located and again as Catherine said in some places that you might not necessarily Think of as having renewables including sort of the rust belt The lower Mississippi places in the south and continuing into New England So we found that very interesting as well as some additional projects in the west and in the mountain west When we looked at that study the top 10 sites as a matter of fact were estimated to be able to provide 3,000 megawatts of projects the top 100 sites 8,000 megawatts With several thousands of other sites mainly small projects that would provide the rest What we've tried to do here is overlay this map with the wind map Potential map that you see and then also with the solar map and again sort of going back and forth between those those maps I think you can see that there's a very nice Compliment between what hydro can provide and what some of the other renewables can provide in terms of potential growth So to talk about some of the benefits of hydro hydro does play a tremendous role in supporting electric grid reliability We like to point out that this quote coming back out of the 2003 blackout As you will recall most of the East Coast was blacked out for a while there and the US Canadian task force that looked at that Basically said that one relatively large island remained in operation And that was in Western New York and that was anchored by both the Niagara and St. Lawrence Hydro plants as well and hydro really served as the as the foundation to restore the grid Back up into working operation Hydro also provides a bevy of ancillary services grid services including Frequency controlled loath following spinning reserve and others and I am not an engineer or a technical person So please don't ask me some of the specific technical questions about those But we do know that those are all important services that need to be provided in order to make sure that when you actually Flip the light switch that you get the power that comes out of it I talked about energy storage, but I did want to put on another slide to talk about Pump storage as you can see there We have 20 gigawatts already with another 31 potentially to be developed and pump storage really is a great way to integrate Renewable resources we're seeing that particularly with wind projects where in many cases the wind resource profile when you look at it is at night and That could be an opportunity where these pumped hydro projects could take that excess generation where there is no demand Use that to pump water up into a storage reservoir and then maintain that water in place until you need it during the daytime When you meet peak demand when you would release it and then generate power from it That is a change from how the pump storage System was originally built out. It was originally built out with the nuclear fleet and to increase the efficiencies in the gas now coal and natural gas system Nuclear power plants you don't want cycling either And so they would take that load at night and then use it during the day to follow load and Then as a similar slide to Catherine as you can see hydro is a clean and sustainable resource We've estimated as well the kinds of Carbon reductions that you see because of the use of hydropower As well as we do want to highlight that the hydropower industry takes its stewarding resource very seriously and spends millions of dollars Hundreds of millions of dollars every year and on environmental improvements a Quick discussion about policy priorities We do support increasing the amount of clean and renewable electricity in our in our system and we there are four main policies that we support a more efficient regulatory process economic incentives We are looking at to see how hydro is recognized under a CES or RES construct and the need for research and development investment by the federal government the hydropower regulatory process is particularly long and sometimes redundant Can spend five and five and a half years going through that process and that doesn't even include the Time that you would spend for actual construction and this comes and you may hear Carl talk about this This comes right into conflict with the short-term policies that we have in place particularly in the tax incentive arena if you have a one to two year extension of Tax incentives and yet you have a five-year licensing process or seven-year development Timeline that those don't work and you have a very hard time If you're a developer going out and getting investment in your project Because people just don't see what there's no certainty that the the incentive will be around by the time your project is going to come online So we're looking at trying to figure out ways how we can bring more agencies together Increase intergovernmental cooperation and try to get the licensing process down to a more manageable time frame that we see for some of the other resources This is a quick slide that starts to look at some of the different Economic incentives that we use in addition to PTCs and ITC's our public power brethren use the clean renewable energy bonds program Which is now been completely subscribed and we would like to see more funding for that we are currently very in much in favor of the HR 3307 which is a PTC extension bill here in the house and Though I've been talking from a hydropower perspective. This is also very important for the new technologies marine and hydrokinetics You know, they are a sort of at the forefront of their development phase. They're still doing some testing. They're still Moving to commercial application But they're going to need time as well in order to be able to come in and use the PTC or some of the other incentives Again quickly just talking on a RES or CES Making sure that hydropower is recognized in such a program and maximizing that That recognition and our a CES is a different policy paradigm from an RES and as you allow more resources into a CES We would like to see more hydro Included in a CES and we've seen in some of the earlier RES proposals We think the Bingham in proposal is a strong first start in that direction and lastly R&D On two fronts once again for the hydropower industry we often hear while you're a mature established technology Why do you need R&D? Well, we're making advancements in the industry and the technology all the time And I like to say back, you know the automobile is a mature technology But yet we're always trying to increase efficiencies safety and we're investing in that and the federal government is investing in that And so we believe it should for hydropower as well through the DOE water power program And again the same is true for the new technologies MHK again They need that initial upfront investment to help them prove out some of their concepts. I Wanted to spend and