I don't know, I got a little inspired when I decided to write up my proposal for this project and I wanna set it in context because I don't actually study nuns and I don't study biographies and so I was feeling a little bit out of my element this morning but I realized when I think on it a little bit that it's inevitable that I would have come to this point where I write this particular paper. So I wanna set it a little bit in the context of I've done a little teeny bit of work on biography. I'm very interested in, I like little booklets, ephemera. I tend not to work with the kind of the books that are in your library. I tend to work with the things that are sitting at the door of the temple and so I've collected these and I was very interested in how at the beginning of books as books become less expensive you start to have a wider variety of people who are honored in the beginnings of books because you can actually just any other, almost any person with sort of any cloud at all can kind of get their page in front of one of these books and so the audience is broader and the donors are broader and therefore the recipients of this honor are also a broader spectrum and so in the past I wrote about a couple of these. I wrote about one biography of a Jane lay woman in the front of a hymn book. I wrote about that where it's a couple of pages long. These are very short modest biographies in which she was conforming to sort of what does a great layman look like? She was a lay woman and they sort of, she happened to really participate in the discourse pretty effectively. Then I started really looking at them because I got a little obsessed with it for a while but I noticed that most of the ones of women actually can't conform because they were usually daughters or young wives and they hadn't done sort of donations and they hadn't done all the things that usually get you a biography and so that that second article was looking at how in order to find a way to construct their greatness they had to kind of go to an ideological idealization through Sati discourse. So this topic today is a biography that was handed to me and it's of a nun, Divya Prabhasriji. She is a Tapakach nun who is usually in recent history wandered around the area of central Maharashtra sort of from the gods east not so much in Bombay, she did a little bit of time in Bombay but not too much and I found out about her actually because she's very popular with the lay women who I happened to do my research with. She sponsored a few updans, they had gone and stayed with her and they all felt very strongly that I should get to know this nun particularly in the context of my project on Jay and Sati and so I went and met her and actually she's very charismatic, very, very smart and I thought oh this, this woman I'm gonna come back and meet but as I was leaving her guru sister who was in her family now because their guru mother was long dead so she traveled with her. Guru sister hands me this book and she says you need this book so you can understand everything about her and because I wasn't actually writing about it I stuck that book aside in 2001 and then this panel, this workshop arose and I decided to look at that book and I actually had not really, I kind of flipped through it a little bit back in 2001 but it wasn't what I was doing so I didn't look very carefully. So at the time they said you must go meet her so I met her and then they said she's gonna do a big Pravachan, come down for this and actually it was one of the largest events I'd been to in Pune, Jane events other than dikshas and parades. I think I counted somewhere between five and 600 people which for the Jane community in Pune was a pretty large gathering actually. Coming to hear her speak and it was about 25% men which is about usually what it looks like no matter what the event is and so it actually was striking to me that she gave this very erudites, it was actually a Naga Pravesh at the beginning of the rainy season and so she did a speech on the rainy season obligations and the obligations that were coming for Pradyushan and it was incredibly well attended and I was struck by it because as far as I knew Tapa Guchanans didn't do that but they didn't give public sermons and that they didn't give them in front of men and that they definitely didn't give ones with hundreds of people. I had heard them give small talks to them so I said oh she must be Karthikach, everyone's just confused and in fact in Pune that often does happen that the affiliations with Guchas is a little bit more fluid partly because there's not as many mendicans around so whoever's kind of a rounding charismatic gets an audience and I set that aside as oh they must have, that's interesting to me, I'm gonna go back and look at that someday. So when I opened up this book, I wanna talk about the book itself. The book is actually pretty well made for ephemera, it actually had a solid cover, it was color printed on the cover, it's a little unusual for these sort of handouts that you get at the door and it's 16 pages long and the main largest piece is a six page biography of her written by, presumably written by the person credited with writing the book which was Jane Layman. And alongside it you also had a short reflection on her greatness from her guru sister, another one from another Layman, a couple of short comments from her disciples, she had nine Sadvis that traveled with her not including the sister nun who also traveled with her and then there was a kind of a list of facts about her if you've ever looked at these sort of felicitations, this shouldn't be unusual to you. Actually reminded me of what you spoke about, some of those pamphlets that probably come out for the Tulsi thing that you're looking at, this is just a much more modest version and then at the end of it kind of, there's on the cover, on the insides, there were these two kind of mirrored photograph collages. One is a collage of her in the center of the kind of the universe with her Sadvis around her, her disciples around her and then the inside is a similar collage with who is it, with Boudi Vijay and the lineage leading down to her through the mendicant lineage of men down through to her grandmother Sadvi. Transferring it over to her. When I looked at that, I said, oh, no, we are dealing with Tapakach here. The lineage was very clear and so I said, okay, that's interesting and I went reading about it and this is actually how I got started, I went reading about it and I looked around and I looked at some biographies of Tapakach nuns which focused primarily on the fasting that these nuns would do in their expert fasters and that focused on their devotion, sometimes devotion to guru mother and grandmother as in almost in a familial sense and sort of vatsalya for their disciples. So that made sense to me and I didn't run into anybody really in any of the, and it's hard to find these nuns biographies in the Tapakach, they really don't have a lot of them but you run into them here and there and none of them really talked about education, scholarship or giving sermons and so I thought that was interesting and when I did look at one's written about Katergach Sadvi, say in fact, do talk about that and they talk about what great sermons they gave and things like that and I'll talk about that if I have time at the end a little bit more but so clearly that's a possible biography for Murti Pujak Nun but it is not really the Tapakach Nun. So that's what the, those were the models I was able to find to compare with because it doesn't look like the great biographies of the Jain monks at all, partly because it's much more modest and partly because what I found was that the requirements of representing them as virtuous through the lens of being female was very, very important even in this biography of this particular nun. So the biography itself was written on the occasion of her 50th anniversary of being a Sadvi or 50th anniversary of her diksha. She had been, she took diksha at 10 years old and she had become the head of this family of nuns that she was in charge of and was well respected as a scholar and so they wrote this and that was actually shared across the things that were written about her but also every time someone represented her to me they said she's really a good scholar which I found to be the case actually. So when we talked about it, when I looked at this, when I looked at the biography I read it many, many times and what I was struck by were the themes of what did they actually talk about in the biography? So if we can imagine, it divides fairly nicely into four sections. So the first section is very long and it's a long description of the village that her family comes from, the ancestral village of Alpa in Rajasthan and talking about how it's a place that produces women of great virtue and great strength. So it's kind of a classic, almost Rajput-like, description of the daughter of the desert, okay? And so an entire section on this, I mean a good little over a page out of six, a description of the girls carrying the heavy water pots and how strong they are at a young age and so forth and so on and how it produces women of particular strength and vigor. The second page, really, section of it, which talks about her childhood and how she came to take Diksha and this actually was interesting. She doesn't sound like they had a great time in her family. Her father had to move three times because of business failures. They seem not to have Ken particularly. They seem not to have any other relatives. They only relatives in the family seem to be. The mother and the father had lost two daughters in their maybe childbirth, maybe first days. It's a little hard to translate this section. And so she was their third child, another daughter, the last child they had, and they immediately moved after she survived her 40 days and then they moved again and they moved a couple of times around Maharashtra each time sort of leaving behind an abandoned business in some village and they end up in Karajat where it's not even clear how that was working out but the mother immediately dies when they get to Karajat and he remarries another woman. The father remarries another woman. It doesn't seem to work out. He decides he wants to renounce. But he's got this problem which is that he has a daughter. And now it's very interesting to me we're not dealing with a hagiography in a full sense here. It's definitely not crystallized yet because they actually represent her family it's not really so great. Usually hagiographies clean these things up. And so what we have in this is he says, the way he says he wants to renounce and it says in the text the only thing between him and renouncing was the daughter and the anger people will express if he leaves her. So what he has to do, it says what he has to do is he has to give his daughter in renunciation to free the way for himself. So, his name was Fajamalji. So Fajamalji put a stone on his heart and handed over his beloved daughter to the renouncers. And then according to the custom he was able to heroically renounce himself. Blessings for those fathers and mothers who do not have their children for one lifetime but are blessed to have them over and over again.  