wrap up talking about a new report that NHA has released We're calling it the hydropower supply chain snapshot We released this at our conference again just last week and we believe it's the first Comprehensive look at a renewable energy resources supply chain This is the map What it shows is that and these are companies that provide the equipment and services to license construct Continue to operate and maintain hydropower projects. These are not the hydropower projects themselves But as you can see once again as we saw with the project map that this map shows that there are projects There are companies working in hydro all across the United States a Little information on how we constructed this map It's a sampling of approximately 200 of of NHA's 200 member companies included developers generators and major equipment suppliers However, it is only 30 members of our 200 members So we really believe that this really is a small slice of the hydropower supply chain Not only that this does not include the federal system suppliers So the Bureau of Reclamation's projects the Corps of Engineers projects our next steps are to take this map go out further To our industry get more data go out to the federal system and really populate this map much further than we have right now But we think it provides at least right now a very good visual Snapshot of the breadth of the industry Again, it was about 2,000 companies from across the country there are about 400 to 550 companies in each regions And as you can see once again Companies in areas where people wouldn't necessarily think that there's an important hydro presence in their area So again, this is hydro in the south some of the member companies And and this just sort of points out the types of companies that are involved in our industry from parts manufacturers to gear Manufacturers engineering for firms pumps and turbines hydraulic specialists all across the country So the nice thing about this map is that if you go to Www.hydro.org you can click on the map and you can click on all of the individual dots and see what companies if they have a Website see what companies are doing and and what how their businesses are being supported by the hydropower industry So I do encourage you to go to hydro.org and take a look at that map and all of our other information Thank you very much Thanks. Thanks very much Jeff. I always reminded by how tall you are But I think In terms of thinking about the supply chain that and that's true with regard to each of the technology families that we're talking about this afternoon that it's really quite incredible and Absolutely fascinating when you think about all of the different kinds of companies that are involved in making all of this work And so you don't have to have a project right in your own community To play a very very important role in delivering any of these energies important energy services And I also have to say Jeff I'm so glad that you mentioned Denmark because just yesterday we held an event with the Danish Embassy at which their investment and trade minister spoke and we also had a pump a highly efficient pump manufacturer speak in terms of looking at the whole nexus of energy water and climate and How all of those things come together and and I also have to mention to that with regard to thinking about What Catherine was talking about as far as renewable gas in Denmark as part of their effort to phase out fossil fuel Used by 2050 as part of their vision. They now have closed all of their landfills because they use it all in terms of agricultural waste in terms of the organics of Solid waste and everything in terms of of capturing all of that so that it doesn't have to go into landfills And obviously they are tapping those landfills that they have closed for their renewable gas So at this time I'd now like to turn to Carl Gaywell whose executive director of the geothermal energy association and Geothermal is yet another Very Fascinating area of renewable energy technology that comes in a variety forms can be used in so many ways A lot of times we think about it in terms of power and in terms primarily of the western United States and Carl We'll talk to that but also in terms of a little bit with regard to some of the other Parts of the geothermal family, but again something that is provides very very important base load capacity a highly reliable and and very renewable and Something that I think that many of us just have not understood the enormous role that it can play here in the United States and Indeed and is playing around the world Carl Put it back up Carol Carol, thank you very much and thank ESI for inviting us and Catherine and Jeff for your presentations I want to go a little bit into What's happening in the industry in 2012? Which is what Carol asked me to talk about and sort of why and why why what makes up some of the factors At least people think is behind some of the trends we see let me start with I think we have some real Geologic knowledge deficit in this country When we did the 2000 Earth Day event on the mall we gave out little hand boilers if people did a quiz Five questions all either yes or no or true or false real simple questions The end of the day we pulled in all the little papers and one of the questions we asked we tallied them up was The center of the earth is hot or cold a Majority of people said cold See so I mean I think we start off with a problem here because that's what we're really talking about I think people find it easy to understand the Sun you walk outside you look at the Sun Wow, what a tremendous source of energy all the photosynthesis on the planet every biological product results from the Sun And you know the challenge is how do you do it economically? How do you use it in a way that you can actually make it viable for an energy source and in a sense? Geothermal phase is the same issue the heat and the earth is enormous here in Washington DC You might dig a trench six or six feet under the ground eight feet under the ground and put in a geothermal heat pump Because you're using the constant temperature of the earth But you could also drill right here 20,000 feet down and the rock is boiling hot And you could produce power you could use that for energy as well If you wanted to drill that deep and that's not so crazy the deepest oil wells today off China run about 38,000 feet So it's possible the question is what are the economics and what is the technology capable to do? Within those economic frameworks, so it's very similar to the way people thought about solar over the last 30 years His solar was always very high-end very expensive, but with consistent work policies and efforts We brought the cost down dramatically and we've seen some of that trend in geothermal But we've not seen the same degree and extent of the support But let me let me go through some of the basics real quick so in 2012 We just published our industry report which is available on our website We updated every year in terms of how many projects are out there and today is about 3,000 megawatts of capacity online in Nine states mostly in the West, but we have 147 power projects under development Which is about according to the developers of the projects 5,000 megawatts of additional power now We also have some interesting new things that are coming up We have 17 demonstration projects that is supported by DOE looking at some new applications Not just drilling deep for really hot resources, but looking at different resources for example low-temperature co-production from oil and gas wells Thousands of oil and gas wells produce hot water the hot water is they pay up for electricity to pump it up And then they have to pump it back down Can you capture that hot water and use it to produce electricity to run the oil field or possibly sell commercially? Well, we're just starting to demonstrate those projects one was just finished last year in Louisiana and more are ongoing But this is the type of new application you're seeing and then we have seven advanced demonstration projects looking at an Enhanced geothermal systems or I like to call them engineer geothermal systems So instead of finding a natural place where the earth and water interact and you've got you tap into it You drill down and find out what's called a conventional Hydrothermal geothermal system you've got hot water ready to take up from the ground You're creating that system by fracturing the rock So those EGS systems are the type of things that the MIT report a few years ago talked about would have an almost unlimited potential in terms of geothermal and energy source and We're seeing small distributed systems as a new trend in number of states now with power online just in the last few years Alaska, New Mexico, Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming some of the new states have not been major power projects They've been essentially distributed generation using small power equipment and you can see the expansion here We have nine states five years ago. We had four states under production So we've gone from four to nine and today we have 15 states with projects under development Almost a third of the country in in terms of landmass more than a third of the country Which is pretty good moving from California, Utah, Nevada, and Hawaii to a third of the country in a matter of really a few years And this is what a geothermal plants looks like because people don't know in fact I think it's rather surprising when they view them because a typical plant today is like the upper left-hand plant Is an air-cooled binary plant? That's the anel salt wells plant and to the right is part of the steamboat complex, which the Ormatt Operates the Ormatt complex on the top right. These are again are all air-cooled plants. There's no water tower They're fairly low-profile 20 feet high the highest point that complex provides all the electricity needed for the entire all the homes in The Reno metropolitan area And it is located in the city limits in fact It's located right where the interstate comes with for comes into Virginia Avenue Everybody in Reno drives by it And if you ask people in Reno, do you have you ever seen a geothermal plant? Most of them will say I Don't know did I have I you'd say then you point out to them? Have you ever gone to the intersection of 295 in Virginia Avenue? And it's a of course They said you know what that is right next to the shopping mall Those are the power plants that provide your power So they've changed as we've moved into a lot of binary power production from what used to be more power plants with cooling towers All but one of the projects brought on in the last five years are these type of binary air-cooled systems And then in the lower right-hand corner is the power system at Oregon Institute of Technology again a binary power system in The university which is now providing all the power for the university complex It used to provide just the heat now they're providing the power as well from their own resources and part of this Is technology development the binary power systems have only been available since the early 90s and The move into small binary systems is really only in the last few years and partly because the technology is available People are finding ways to use it. I mean, I think it's a I call it the build it and they will come sort of scenario Which is the technology is available. You can buy these small modular systems as you see on the right They're used for waste heat They're used for biomass heat They're used for geothermal projects companies like turbine air systems or Matt mafia trench build them They're used for multiple resources and you can buy them off assembly lines Which five years ago you'd have to have them custom-made and that's changing the face of this industry And I think several others and I think you'll see more change in that area over the next few years So what's possible you saw 15 states? Well Congress This place asked the US Geologic Survey to do a resource estimate and tell them what they thought was possible And here's their numbers DOE likes to talk about the middle of the middle undiscovered geothermal systems They like to talk about a 30 gigawatt capacity when 30 gigawatts is a lot of power if you put 30 gigawatts online You would power all of California, which is about 10% of the nation The fact is that's you know $400 billion worth of investment or more however So we've got a long ways to go and then at the bottom you can see the EGS is just you know off the charts if you develop advanced technology your potential is just almost unlimited if and So what does the industry think about this the government's estimates? Well, I'd say the industry thinks that the potential is vast But there's lots of problems first of all the significant there are significant risks related to the subsurface Finding developing confirming the resource. We do not have the same type of technology that oil and gas has It's very high risk You're spending your own money because nobody's going to finance you to do geothermal exploration Or you're spending very expensive money, and that's a major area for technology could help As well as you'll see in a minute on my comment on how incentives don't fit in Secondly, we have long lead times for projects and you couple that with high risk and you've got a problem I mean you can go to somebody and say invest in my project. You might double your money in two years But what if you come up to some invest in my project, and you might make 50% back in 10 years? I mean high-risk