Which doesn't up, it's a little bit, we're not even really talking about Baldyksha here, we're really talking about something more like orphanaging her. And I think it's interesting that later in a six page biography they tell the story of Baldyksha again in which he does renounce first and she's so inspired that she follows him into renunciation. So I think it's interesting that in this very short biography they actually have two tellings of her Dikshah and the second one being although problematic in terms of he may be abandoned his daughter less problematic than forcing her into Dikshah. And so they haven't crystallized the biography yet if they have these two contrary versions neither of which are simple. We'll see, time will tell which one wins in terms of the discussion of it. But so she goes into, she takes Dikshah and she is brought into an environment with a mother nun and a grandmother nun who are described at great length as being the family she never had. And so she was very, very close to them and when they died, there's this telling phrase in which it says after they died Divya Prabhupashree decided to continue her duties as a nun. So there's a recognition in the story that in a sense she has to recommit because she really was being raised by them although she had taken Dikshah, full Dikshah she was then as an adult recommitting to being a nun and chooses to stay. After this they elect her to be the head of the family after the mother is, mother nun has died and the gachapati of their lineage notices her because she's quite well known as a scholar and very, very good speaker. She's a fantastic speaker. And so she came to his attention and he encouraged her to continue her scholarship and she builds up a kind of a repertoire of scholarship and she goes through, and it's this long list, it's very sort of, it's actually kind of, this is the one place where it's actually almost formulaic and they kind of give a list of the things she knows and she knows logic and argumentation and all the lives of enlightened beings and apparently she studies Haribhadra and they condense Sanskrit grammar and karma theory and pilgrimage site collections and collections of discourse on karma, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, it goes on for quite a bit. It's a classic kind of formulaic list of she has studied real stuff, right? They're making it clear that she, it's not like she read a few devotional poems and I say that because in the context of biographies of women they usually don't get credited with doing sort of the academic kind of scholarship but she really, they make a very big point, it's half a page, listing of all the various texts that she has read and she spent 23 rainy seasons in Paletana and Almdabad studying with the Gacchapati and then they said she also, because she was around, she was a Rajasthani speaker from Maharashtra, Marwari speaker and she also learned Gujarati, standard Hindi and then apparently also Bengali while she was going around and she was considered a great linguist and said that she felt it was very important, how do they put this? She felt that it was important for her to learn and adapt to the customs and manners of each place where she visited. Gujarat, Rajasthani, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal because in each of these ancient sites she was able to get to know Jainism more deeply so as she went around she felt that she could kind of acculturate to these and finally on the last page, they go back to her father and they start talking about him as a monk because they kind of mention him as also being a monk and they say that he'd always wanted to be a monk and that his renunciation then leads to the inspiration for renunciation in his daughter and they kind of credit him with kind of, the way that the term they use is actually polishing the gem of her so that she then also renounces and isn't it wonderful? He and his daughter both thought to improve their rebirth, how big a vision this was, how large, resolute firm his heart, how great his resolve, blessed in this way the history of her father's renunciation recorded and Alpa having seen this and being seen by the world so this little town being seen by the world that such a small village's ground produced such a glowing gem and so we have this interesting take on the father so then I'll talk about the other, she's very briefly and then I'll just give some closing comments so the other two reflections on them, one written by her guru sister, focuses primarily on how she took over the family after their guru mother died and it's a very intimate reflection of it but she says two things, she says one, the degree of her half century of selfless service and generosity could bind her the karma, Jinnanama karma so maybe she's some future Jinnah and that's why she is also so skilled in knowledge and then the second one was that what she learned from their guru mother which she did not learn at home she then passes on to the Sadhvish who come to her and so we have this kind of interesting way in which kind of a bad childhood is redeemed through renunciation. The other short reflection is by another layman, Dalipchand Gharia and he writes that primarily he says she brings glory to the city of Alpa she is truly a daughter of the desert, she excels primarily in knowledge and discipline and so again framing her in the language usually used to gendered male virtues in Jinnism so we have this interesting way in which by virtue of sort of being around long enough on a level she's sort of been and being a scholar by nature she is kind of gendered as kind of a almost male renouncer in a certain way and I think it's significant too that at no point in the entire set of biographies do they speak of fasting which when you read women's biographies they're littered with the fast that they've done in no point do they mention fasting in any of the biographies and yet before we make some radical feminist interpretation of it recognizing that her identity is linked very strongly to her father and also to the male head of the lineage the Gattapati who actually kind of marks her as special so we still have the standard kind of hierarchical procedures but she herself is non-conforming in her life and this biography actually reflected it isn't cleaned up to be more conformist and so it's a bit, I would call it an unsettled account and I think part of that is she's still here to actually be complicated and to be a problem if you will for the biography she is still participating in the telling of her own story and I'm watching this space to see how it plays out one of the, and then just in conclusion one of the things that I am very fascinated by in this account, in this little biography but also in little biographies in general is that they tend to be a kind of a pre-crystallized discourse these are written by people who are not widely educated the people that write this they haven't read all the other biographies out there to make sure it matches maybe they've read one or two here and there maybe they've read a little bit but these are unsettled partly because they don't know what you're supposed to say and surely if you read biographies that are more sort of edited and more crystallized, more polished up you don't get this kind of double Dixia maybe the dad's not a good guy kind of story that will be gone in the future we won't see that and just the same way I've noticed in other parts of when I look at the way that people tell their own story when it's in that phase where it's still being formulated it's still being created we have an opportunity to see what the options are and to see what possible worlds are available and we don't always get them in the permanent record but these are still possible worlds on the ground and so for a group on biography I guess my sort of last thing to sort of put out there is this idea that one of the things that we have especially when we have multiple biographies of a particular character is this wonderful opportunity to watch the way that human beings creatively negotiate, polish up, clean up and also dismantle our understanding of what constitutes a good life, thank you.


What's up, people? Coach Javi here, and I've been getting a lot of criticism lately. People are saying, Coach Javi, you only ever hit the top bins with your right foot, never your left foot. Coach Javi, you put too much milk in your cereal. Coach Javi, there's no way you can be that good looking and a tactical genius.  We sail the moon, we'd go to bed. In my arms, you're safe and sound without a thread.


role of HNEI in Hawaii's clean energy future here on ThinkTech. I'm Jay Fiedel. It's the 12 o'clock clock on Monday. And our special guest is Rick Roscholo, the director of HNEI, Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at UH. And my co-host and contributor, Marco Olo Mangelstorf. There you are, Marco. Marco, can you take the moment and introduce Rick, please? Oh, I certainly can. First of all, thank you so much, Jay, for the duo being reunited here on this Monday. And it's my great pleasure to welcome Rick Roscholo to our show today. Rick brings such a wealth of knowledge. He's been head of Hawaii Natural Energy Institute for more than 20 years. And I'm so pleased, Rick, to have you on. Thank you so much. And my question to you, and this is a question I'd like to ask a lot of our guests is, if the Rick Roscholo of 2021 could speak to the Rick Roscholo 20 years ago, and you're just getting your feet wet at HNEI, what pearls of wisdom, what pearls of wisdom would the Rick of today tell the Rick of 20 years ago? Wow, that's a tough question. 20 years ago is even that long ago. You know, I guess 20 years ago was about when HNEI really started to get involved in the integration of renewables on the grid, as opposed to just looking at technology development. And I guess I would have told myself to really keep an open mind about how much we can do and how much the systems are going to evolve and don't be surprised at the progress that's going to be made, even some that look, I think fairly daunting and fairly difficult, you know, a lot less than 20 years ago, to be honest. And to kind of rip off of that just for a moment, I mean, I too, I moved to Hawaii in 2020, 2000, to be a funding team member provision. I've been connected to Hawaii since my grandparents moved to Manoa in the 1920s. And back 10 years ago, 20 years ago, I would not have imagined the degree to which distributed energy resources, aka solar PV, and now for solar plus storage, is becoming so widespread. I mean, of course, I'd always hope that it would be, but the degree to which the grids are island grids can handle more and more and more renewable energy has been truly astonishing to me. And it's taken an all hands on deck approach. And you've been a part of that. You've been on that deck. I've been a little person and on the deck as well. And Hawaiian Electric and the public utilities commission and so many others. So yeah, it's been truly astonishing how far we've come the next past 20 years. So maybe we have 20 more years and then some of a fantastic progress. Rick, what does HNEI do? I mean, it does research. It has scientists. It invents products, refines products. It looks at all possibilities for renewable energy. But in your word for it, in your concept of it going forward, what does it do? We have really three buckets of activities, I'll call them. Things that I grouped together in kind of similar levels of activities. And probably about half our funding and probably more than half of our people are involved in what you expect the university to be involved in your research development, developing new materials, new processes, new methodologies for doing things. Some of it's in the lab. Some of it is done at grid scale, but it's more of a demonstration or a validation of the way systems work. Some of our early battery work fell in that category where we deployed batteries and really learned how to use them on the HECO grid, our hydrogen fueling station on the big island falls in that category. So that's about half of what we do. And it's kind of going from what university groups typically do to a little bit more practical and out on the grid. Over the last maybe five to six years, we've really opened up significant doors throughout Southeast Asia. We're now active in a number of countries and regions. We have projects in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines, to name a few, probably quite a few more. And that's opened up new funding opportunities with groups like USAID and most recently with World Bank that has expanded. And really, we're using that opportunity to take what we've learned in Hawaii and exported and actually teach people there how to do it. We actually have a group. I'm not sure exactly how many it is. It's more than a half dozen, maybe close to a dozen of engineers from the Provincial Energy Authority in Thailand in town this week getting training on how to implement renewables into their grid system. And that's one of the ongoing activities. That's rough numbers, maybe 30% of activity. And about 20% is really focused on directly supporting Hawaii and the organizations in Hawaii, the PUC, working closely with utility, working with state energy office, really trying to do both projects. And in a lot of cases, analysis to look at how do we integrate more renewables into the grid? How do we maintain grid reliability? How do we best use our assets going forward to try to get as close as we can to our 100% goal? Dar, you're really central in clean energy, in the development of clean energy in the state and furthermore in exporting the science, the organizational aspects of clean energy to other countries. I didn't realize how much. But one of the things you said, and that is your leadership in the community, evokes the question about the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, which has been for the past 15 years or so, associated with the School of Social Sciences at UH.  And now you're going to be managing Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. This is a really important development, should be of interest to everybody in energy in the state of Hawaii. Can you talk about it? You know, I can talk about it in it, you know, due to personnel changes and organizational changes, the Policy Forum was kind of in need of a new home. H&EI has been involved since its inception. I was involved rather closely in the very early days, and then other people at H&EI kind of picked up that role. You know, and when we looked at it, it was an opportunity to try to integrate and get more involved with the broader sector of the community. We work, like I said, with the PUC and utility. And with a lot of other organizations as well. But the Policy Forum gives a chance to really broaden that interaction and bring in those other inputs that I think are going to be needed from other people. I would put it in the developmental stage right now. We're having discussions with parties that are members of the forum, certainly with some of the legislators to see what their needs are and really trying to figure out how that forum can best serve the community and the state legislature and other groups in the state. So I don't think I would affirm it as we have a definitive plan yet, but we are committed to making it work. Thankfully, due to the barrel tax that was put in place, and the fact that we get some of that barrel tax, we can support those activities. So hopefully in the next few months, that path will get much better defined and we'll see the progress starting to take shape. As I said, you know, you are in the center of things, and the Energy Policy Forum has been, over the years, a gathering place for the energy community. And now I think under your leadership, it will be that again. Then I guess the question I put to you is, how important is it that the energy community get together and collaborate? It hasn't done that, at least in my view, to the extent it could have. You are a great successor leader for the Energy Policy Forum. And I guess how important is it that they talk to each other, they compare notes about it. They work together in advising government of the projects that are most important. You've been doing that, but suppose we look forward and see the entire community doing that, doesn't that help? Well, I guess in some ways, I think it's more important than ever. In the very early days, as you're aware, you were around Jay doing it. The Policy Forum is really trying to guide some early policy on how we move to renewables, and some things proposed have happened, and some haven't as typically happened. The technology developed, you know, cost stains and things went down, pathways that made business sense for the state and for various organizations. I think now we're at a point where technologically, we have passed forward to very high levels of integration of renewables that probably, I know, you know, I wouldn't have to go back 20 years. If I go back 10 years, maybe even five years, I didn't think we're achievable without some much more radical changes in technology. I think we're looking at, you know, 60, 70, 80 percent numbers, the goals 100. Certainly, as you get to that very last bit, it gets more difficult. But all of these technological solutions are going to require much more community acceptance, knowledge of what's going on, input to what's going on early on. So I think the role for the Policy Forum to help pave that path, what we now know is technically achievable, is probably more important than ever. And that includes not just the community, but all of the various energy parties that have always belonged to the forum to get that message out. Yeah, very important. You know, one of the things that's in play, which HNEI knows a lot about, is clean transportation. I know you did, you have done, you are doing research on hydrogen and fuel cells. And this morning, Hawaiian Electric announced they were going to put in, I guess, nearly $100 million on charging stations. They've done certain charging station work before, but not at this level. And now it looks pretty serious that we're moving in that direction. Manufacturers, the technology and so forth. And, you know, in fact, at the moment, there are only 16,000 electric vehicles in the state, where we have, gee whiz, something close to a million, you know, fossil fuel vehicles in the state. So how important is all of this with the clean transportation to, you know, the general initiative? So I have a take on this that sometimes is a bit controversial. And, you know, and I'm not the only one, there have been a number of national papers that have addressed this. Hawaii has a very unique energy situation in that, you know, we're slowly or maybe quickly putting more renewables on our grid. But what we're not using renewables, we're largely using oil. So unlike the mainland US, where if you put in electric vehicles and you stop using gasoline and oil, you have other potentially lower carbon substitutes, maybe hydroelectric, maybe nuclear, if you want to include it, natural gas, depending on your view of natural gas, you get an almost immediate transition into that reduced carbon. In Hawaii, because we are displacing oil with potentially another oil