long term is a double whammy when you come to investment in projects And for geothermal projects today are taking four to eight years to come online Almost half of which is the time it takes the process permits applications leases etc Government policies are a mismatch. I'll get into that in a minute, but again long lead time projects short-term credits quick example 2005 energy policy out Pete Domenici sponsored various people voted for Congress passed Revolutionary for us because the 2005 bill included hydropower and geothermal in the production tax credit Which was written in 92 for wind and was pretty exclusively wind up to 2005 Great they put geothermal in the production tax credit in 2005 They also rewrote the federal geothermal leasing program At the same time Well the PTC extension for geothermal was three years long It took them two and a half years to write the new leasing regulations So there was a bit of a mismatch right from the get-go But again, I think we all know part of this is you've got to put all the pieces together And sometimes in Congress some things are a lot harder than others And federal research support again has been inconsistent. Let's be nice, and I'll just call it inconsistent These match up pretty much with what the industry would say the drivers are what's driving growth And we've seen slow but consistent growth over the last since 2005 really And we've seen even more dramatic growth in the world market But the US markets continues to move forward even now even despite its problems But it's being driven by federal tax incentives state renewable standards, which are providing supply Better leasing and permitting which finally got underway after the bill got passed better technology development both by industry and with support from DOE and I think the prospects of climate change legislation particularly in California, which it's not a prospect But a reality is driving a lot of investment interest because people look at what California has committed to do over the next 20 years even 10 years and they say holy cow I mean, it's an enormous lift for California They're gonna have to do tremendous changes in their electricity system and technologies like frankly hydropower Gas everything we're gonna have to play a big role And the first is let's take the first one state renewable standards right now I'd say state renewable standards checking the west are floundering first of all, they're over committed More renewables are being bid into these renewable portfolio standards that they could possibly buy Which is an incredible place to be we're actually got too much going forward But then they're trying to figure out now. How do we make it fit? How do we get the regulatory system so that it values things correctly? Back in the last California blackouts after the year 2000 Cambridge Energy Research Testified before the Senate Energy Committee. They said the reason California messed up was its system valued energy but not capacity In other words, they gave you the same price for a kilowatt hour Whether it was produced at one o'clock in the morning or one o'clock in the afternoon, and that's a bit of a problem And that gets to be a big problem when you try to piece things together This is actually the August 2nd 2011 chart from the California independent system operator And you can see on the right the different technologies You see the yellow is solar how much was produced that day and when that's a that's a one through 24 hour o'clock Wind is second small hydro Biogas and the bottom is geothermal Which as we mentioned earlier is a baseload technology or at least is used currently as a baseload technology on the right And this is a constant source of frustration Is how people don't understand the difference between megawatts and megawatt hours? Megawatts on the left the peak production megawatts is the capacity There was the the potential Output of the power plants in California on the ISO The right is the daily production in megawatt hours meaning how many how much electricity they actually produced So for example, you've got 400 megawatts of solar producing 4,000 megawatt hours You've got a thousand megawatts of geothermal producing 22,000 megawatt hours It's complicated and when you're the ISO in California and you're trying to keep the lights on You have to keep all of this balanced so that it matches your demand You have to do it every minute of the day on the minute and you have to do it in the all the different service areas So right now they're going through a process trying to how do we value these things? And how do we give full value to resources like geothermal which frankly in today's world? We're not just baseload But confirm as well most geothermal plants can can load follow However, we want to use them and the debate now is however causing a bit of a stall as they try to figure out How we go forward and meet these big obligations in the future This just to give you a quick quick glimpse is how it all fits together This is the actual daily production for that same day in California. And as you can see Oh, by the way, I should mention them shouldn't I hydropower is split in California small hydropower is renewable Big hydropower is not Okay, so hydropower here is the other hydropower But this is how they they match up with their whole system as you can see this is 10% of the state load is is currently renewables But they're talking about going to 40 to 80 percent over the next 20 years And how they do that and they fit that earlier chart together So they get the right technologies to give them reliability to meet that demand every hour of the day Is going to be a huge task and they're literally Talking through debating the rules right now about how do we do that? Federal tax incentives I mentioned it started off sort of on a wrong foot with the leasing program and the tax credit Starting at the same time, but you've got a 48 year lead time on power projects tax credit expires the end of 2013 in his biomass Hydropower and geothermal road to the both tax committees right now. We're effectively at our deadline for new projects So if California's procuring new power is procuring power for after the PTC deadline So for a geothermal plant we can't include the tax credit For a solar plant because they went out through 2016 they can now Congress gave Solar that longer time frame because of their longer lead times and in fact, there's some legislation pending to considers adding geothermal into that same pot through 2016 but the longer question is the Mitch mismatch of lead times and incentives and there are the different technologies frankly have Different issues with respect to this Federal leasing and permitting The biggest issue here was is running out of resources I met yesterday with Ray Brady from BLM and they created a trust fund a real honest to goodness trust fund one of the Few the actual Treasury system, which by the way OMB seems to hate with a passion That was through five years past the 2005 energy bill and they are now spending the last dollars of that trust fund So the support for leasing permitting and all the processing for geothermal is about to go away And but leasing and permitting has gotten a lot better Although it's I mean I shouldn't say it's got a lot better. We went from zero in 2005 There hadn't been a geofederal geothermal lease issued in 20 years There were applications pending thousands of them that had never been processed. So I mean we're doing better compared to nightmares Do we support this is pretty erratic as you can see that's the actual dollars adjusted for inflation for the DOE geothermal program I mean there's always I'm not a big one on dollars for dollars I'm a big one on what are they spending their money on is it being spent effectively, but when it gets this erratic It's a problem and when people look at the geothermal industry where we need subsurface technology development I mean this is an industry where you spend 10 to 20 million dollars on one well You've got a technology program with a 15 million dollar annual total budget You don't do much. So only in recent years. We've seen an increase in the program I think the industry thought that their budget last year the approach that programs now taking is pretty good I think we have our own comments on it, but the long-term trend again, you don't develop new technology and deploy it Without a concert of a little more consistent support than than what we've seen in the past But on the meantime, there's very strong growth in the global market geothermal has been growing slow But steadily in the u.s. Since 2005 and around the world. It's been booming We've seen new projects in East Africa and Indonesia Indonesia has true as a Laundry list of projects under development Philippines Japan has made a major new commitment to it Chile is doing it doing a lot with geothermal energy and the national export initiative noted that there were two technologies Which they estimated the u.s. Exports more than an imports Hydro power and geothermal so it's one area where we still seem to have a fairly strong technological lead and people around the world Look to the u.s. And u.s. Companies for the best technology, which I think is great. It's nice to feel that way And this shows you the difference the lower is the u.s. Market growth, which has been fairly anemic in recent years Compared to the world growth, which has been fairly strong So last note on a plug here all the congressional offices should have received an invitation We are doing an event May 23rd. It is not a pitch you policy event. It is an international meeting We have representatives from government of Kenya the energy minister of Nicaragua energy ministry of Indonesia We have 20 different countries coming to talk about what they're doing in geothermal energy Both companies from around the world and governments around the world will be the Ronald Reagan Center If you didn't receive an invitation and want to receive one we we can make sure you get it Just let me know and here's where you contact me and you can get our April update and other information on our website We don't charge for our documents. They're all free And that's it. Am I done by time? Okay. Thank you Thanks Carl and all of the presentations will be posted on EESI's websites along with the links to the different reports and events and everything as well so you can go to our website as well as As going directly to to the websites that that everyone talked about So I think listening to everybody. I mean, this is why I feel very very optimistic and Excited about what it is that we could really do a theme again coming out of yesterday's forum with with the Denmark was that the consistency of Policy was extremely important in terms of the partnership between Business and government in Denmark as they really put together their vision and their plan And it has really really paid off for them in terms of their global energy technology leadership and how they are you know accessing not just Creating great innovation in their own country and their market but driving innovation around the world And I think that what we've heard from each of our presenters today shows that enormous Opportunity and why we should feel encouraged about what it is that we that really could come forward here So let's open it up for your questions or comments and just identify yourself, please Did you learn something? Are you excited? Okay? Go ahead over here No Climate change is an important issue for the hydropower industry and it's one that we're actively studying and and and our members are studying over the course of the hundred-year life history of hydro plants in the United States We've gone through some droughts. We've gone through floods certainly there needs to be a lot more worked on on modeling and Predictive predictive modeling on what the impacts of those will be I don't think You can really I don't think the models yet are there where they can Go down to specific regions localities. They're they're much more higher resolution or lower resolution at this point Certainly, it's something that that we are working at looking at our members Do know how to moderate their their operations to adjust for some of that one of the interesting things that is raising in the hydropower community and I think the the Western coast Initially as well just generally is do are we going to need more storage for water? If you're not going to have the snowpack that you usually have because of climate change What does that mean and does that mean potentially you're going to need more dams in order not just for hydro generation But for water supply irrigation and and everything else So I think that is a question that's out there and one that we're taking very seriously and looking at I Think I am optimistic. I mean like I said, I've certainly you know The various regions throughout the country we've seen droughts in the South We've seen droughts in the Northwest then we've seen you know, the Northwest had one of their best water years last year The South rebounded from the from the from what they saw earlier in 2005 2006 So I think probably the trickiest issue is going to be the extremes I mean we've done droughts We've done what water years but maybe we're going to have higher highs and lower lows And that's going to be something that our operators will have to to work with and I was just Going to add to with regard to thinking about snow melt or in terms of of smaller snow packs But sometimes if there's a large snowpack and you're