source, the getting to the electrification of transportation is very important. But it's important we don't take our eye off of getting the renewables on to the grid. To the point where the grid really can't take anymore, and we need that electrification, we need to expand our load and be utilizing renewables to do it, not just substituting one oil load for another oil load. So I think it's really important we build that infrastructure, we start that process, it's going to be long term, I think there's going to be some hiccups and difficulties in getting the community to move along that. But I really want to be sure we don't take our eye off the ball that we need the renewables to go well beyond where we are today, and maybe even beyond these technologically achievable numbers I'm talking about in order to get the full value of the electric vehicle. Then there's the portfolio in general, back in the day when Hawaii Energy Policy Forum was organized, the mantra was we need to have a diversified portfolio. We need to have everything. There's nothing we won't consider. Wave energy, wind, course solar, our geothermal, I'm going to just do it with three others, I'm sure will come to mine. And that seems to have changed. See if you agree with me that we're focusing, and Mark I'm sure has some questions for you on this. We're focusing now more on solar than anything else. We are not particularly interested in wind, new wind installations. We've had NIMBY problems with that. And although there is an initiative to build wind offshore, that seems unlikely. Geothermal has a kind of last ceiling, and more and more you look and it seems like everything is focused on solar and now batteries. Am I right? You were right to an extent. I mean, I think the neighbor islands with the geothermal is clearly a better resource on the big island. It's been difficult to explore it for Maui due to probably community and other regulatory issues or potential there, but it's not been fully explored and really taken seriously there, I don't think. It's a less available resource on Oahu. The bottom line is, in order to achieve our goal, Oahu is about 70% of our energy demand. We are more land constrained. We do have a greater population, so developments impact those populations and communities more. So solar, because of the significant reduction in both the cost of solar and batteries and the improved performance of both, have provided a near-term opportunity to greatly increase our renewable generation on this island. That said, it won't take us the entire way. It's going to get more, first of all, it's going to get more difficult to put that solar on. We're going to start to get into regions where we may not have the redundancy of transmission lines, community acceptance might get more difficult. And technically, you do start to need that diversity of resources you come back to. We haven't clearly defined those limits. So I view the solar and battery as between the technical changes, the cost changes, the tax structure. This has been an opportunity that Hawaii was very smart to take advantage of and to push as far as we can, but we really do now need to get serious about what are we going to be able to do beyond just solar and storage. It's not to say we're at the end of that. I mean, I think the stage one and stage two projects that are referred to adds another 400 or so megawatts of solar and that's the AC component. There's room for another significant tranche beyond that. There's room for additional rooftop solar, but that still doesn't take us all the way. And at that point, I think we're going to need to seriously be looking again at what are these alternative technologies we can bring to bear to meet our goals and increase our renewable penetration. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Marco, you have some questions at this point? Of course, always. So it's a great segue to focus more specifically on Oahu. A quick question, Rick.  Under no circumstances will that power plant continue burning coal beyond sometime in September. Is that your understanding as well? That is my understanding. I have no information to contradict or indicate that extending it beyond that time period would even be possible at this point in time. Okay, so as you pointed out rightly so, Oahu is much more land constrained than the neighbor island, especially the big island where we have so much land, right? And the possible conversion of AES to an alternate fuel source other than coal such as biomass is something that is kind of a hot topic these days, as you know well. You provided information to a number of senators that are hearing of on my mistake in back September. You are kind enough to share that slide deck with me, which I really appreciate. And my understanding is this, Rick, is Hawaiian Electric in the form of the top executives, senior VP Colton Shane, President Scott Sue, have said publicly and explicitly, Hawaiian Electric does not need the firm generation that would be produced by a biomass burning AES power plant. They've made that clear. They've made that explicit. And yet you have a number of senators, Senator Donovan Delacruz, Senator Glenn McKay, amongst others, who seem to have taken a very keen interest in that possible conversion and you provided your analysis from your position there in HNEI. So my question to you is, do you have a view as to whether or what is the desire, what is the motivation behind pursuing a possible expensive conversion with a lot of unknowns to another power, a generation source biomass when Hawaiian Electric itself has been on the record saying, we don't need it. We can meet the demands that we foresee, that we forecast from other generation means. Why this energy, why this apparent enthusiasm on the part of a number of individuals and groups toward converting AES from coal to biomass? Can you help and better understand kind of what's going on? Yeah, there are probably a number of things at play here. And I want to be a little careful about the Hawaiian Electric statement. And again, it might be great to have one of them come on and have that discussion because there have been scenarios run as part of the integrated grid planning. And it depends what costs get thrown in where Hawaiian Electric has proposed to build out of new biomass energy type plant in the late 2020s or early 2030 timeframe. That initial discussion took place when the discussion was really around a proposal to keep that plant operating for purposes of helping meet reliability due to the potential delay and some of the solar plus battery projects were expected to replace it. But again, I'm not sure in making that statement, there's not a little bit of mixing of what intense and statements were. So I think that one's worth re-exploring exactly where he comes down on that one. But as a result of that meeting, there were a couple of statements made. One was, we don't need that resource. And the reality is there's a lot of solar plus battery to be built out. We can meet or exceed our 2030 RPS goals with the plans that are in place without that plant. But it is a resource that is there. And if retired and just retired and disassembled, it will obviously have to be rebuilt from scratch. And based on information from AES, there was a potential to do something with it substantially cheaper than starting all over again. The second statement that was made at that meeting that was really focused on reliability was that, no, we don't want biomass because it's relatively expensive, which it is relative to our current solar prices. We want to pursue solar. So the effort that we undertook was really to look at what was the potential if we converted that plant to biomass to put that onto the grid without negatively impacting the ability to continue to integrate solar plus batteries, which does appear to be a lower cost option at this time. And so our purpose was kind of predicated just to get the information out there and make sure we debated this to its fullest extent. There were a couple of significant findings in that study, and I can go over those. And there are also some significant things that we did not address in that study in detail, specifically concerning some of the greenhouse gas issues that I'm sure will be controversial. And that, as you probably know, Marco is a highly debated topic when it comes to the use of biomass. So our purpose was not necessarily to say the AES plant was needed, but to try to put out information to show what its potential might be. And I can summarize real quickly what we found. What we found was that stage one and stage two solar could go in. An additional crunch of solar equivalent to stage one and stage two plus a significant amount of rooftop distributed solar could be installed on a Wahoo. And the biomass plant continued to operate or the whole plant be converted to the biomass and operated near capacity without any negative impact on that solar development. And what that showed up as when we ran the model, so it would be no need to curtail any of that solar as a result of the biomass plant being operational. So the point we wanted to make there was if that plan is converted, it doesn't negate the ability to continue down the path we currently are to continue to install solar and battery or any other low source variable, dispatchable variable option that may be available. We looked at costs in a very preliminary way and basically compared it to oil. So what that plant ends up being, obviously you're generating a lot more energy if you have it operating than if you don't. It turns out you can turn down and possibly retire, but for now just consider turning down some of your fossil fuel plants. So it ends up being a direct replacement for oil that we are currently burning. So we get an immediate jump in our RPS for our renewable generation percentage. We don't negatively impact our ability to install dispatchable variable technologies like solar. And so then the question becomes can we do it cost effectively and can we do it maybe not 100% carbon free, but can we do it with a smaller footprint in continuing to burn fossil fuels for the time that plant would be operational? I think the answer to both is we are very close economically and that then requires other parties to get involved. What would the structure of the deal look like? What exactly can they yes offer? What would be the details of retrofitting that plant? At that point the party is involved and that will ultimately do the request and negotiations need to get involved. And in terms of greenhouse gases, there are papers out there that say we can't burn biomass from trees to make fuel. It is going to be worse than burning fossil fuels. There are a number of other