really concerned about it melting too fast Which makes storage really important too so that you can help Calibrate the the flow a little better Okay Back here. Uh-huh. I don't have an average or a median size for you I know generally speaking they're anywhere from about 500 to 1500 megawatt projects So these are large capital intensive projects in some cases they pencil out between one and two billion dollars in order to build Well, I think the the emphasis on the EGS systems misses the fact that There's a lot to do between now and there I mean, we're looking at 3,000 megawatts online today. There's as much as 80,000 megawatts under development I mean this last year we we added a hundred megawatts online just short of a billion dollars of investment You know if you you're looking at 80,000 megawatts of conventional potential that we just simply haven't discovered You're talking about almost a trillion dollars of investment. So I mean we I think things get a little bit out of place I think there's a little there is time to work with EGS I think that everything we do in terms of the research program We will learn things that will help conventional systems and that we can do it in a way that we're able to Confidently address the issues related to which you know fracking brings up about induced seismicity We are participants in a protocol with the Department of Energy the Swiss government the Australian government and all EGS projects follow the protocol in terms of pre-screening and careful monitoring etc And so I mean I think it's a it's a doable issue I don't think it's something that should be a showstopper, but it could be if you push too fast if you decide G We need to do EGS tomorrow. I think that we we need to develop that over the next two decades Well, I mean I think I think it's sort of ironic when people talk about this There's so many myths about taxes. It's just incredible first of all most of what's permanent in the code right now Was temporary at one point a lot of the original energy incentives for oil gas that are start off as a temporary incentive and get Extended and get extended before they either get dropped or written permanently into the code So I think there's a bit of an evolution that occurs with Congress and policy making because it wants first of all I think Congress wants some idea of what is its incentives doing over time on the other hand I think that that it's also ironic to see that when we had this debate comes up a lot of the we call them big dogs Have permanent credits so people I've had a number of people say to me well How come you guys have those temporary credits as if that's what we wanted? that's what we got and You know for example for geothermal and I'm sure hydropower to be included in the production tax credit at all in 2005 was a huge huge leap and gave us a big big push forward So I mean you know they're going to give you three years of the production tax credit and you go to your companies Don't say gee that's going to be tough only so many projects will apply we're not going to say no Because it's going to mean new investment in your projects and you're going to say well We're going to come back and try to push that further I think the ultimate goal here has to be a rationalization of tax policy in terms of energy I think I think that is a discussion we need to have I know my industry is assuming that will occur They've been we've had the president talk about making permanent credits Which is great, and we've had the Congress talking about Discussing a more rational tax policy, and I think the two of those actually maybe in the next Congress Could work together because you know this we're saying the PTC doesn't work for everybody Everybody seems to get in and also people don't realize you know clean coal and that then firms up carbon sequestration and Nuclear power are also in the production tax credit. They just have later deadlines Everybody they sort of Christmas treat into the PTC when they were writing in 2005 and then 2000 revising it But I think things will head in that direction But I think that they're tough choices to make here in terms of how we get this done And it's also incremental. I mean as Carl said both of our technologies got in in 2005 But that was conventional hydro marine and hydro kinetics didn't get in until 2008 and even once hydro and marine got in We were got in at half credit, so we're not even getting the full credit that Geothermal wind and others are getting so I Agree with Carl you sort of take it step by step and and you try to make improvements as you go forward And I think the challenge that we're going to have as Carl was alluding to is how do we do all of that in the Constrained fiscal environment that we have right now. I think that's made our job It's worse because for geothermal power. We were included in the production credit But heat pumps weren't included to just a couple years ago, so I think it's important and I think most of the staff here know that we I mean I think that the process here actually is a lot of there are a lot of people are trying to look at this and say how are different things treated how do we move forward and You know, I think we'll have another round of that in the next couple years next year or two Right, and it's not all that many years obviously that any of this has really been in existence on the on the renewable side I just wanted to add that and this was alluded to that in this very difficult financial very financially constrained environment that we're having these debates in now that that It's it's not just the the tax credits that we need to be talking about They're very powerful policy levers that are revenue-neutral like the clean energy standard and renewable portfolio standards and at the state level and Getting a level playing field in those as well Particularly in this very challenging environment for any tax package to go forward We need to be thinking about those very powerful revenue neutral levers And Carol if I could I just would like to say, you know, we at NHA we often say that you know There's not going to be one silver bullet that's going to fix our energy needs or our energy issues I also think there isn't one silver bullet whether it be in the tax code or other incentive policies that Apply universally across all of our technologies They're going to need to be tweaks to recognize what geothermal needs versus what hydro may need versus what? Renewable gas may need and so I and I think as Carl said I think people are starting to understand that that Yes, there are some policies that will certainly benefit all of the technologies But there are also going to be needed some tweaks and some specific policies to make sure that it works correctly for all of our individual Technologies, there's