studies including groups like the IEA, some with the National Labs involved to say if you look at the entire forestry management of large systems and consider it, it can be done with a significant reduction in greenhouse gas relative to burning fossil fuels. That's something that needs to be looked at explicitly based on what the plans of AES would be. And that's a lot of information, but feel free to follow up with the question. Thank you so much, Rick. That was very, very informative. And I learned this question for Jay. Okay, I'm going to take full responsibility for asking, but I learned it from Jay. And I'm going to advisedly put you on the spot here. Okay. If you were energy czar, if I gave you the benediction of energy czar here, energy czar them in the state of Hawaii, and it was your call, Rick, whether to pursue, based on what you know today, whether to pursue the conversion of the AES coal plant to biomass, is this something that Rick Rochello as energies are would choose to do? Okay. First, I can say I'm a university person, so nothing I say carries any weight of decision making. I think based on the potential to reduce our fossil footprint, and if due diligence is done to ensure that the biomass source does result in a net greenhouse gas reduction, I think it would be a wise investment. And I'm saying that because, and again, part of it is based on AES information that they say can be shared that they estimate that the cost of retrofitting that plant to use biomass would be about 20% the cost of building a new plant. And based on that, I think this is a resource we need to consider very, very carefully before we let it fully retire, be disassembled, and then have to rebuild. I think the debate is really now starting to be addressed. I know it's being asked by the legislature. I know on some of the stakeholder meetings of the integrated grid planning group, people are starting to ask a question, how much firm power are we going to need? That doesn't mean you need base load power. It means you need truly dispatchable, available whenever you want it power to fill in certain gaps. I think the AES plant may, we need to define exactly what that role is, but for the next 10 years or so, I think there's a gap where that AES plant can operate as nearly a base load plant and displace oil. What about Hu Honua? Does that run a parallel? Does that fold into the kind of analysis you're making? They're about done. Some people say they already have a preliminary staff out there working on things. And I wonder where that fits in this analysis. I should have known that question might be coming. I think Hu Honua, the analysis we've done for Hu Honua does not apply directly to Hu Honua because the Big Island has a much wider selection of potential resources. On a Hu Honua right now, fairly over the next five years, I think beyond that, I think offshore wind, we need to keep that door open. I agree it's going to be difficult. Other than that, the solar plus battery is also going to get a bit more difficult as we get to the limits of our transmission line. We do not have a lot of other easy options over the next decade. I think the biomass one, from that perspective, makes sense on a Hu Honua. That argument is not directly transferable. There may be other benefits on the Big Island, but that option, if I do that, I don't replace some other option is not as clear on the Big Island as it is on a Hu Honua. One other thing before Marco does a summary here, we're getting close to the end. That is going forward. We have, at least theoretically, until, well, wind electric once said 2040, but the standard number is 2045. That's our target date. Yet a lot of people have said and continue to say that there is no definitive plan for how, you know, what initiatives we implement, when we implement them, charting it out, programming it out from here to there. There are a lot of organizations and agencies who have a finger in energy in this state. It's kaleidoscopic in the sense that they change in terms of the amount of influence they have in a given moment. But how do you think the organizational, how do you think this is going to be organized? Who is going to come up with a plan? What collaboration is going to be appropriate for it? When will it be designed and maybe even what do you think it'll say? I guess I have a different view of that plan. I think it's very difficult. I mean, if you look at what Marco and I talked about early on, five years ago, 10 years ago, we would have never expected. I mean, people talked about you might get to 20, 25%, but then it'd be very difficult to integrate solar battery technology, really change that.  I think what we need to do is to make decisions now that don't explore as many options as we can. I think we need multiple plans, you know, if this then that, if this then something else, and keep as many doors open as we can. You know, and that may imply the way you do the PPA agreements. It may modify the way the utility looks at the way they operate their systems. I don't think we know what that path forward is. And I think any path forward is probably based on costs and numbers that are going to change significantly as these technologies improve. So, you know, how the guy used to work for me constantly referred to the no regrets options. I think we need to do the things we can do that won't make us regret that we close the door for the future and keep as many of those doors open and know what those options and possibilities are and implement them when they make sense. Okay. We're almost out of time, Marco. It's time for you to ask Rick one of your 50,000 questions and and then summarize. Thank you. Thank you for giving me one more shot here because I wanted to, there's one more burning question I have for you. So, there have been concerns that have been expressed by both Dave Griffin and Jenny Potter on the PUC. They're concerns about what the reserve margin is going to be on Oahu post AES coal shutting down. And on the other end of that spectrum, you have Hawaiian Electric that has said publicly, we got this covered. There's going to be adequate reserve margin, even in the case of AES going offline, even in the case of AES, the Kapolei Energy Storage System not coming online by the end of the year, even in the case of this 50 megawatts of behind the meter generation, which is going on or in progress on Oahu, even the case of none of those really come on and provide generation. Where do you fall? I know you're not a utility guy. You're not, you're not privy to everything the utility has, but in terms of the, we're really concerned versus we got this covered. Where does one Rick Roscholo fall on that spectrum? Yeah. And I want to, I meant to do it earlier on, so I'm not trying to shift the blame for what I say here. But, you know, we were very closely with a couple of guys who came out of GE Energy, Telos Energy, who have developed some, I think, some really, really great models to look at this reliability issue. And we've been working with them very closely on both developing and utilizing nodes. You know, basically the utility is going to modify their maintenance schedule. The reliability at the current time doesn't depend so much on whether or solar or any of those issues. It depends on what's the likelihood of multiple outages of existing unit and do you have enough surplus capacity in place? A big part of what units are offline at any instant in time are units that are planned well in advance. These are the big maintenance issues.  The utility is modifying that schedule so that during what turns out to be our critical month, September, October, and maybe dragging into November, a significant amount of generation that normally would have been offline will remain online. That will replace the majority of the loss of capacity that will result from AES being retired. If we can get anything else on the grid, you know, 10 megawatts of solar or a little bit more distributed, some of the emergency demand respond, you know, the models show that, you know, if we could get about 40 megawatts or so of any of that all combined, we would have a reliability in our system about where it is today. If we don't have that, we would be at somewhat increased risk for a short period of time, but that takes us from basically, you know, it takes us from the likelihood of an outage, you know, one out of 10 times to one out of seven times. We kept repeating that September. So, and I think there's other things that the utility can probably do to mitigate demand during that period of time. So, it's important we get the solar plus battery on. I do think, you know, with the utility keeping a close eye on it and the continued push to get as much on as we can, we will get through this September issue. I won't call it a crisis, but issue favorably. But that considered, would you advocate for that bill that's been languishing in the legislature to allow a tax credit on solar being added to existing, I'm sorry, storage or added to existing solar? You know, I haven't, I have not looked at that closely. That can provide value to the grid, demand response, batteries, if they are managed so that some of that use of battery provide, you know, absorb energy in the day and provides it in the evening and provide service to the grid. So, that does provide value to the grid. Short term, that would be extreme value. I don't know if people fully evaluated the long-term value yet. It could be a good thing to do, but it would certainly help in the near term to mitigate these issues. Thank you. Marco, can you summarize and say thanks and farewell to Rick? Well, summarize, gee, you know, I just think we, so we had a fantastic time. At least I did, I hope you guys did too. I learned a lot, and that's what, like the hokey pokey, that is what it's all about in life. So, thank you so much, Rick. It was real pleasure. I hope we can get you back on before too long, because you're a wealth of information, you're a great guy, you have lost the share and you're, you know, you're in the trenches there. So, I'm all for talking to people in trenches. So, mahalo nui for joining us today, and thank you, Jay, for doing whatever, whatever the fantastic Fidel does day in, day out, year in, year out. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rick. Thanks for coming around. We hope to see you again. There's so much more to discuss. And as things change, there will be even more. Thank you for the opportunity. And just one last time, I'd just like to credit all the people working behind me to allow me to be the spokesperson for some of this information, as you know. Thank you. Rick Rochello, the director of the Hawaiian Natural Energy Institute at HNEI at UH Aloha.