no one-size-fits-all Important point, okay I'm sorry couldn't hear the first part was this of the the boom in natural gas. Okay, great, great so with with regard to renewable gas the In the short term we're seeing very very low prices for natural gas. It's in the order of two dollars per MMB to you That that will not gas prices will not remain that low However, they will remain low and stable going forward most energy analysts predict that over the next couple decades They'll move in that envelope between about four and six dollars per MMB to you But but given that it's it is true that low gas prices have made it more challenging for Renewables to compete it's you know natural gases is often the benchmark for competition and lower gas prices Than we would have predicted five years ago before the shale gas boom It changes the prognosis going out and what the economic competitiveness has to be but but having said that The the importance of diversifying the energy sector That still remains and that's why policy is going to be important And that's why things like a renewable portfolio standard and clean energy energy standard Have to maintain a pathway forward for renewables to be part of that natural gas is going to be an important foundation field going forward But we we want to have a resilient Diverse energy sector and all the more reason why we need the right policies for it to provide a foundation for all of our for all of our our energy sources Obviously cheap gas in the 90s was devastating to renewables you look back at the early 90s And there were no renewable projects going forward in California for a number of years We're we're struggling with that right now just the other day and out there was a gas deal at over four dollars So we're getting back up in the four to six dollar range, which is less of a problem But I also think this is a really critical thing for people to think about from a policy perspective What exactly are we doing here? Do we have a renewable portfolio standard or is it a renewable price standard? So you just want the cheapest thing you can get and that's the was that the whole purpose of this? I think most of these RPS is in the can in California were driven by things like environmental costs water availability Climate change issues, which in fact you ought to be thinking about cheap gas as good If what you're trying to do is move forward without the price impact. I mean we at whipsawed by this prices go up Great now we're competitive, but nobody wants to pay anything because the economy is bad prices go down Nobody wants to buy anything because they're so cheap. Why can't you beat them? I mean it could use against us either way I think we have from a policy perspective I've got to look across the troughs and the peaks and say where are we going with energy policy and still move forward with The technologies whether it's the state of California the federal government want to see Develop to move forward and not a whipsaw the technologies because otherwise you'll you'll you'll do what they did to the geothermal industry and Others you've devastated these industries over years You know you build up not just developers, but infrastructures Who are the people who provide your those power set? You know they what they call rank and pico rank and power cycle You know engines, but we now have half a dozen new manufacturers in the US producing them If you want them to stay in business and by the way compete with each other Which is great because it means you better product at lower price. They need to have a continuous market So energy policy actually can't got to be based more upon what's the cheapest price and right now that in fact Is there's a debate and a very active debate and one which could have critical impact on our industries And I think quickly all I would add is that price is not the only issue It's a it's a combination of issues in the hydropower industry There are some projects that are competitive with natural gas right now But the issue is our regulatory process and so even though you're competitive if Someone can do a natural gas project in two to three years versus a hydro project, which is a six to seven year Time-frame you're still going to lose out and and so it's all of those things that have to be put into consideration As an example, we've heard one member company of ours who is a basically a hundred percent hydro company and said, you know At this point, we're not going to build any more hydro will go to natural gas And it's because of a variety of all of those issues that are coming together to force them into that decision I just want to react to the point on time frame as we've discussed in a number of different ways That's a really critical issue because whether you're talking about biomass or geothermal hydropower the baseload technologies all take a Lot longer to build over time and when you've got policies whether it's procurement or short-term prices that are saying like in California The procurement cycles two years. They said gee, why don't we get any more geothermal companies bidding? We don't think there's any resource Well, you don't build a plant in two years I could you know BLM would permit my plant in two years. Maybe I could build it But they that's not going to happen, especially in California So this leveling out and understanding that's part of the picture is these don't just choose what's quick But have some policy that works over time I think is important and I'm going to riff off of Carl You know these projects are also long-lived projects.  It's a very economic project. It becomes the least cost power It's one of the reasons why the Northwest has some of the lowest power rates the lowest power rates in the country But yet, you know financing is not done on a 30 year 50 year 80 year scale And so those are the issues that's the issue we face as well Just add a couple a couple more thoughts Some of them that you know the thought leaders in the natural gas industry also are aware that That that renewables offer an opportunity for natural gas and that there's an opportunity for partnership So this panel isn't about the wind and solar intermittent renewables But in those cases there's an opportunity for natural gas peaking facilities to work in partnership with installation of Wind and solar and so I think going forward a lot of the thought leaders in the natural gas industry are starting to think about What is natural gas's role going to be in a more carbon constrained world and part of that is how do you partner with renewables? and then what I spoke about today the potential for renewable gas is The long-term part of that vision as well as we make investments in natural gas power generation or direct use of natural gas In the decades to come when we live in a more carbon constrained world If we continue to develop the resource of renewable natural gas those investments will not be stranded They will be compatible with a transition to this renewable fuel Great. Okay. Go ahead With the renewable fuel standard or you're speaking about the fuel standard. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's interesting It actually it actually is it was from the original statute Biogas or biomethane is eligible under the renewable fuel standard as an advanced advanced fuel advanced biofuel and Yet today there has not been any actual usage of that So no company has stepped forward to take advantage of those those renewable credits the RINs the renewable identification number credits that are used Oh clean energy is okay. Actually. I wasn't aware that they had Okay So the clean energy is oh, oh, forgive me Is is the renewable energy and forgive me? I wasn't aware of it is the clean energy program So they're using is it landfill reclaimed? Oh, that's terrific. I wasn't aware of that It's it's an important this must be quite recent since we completed our report. It's terrific to see there's movement in that area Because as as you know the cellulosic ethanol and other advanced biofuels that we all thought would be commercial by 2012 back when we were riding in 2007 have not become commercial yet and and biogas Biomethane is an option. So I'm very very interested to hear that that companies are stepping forward. Thank you Go ahead That's the range of the projects that have actually come on lines in 2005 over 80% of all of our projects we showed our greenfield That's part of the permitting challenge. They're not an extension They're not I'm building one more plant in a known field like with an oil So you're for the first time going in permitting something's going to take a little bit longer than you otherwise would we're also predominantly federal public lands So you run into a situation. Well, well, for example, you've got a geothermal site and you first of all you've got to get a lease Right, but the lease needs an environmental document. They did a program at a kis that helped a lot on BLM lands So that took two years Well, I didn't count that into the delay But then you obtain the lease you have to go and do some exploration. You might have 5,000 acres of land You've got to drill an exploration well right now It's taking almost 12 months to get an exploration permit on your own federal geothermal lease It's just It's it's worse It's worse. I mean No, the natural gas stuff is not necessarily moving as fast but BLM is putting a lot more resources into that. We're again Ray Brady was talking yesterday about how they're now doing a Low what they call loaded EIS where they're talking about they'll take the project from leasing through permitting in the same EIS That document is taking seven years All The road mapping project and then they're going to go from there with the goal they think and this was their their statement They think they could cut the time in half Just through smart processing and you know good management. I think that's true, too I think a lot of the delays have been for ironic reasons for example We had a project in Idaho that the Applicants sat and sat and sat and he kept calling and he wondered what's going on. They says oh, yeah I'm looking at it. Well, they went up and actually checked and it was sitting on the desk of this BLM staff person They asked him this is BLM asking BLM. What's going on? And he said well, you know, we've never had one of these in Idaho So it always goes to the bottom of the pile Well the Washington office Delegated someone from Nevada for two months to Idaho to take care of the process and it was issued There's a lot of that when you're rebuilding an industry which is what we're really doing I mean, we had a very strong geothermal industry in the 70s 80s up into the early 90s Which is when purple fell apart. So for 15 years, we're looking at double-digit growth Cut prices in half and then zero for a long period of time We're just rebuilding that industry not only is the industry having to rebuild that infrastructure But the bureaucratic and administrative structure has to be rebuilt and I mean people frankly I was reminded this very vehemently by one of my younger staffers that Asking people to rely upon documents that were written before they were born is usually pushing the envelope So we have to sort of reinvent everything to go to go with this and and that is part of the problem The good news though is I think a lot of it could be cut now I think I think it's feasible, but it's going to take some resources and a consistent effort deal We just yesterday started this process. We had everybody from fish and wildlife service to see Q in the room I think it could make a big difference. I know there's been improvements in other areas, too because a lot of it is just Problems that don't have anything to do with the project They don't have anything to do with the fact that gee you've got a conflict with the in fact You can deal with the conflicts and the environmental problems What you can't deal with is the process and getting through the institutions of our bureaucracies Now you can build a facility in you know six months to a year in most cases and except for example You're in Southern California where they have nocturnal species that get disturbed by light so you can only build during the daylight hours Those plants take about twice as long as everyone else But or if you're in an area which gets extreme snowfall like Oregon seems to get where its geothermal resources is But no in general you can build projects in a much shorter period of time There were some issues especially in 2005 six and seven of just getting the equipment You literally could not get a power turbine because that's where there's a big gas was booming You know they would you want a turbine from Fuji? It's three years at least that has subsided the infrastructure The supply chain is much more available right now, but our problem is now just bureaucratic Well, and I want to thank all of our panelists terrific job I always learn so much from everybody and there are always all of these interesting Pieces that it's so important for all of us to understand if we really want things to move forward How these pieces really do have to be put together and how we overcome different impediments that may be unintentional but but exist because people are so used to doing things in terms of conventional forms of energy as opposed to not being experienced in terms of thinking about different renewable energy resources and So I want to thank you all for being here and for your questions and for your attention and thank you all very very much so See you next time