I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, it's off to work we go.  Hey, I'm Snow White. You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, for more juicy content. Thanks for watching, follow us on Twitter, like button. That's a, it's just a, like you can't do that movie. No. I don't know why they're trying. I don't know, but the live action's not gonna do well. It just made me think of one of my favorite lines in movie history. I'm Mary Bobbins, y'all. Oh yeah. I saw that movie. I saw Guardians 3. 3? It's good, isn't it? It's good. Yeah, I've heard. It's on Disney Plus. Yeah, I've heard it's good. Which was encouraging, because the majority of the Marvel and DC films recently have been drack. Yeah, it was an enjoyable feature. Good. I enjoyed it. Today, what are we doing? We are doing the first episode of Guns and Gulabs. What? Guns and Gulabs. We're very excited. What? Our Dosts and Dosts. Dosts on Dost Crime. Double Dost Crime. Raj and DK kindly during the interview said they would send us the screener for Guns and Gulabs, which we are very excited about, before it comes out. We're not gonna put these out, obviously, before. I also saw that they posted, because I think they had found that out when you told them about how high the views are on the trailer. Yeah, they posted it on their Instagram. The person that was on the call with us, they would just know audio or video if they were listening from Netflix said it was the most watched trailer or something like that during the year. It's right at Game of Thrones. Which makes sense. It does. If you put out so many successes like they have, people will go just for the director. Of course. They've reached that stature now. And also the cast of this is great. Very true. I'm very excited for this. They've reached that stature now, where if you mentioned Russo, Cohen, Raj and DK, they're at that level. Obviously, we are watching this. I think there's seven episodes to this series. And if you're gonna be watching this on YouTube, obviously you're gonna see a very good... Each episode will get its own part. Not putting multiple parts for each episode, unless they're crazy. I don't think any of them are crazy. I think like 45 minutes. Yeah. But if you're watching this, we can only use five minutes. And we will also be putting this out after it comes out. We're not gonna put this out before the series. No, that would be bad. But we are watching it a few days before it comes out. Right. Once again, thank you so much. But if you'd like to see full-on cut versions of each episode, you can head over to Patreon. I'll put the link in the description below. And the pinned comment just like all of our other Watch Alongs. This is our first Watch Alongs series. We did a Watch Along with Farsi, right? Yes. Yes, we did do a Watch Along with Farsi. And the only reason we're getting this now... Did we? Yes, we did. I'm remembering now. Okay. Now as opposed to Main Heaven, it's just because they gave it to us and I want to watch it before it comes out. Yeah. I mean, Heaven's already been out. I was out of town. We will be watching Main Heaven. We are watching Main Heaven. Just letting you know. But they sent it. We interviewed them. I also still... There's so many series that we've missed that I wanted to get to. I don't know if we'll do Watch Alongs for them, but like Rocket Boy Season 2. Right. I wanted to get to. Still, we need to get to Deli Crimes. Right. They just take so much time sometimes. Yeah. And so it's hard to really get to them. But since we... This is before I wanted to get to it now. If... Once again, go to Patreon if you'd like to see the low-cut version. It's a very pretty shot. Gorgeous shot.  No. Oh. My love is the purest of all. My love is the sweetest of all. My love is true. My love is also true. Ganta. You, Ganta. Ganta. If your love is true, then... Are these the kids they were talking about? Yeah. That's what I was thinking. How? Don't do that. Oh, my word. Why are you doing all this nonsense? Keep quiet, Nannu. I have a question on my feet for Chanda. I can't do anything. Let's do the rest tomorrow. I'm ready to do it. But it's okay in two words. What did you say? For whom? I said... It's an interesting shot. For whom? Is it supposed to emphasize that they're all just horny? Could be. That was great. So well shot. Oh! I love that. Already some very interesting stylists of choices. Oh, that's great. That was great. That's cool. That's cool. Really great. That actor's gonna love that verse real. Yeah. Good opening. Is that the name of the... That's the name of the episode.  I loved the western soundtrack behind it. Looks like Noaz. Not that guy. Oh, toast. Find him. Why is he feeding? The guy that walks around feeding you. He was making a joke. Our special people were beaten up. And you are sitting on the chair. Are you still learning your lesson? You know. Quite the strut. I feel like he's going to fall. Yeah. Dulk or Salman enters. I know that song. Yeah, I know that song. Look at all the files from the film. Are you busy with one comment? Yeah. And listen. I'm going to send someone to the market. I'm going to show them the world. Direct transport has arrived from the films. The police have sent us to the police. They have sent us all the way from the police station. Yes, sir. Nice. If at any cost, if this timely delivery is not possible, then the two of you are sitting on the chair. Everyone will be very upset. I'm going to tell them that I'm leaving. He will take all of his wealth. He will come home.   You got your extra one day. Thank you. Thank you. He's a scarecrow. Looks like a witch. There is something wrong. What happened? I mean, what happened with your father What happened? People were always scared of your father. But that day I saw that he had one too. Are you okay? Yes. Good. I'm asking about your father. Is your father okay? No. I'm asking about your father, Tipu. Are you going to do something? Are you going to shave your head? There are many of you at home. Do you want tea? No. I love him. He's very much like Manoj. He can be a really quirky, dorky character and can be really cool and dangerous. I think he's more like Pankaj. Yeah, you're probably right. He has that sweet mentality. The sweet mentality. Manoj has a similar quality as well. Manoj has a similar quality as well. Manoj has a similar quality as well. Manoj has a similar quality as well. I'm just saying that I want to show you my personality. I thought I also want to show you my personality. I thought I also want to show you my personality. Look, you have a good personality. You have a good personality. You have a good personality. You have a good personality. I'm talking about the ACL. Jyotsh Nar, she's going to teach you. She looks very fast. She's wearing a GS-FI. Why doesn't she have to wear a uniform? Maybe she doesn't have it yet. First day? What are you talking about? Back benchers? What's your name? What's your name? That was a little wink, wink, nudge, nudge. So what? About this, you knew this is the way, you need to know the way things work here. How to tape just like that. Yeah? Yep. With an antenna for the radio that comes up. So long I have been looking too hard and waiting for the time. I don't know. How many languages do you speak? Just English. English. Crazy meeting. That's creepy, man. I think it's supposed to be a witch. Yeah. A scare witch. Look at her feet. Why didn't he tell him about what he saw? I think that's what we are wanting to figure out. Maybe it's just because he was mad because he's in love with the teacher. I thought it was another person. He's in love with the teacher. So now he's not going to tell him the important information. Right, it's like why should I tell you something and help you out? Okay, write down the names and Lalkush. Yes, ma'am. Jyotsana. You're a topper too, right? Chutna. Navid Kari kaam? What do I know? I've seen him in a lot. Navid, Navid. Navid has made a contract with a Bombay player and he's working on it. Bombay? He's called Atmaram. Char Katmaram. He doesn't kill people. He's the one who's thankful to the soul in all fours. Here's your villain with the flair. Passing notes in class. He wrote something else in English. Yep. To make her not like him. No. How do I not feel? Every time you get up from a city and go to the city. Your entire skincare business is compromised because of me. Despo or what? Sensors should ban you, what? What? But I'm just saying that this is a new place. It's a small city. Please feel a little more careful. Thank you. Can you name one Beatles song? Hello. They were waiting for you. Hello. The loving husband is a monster. Oh dear.  At least they're wanting us to think now he's not. Hedary Arjun. Where did you cross? I like the pan up. He crossed the line. Cross the line. Cross the line. Oh no. Is it gasoline he's pouring in or is it? No. I think he was putting stuff to make it not work. Old monk or whiskey or something. Somebody asked why we were laughing when this song came on in the trailer. It gives you a certain like... A very certain vibe. Vive of an era. And it's funny. Supposed to give you a very sad vibe. Because back in the day it really was a song that you poured your heart out into. Yeah. Which is cliche now. Which is why they're using it. Yeah. It's like hearing the song. Feeling. Yeah. Definitely gonna have to cut the song though because this will definitely get a copyright. This time I wanna be sure. Is this the sweat you've been stepping out with? The concoracha.  I feel like they're gonna go through the gate. Wait. There is the sacred temple. There is the sacred temple. If you visited me now, did you ever come here? Yes. Not even there. Mani sir you're gonna go through the gate? Why? I'll tell him. There's a concoracha at the gate. Then you come back. Then you come back. Then you come back. Ugh. The sound effects. struggle No but you saw him murder him. Oh dear. I love these credits. All right, there we go, okay, sorry great That didn't look like His first time somebody who this is his first time murdering somebody. No or killing somebody He looks like he tried to turn over a new leaf and now he's been pushed feel like he knew What his dad did like we were supposed to believe this entire like he was this right? It's innocent guy who hated his dad because of what his dad did But I think we're gonna find out there's a lot more to him than that. Yeah, cuz Especially the first one you're like, oh, maybe he just lost it, but he ran out he chased He had had no remorse had no remorse and knew exactly what he was doing He had the understanding of someone in that experience who knows got to kill the guy who witnessed it because he'll mark me So he's gone to Yeah, yeah a very First episodes of a series are the hardest because you have to establish things, but you still have to have story Yeah, so you have to stat like a lot of times people will say like first episodes. There's too slow because right But they kind of they kind of almost have to be or you're just not gonna care for people because you're moving too fast Right and so it's a fun There's a very fine line in first episodes the most first episodes like a very good episode is the last of us Did you see the first episode the last of us? Yeah, that's a great episode without any spoilers The great thing about the last of us is that? While it does do the stereotypical slow establishment There is a point that's really giving you an idea of wow We're gonna have high production value and things are gonna be really unpredictable So it's really hard to do a first episode. This was a really good first episode It set up enough of like okay. I like this character I'm interested. What's going on with right docker shaman's right? Adwarsh, I like like we don't know a lot about him yet. We really don't they outside of somebody was feeding him Yep, I think he's that guy's really funny. I think he's that guy's son Docker shaman, I believe is the police officer that was this loving husband and he's got a he's got there's something going on Everybody's got something in their background, but also I don't know if docker if they led us to believe that this was oh I missed you and so it's like the implication is it's a great he's been stepping out with yeah But but also it could just they might want you to just think that it could be she could be somebody who has blackmailed him in The past and he's done nothing wrong or working. I don't know but he's intriguing there. There's supporting characters They set the tone rush come ours character. It's lovely. He has such a one of the widest ranges of Actors in India, I feel like a great Just like a punk, I think we've called him young Pankaj many times So he's his own thing, but I feel like that's a good comparison Pankaj still just like Raj Kumar has this Innocence about him and there's a little sweetness. Yeah, like he's a beautiful soul, right, right? Just like the end here. He can flip it on its head and right this monster monster Yeah, and it's wonderful to watch. He has such a great demeanor Smoke out of the throat So it's all it another thing I loved is what I expected from the trailer of the unique score. Yeah, Western slash like in terms of Western Cowboy, but they balanced it too They get was both throwback to American feel of the era But it was also throwback to songs that were of the era in India in India Yeah, quirkiness. Yeah, I love it when scores It just depends on your film obviously, but sometimes understated scores are wonderful Because they let the the story do the work But then other times it lends so much to the style and the feel of the film. Yeah when you have a quirky Score, yeah, you're like it gives you different feeling and a different vibe. Absolutely That's why scores are so freaking important because they can make a film feel like a completely different film series right depending on the score right and I like that I like the The the violence, you know, there's very little in this but there was it was cool I love the smoke out of the throat. I love art. I love the four the four cuts Description our villain. I just like they said in the interview. They like they wanted to give nods to the era Yeah vibes right and the the the villain with the flair. Yeah stats people forward I like yeah, he has a signature way mullet and there definitely is you can see It's not copying at all, but you can see how Tarantino has been an influence in the way They tell stories and the way they do some things. It's not copy, but there's just some things that are very reminiscent of for lack of a better term the modality in which Quentin will tell a story. They're very different, but there's a DNA imprint there that must just come from Watching his films granted Quentin is just a copy in it of himself Yeah, he's just such a stentafile. Yeah, he borrows from everybody and there's nothing wrong with borrowing because not at all It's a tip of the cap But he's such his entire way of filmmaking is just nods to so many different things and this grown up This really is a big mix of everything. It was it was both Standard teenage high school stuff. That's what they did well. They did very well I'm looking forward to seeing more of them because the moments they had I could see what they were saying about these guys I'm wondering being really good What he was supposed to say to his white to Raj Kamar to Raj Kamar I'm pretty sure he was gonna he witnessed the murder of his father. I know but the The father whispered something to the kid. That's true So maybe he's gonna tell him that but I don't know what that is. We don't and he clearly changed his mind when he found out That he likes his teacher. I want to know what he wrote. Yeah The letter. Yeah, it was disgusting.  Yeah Something very shameful Very intrigued very nice for a good episode looking forward to the other ones Yep, no surprise with the filmmaking aspects of from Raj and DK and the the act and the quality of all the acting There wasn't one moment where I had a thought about anybody's performance Everybody was spot-on and I want to know so much more about especially the three leads Our two-dose. Yep, Raj Kaur and Adarsh and then Doko Shaman. Yep future-dose It's characters. So they they gave you enough in it to where you're like, yes, I want more right a really good first episode But you're also Didn't move too fast and you're caring for these characters. So that's good Let us know what you thought about the first episode If you're watching this on YouTube you saw very cut-up version and also we saw this multiple days prior to prior to drop so thank you to Raj and DK on Patron there's more episodes already going to be there by the time this drops on YouTube because we're gonna watch Hopefully a few episodes before which which can be seen over there I don't think we're gonna get to the entire series before her Friday or right Thursday Because that's it would be our Thursday night Thursday afternoon because it's their Thursday night It's because it drops Friday night for them. Oh, okay, then it's our morning. Sorry Friday Friday morning So 1 30 p.m. On Friday is 1 a.m. Our time is 1 p.m. Our time right got it right cuz they're coming It's dropping right after the stroke stroke of midnight. Yeah, it's obviously and we won't put this out on YouTube No, and tell the series no no no no But thank you so much But if you'd like to see the other ones you can head over patreon I'll put the link troops below in the pinned comment and


Happy birthday, NHS! Happy birthday, NHS! Happy birthday, now you're 70! Happy birthday, NHS! Thanks for what you do for all of us. Have a great year!


ack if there's a whole lot hi I'm working at the rabies shop clinic on Saturday at the east popular fire department from 9am to 12 noon to have your dogs and cats vaccinated $20 per shop and everyone needs to register their dogs here in Calis by April 1st right T.G. come to the rabies shop clinic that needs a shot thank you I believe that by the motion of people speak a motion to close this meeting is in order and if you have other business posted on front porch form to make announcements to your neighbors we have a motion to adjourn Paul any further discussion on adjourning and enjoying the friends of Calis lunch we say aye opposed we're done thank you all


Our guy Ken Rosenthal joining us and you know it's so weird usually I'm talking to you through a TV and you're right here I know it's great. I love it. I could see you in the flesh So let's start out with some juicy of reporting that you did this morning finding out the no trade list for Madison Bumgarner and so the chess match begins I guess, huh? Right now let me explain this Kevin because it is kind of confusing the teams He chose are all contenders there are eight teams are all really good teams and people might say well Why would he do that? It's pretty simple Leverage when you have a no trade list what you want is if your team agrees to a trade say the Giants and Cardinals agree Well Madison Bumgarner has to approve. What does it take for him to approve? Sometimes it takes some form of compensation So for Bumgarner a very shrewd and strategic list that he has there and keep in mind Getting traded for him as a potential free agent is an advantage because what would happen? He no longer would be eligible for a qualifying offer No longer would be tied to draft pick compensation and it would be an unrestricted free agent And we've seen with Keichel and Kimbrel that draft pick can be a drag. Yeah, it is speaking of Keichel and Kimbrel I mean I still can't believe here. We are we're you know We're mid-may and those guys still aren't signed when are they going to get signed? The consensus in baseball right now is that it will be after the draft because after the draft which is in early June Then there is no more draft pick compensation. No more issues along those lines. You just pay the money However, there is incentive and you look at these teams right here There are reasons the teams at the bottom of the list should be really seriously thinking about doing it right now The Phillies you're gonna be worried about the 91st pick when your team's stupid money I don't think so the Brewers the 133rd pick because they've already signed Yasmani Grandal and lost the pick They in theory should be incentivized to do this then you see the figures on the right those are Draft pool Considerations not international pool what it is it enables you in your draft pool to have as much money as possible And then you divide it up between your picks So when you lose that money it limits your flexibility That's a problem, but at the same time if you're trying to win Maybe it shouldn't be a problem and let's say you're the Phillies you get Kimbrel You keep him away from the Braves you get him for an extra month instead of waiting until after the draft and waiting for him to build up and yet I don't know that we're gonna see anyone act for a random hundred and thirty three How do you know what that picks gonna be you're getting an all-star clue? I don't know I I'm with you I would go out and make the move so teams making moves or not in this case How about managers making moves who's on the hot seat in this early part of the season? Do you think we've talked about this Kevin two guys in both in the NL East? It's Mickey Calloway, and it's Dave Martinez now Calloway according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post confirmed by many others met yesterday with the GM Brodie Van Waggonen and One of the ownership representatives Jeff Wilp on they didn't threaten his job But the fact that they had a meeting and said let's go we don't want another collapse early in the season again That is not a great sign now the Mets could win last night against the Marlins They've got an easier schedule coming up that should help the more dire situation Perhaps is Dave Martinez with the Nationals. They are in Los Angeles right now They've got two more games in LA then they go home with an off-day Monday if things don't turn around That might be the kind of day where you would make a change. They've already fired the pitching coach They don't want to fire their manager. No team wants to it's an admission of failure But at the same time they may determine at some point we need to change the energy need to get going They have some internal candidates. I don't expect it would be Girardi or show Walter because of the money involved They'd be paying two managers. They don't like to pay one. So it would be a problem for them Yikes, we already talked about the Indians and how they didn't do anything in the offseason to really up their team to improve their team Injuries now. So how do they handle the trade deadline? Well, it's going to be interesting Kevin because if they are really out of it And it's gonna take a lot for them to be out of it. You have Trevor Bower You've talked about him before but this team is quite top-heavy and that's the problem right here Their best players are the guys you can see right here These guys contributed to their overall team last year's numbers to see the percentage of Overall war that they did now war is not an all-encompassing number But this shows you just how much they rely on all of these guys and really only Carrasco and Baller have been productive this year So that's where they are right now and if they do fall out of it I would expect them to be creative. What if they don't fall out of it? What if they're they're in it, but they're a question. I mean, I they have not done much, right? You would think they would have some flexibility, but they have not acted as if they have any flexibility So I'm not sure they're gonna be that aggressive. No, great stuff is always Ken Rosenthal see in just a moment


Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering Microsoft Ignite, brought to you by Cohesity and theCUBE's ecosystem partners. Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite here in Orlando, Florida. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host Stu Miniman. We're joined by David Willis. He is the corporate VP US One commercial partner at Microsoft. Thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. It's my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me today. Congrats on a great show. This has been a lot of fun. We've been here three days. It's our first time here. It's been a great show. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're really excited about it. There's, I mean, a lot of energy from our customers and our partners. You know, talking a lot to partners and customers. Everybody's going through digital transformation right now. They're either being disrupted or, you know, they plan to disrupt. They know that. They know they have to get ahead of that. And so digital transformation is a big theme we're hearing today. And then some of the new technologies that we're really driving hard, artificial intelligence is a very hot topic this week. And, you know, as I meet with partners, you know, I run the partner group for the U.S. But I'm actually meeting with a lot of customers here this week. And what we're seeing is a lot of our customers are actually looking to Microsoft to become partners as they leverage the cloud solutions to bring value to marketing. That could be IT companies that are, you know, either delivering services in MSP or on premise that now with the cloud, they can go to market with us. But sometimes it's a company that, say, makes equipment for manufacturers and they see an opportunity to turn on an IoT device with that product, deliver more value to the customer. And as a result, we can go to market with that customer, you know, to those manufacturing companies. So there's some really interesting, you know, evolutions that we're seeing in the business. And at this specific event, I've been meeting back to back with customers, talking about how we can partner together, go to market. It's really exciting. Yeah, Dave, I feel like you watched our intro talking about the keynote on day one because we said, you know, Microsoft itself is going through a digital transformation. And the question we had coming in is, well, how does that transformation line up with their customers and partners? So you've been with the company almost 26 years now. So I want you to talk about digital transformation. But before, you know, question we've asked a lot of the Microsoft guests is, you know, what's the same and what's different about the Satya Nadella Microsoft compared to, you know, what you've done in the past. Yeah, we've gone through a lot of changes over the years since I joined in 1992, for sure. And a lot of it's fun. I got to say, I'm more excited now than I ever have been. Part of it is just the momentum we have with our cloud solutions and the opportunity that's available to us and our partners and quite frankly, our customers as well. And you know, Satya talks about our mission, empowering every person, every organization on the planet to achieve more. But you know, loosely translated the way I see it, it's all about customer success. And you know, when Satya got up in front of our new hires, we have this mock program, which is kind of, you know, new employees coming out of school. And he said, listen, you don't join Microsoft to be cool. You join Microsoft to make other school, which is our customers. And so that's a radical change in how we think and how, you know, just the culture is at Microsoft. And it's really exciting. But then I add to that, you know, the technology we're lining up, we've got four key solutionaries. I'm not sure how familiar we're from modern workplace around office, seeing some amazing take up with teams right now. And as they talk to partners, they're really excited about the momentum around teams. Dynamics as well. We're seeing some great take up from customer experience, right through to finance and operations scenarios. And then of course, Azure. I mean, the growth and momentum we're seeing, you know, across apps and infrastructure, data and AI is just fantastic. But at the end of the day, again, it's all around using that technology and those solutions to enable digital transformation for our customers so that they can succeed. Azure is having tremendous momentum to talk to our, talk to our viewers a little bit about what you're seeing. Yeah, so Azure, I think, you know, I guess the biggest differentiators we hear from our partners that I'm meeting and our customers, quite frankly, are many dimensions. One is around just how we're focusing on developers to make them more productive. Because for them, it's all about how can I, you know, be more agile, develop applications faster for my business or just to bring to market. So that's one key piece. The fact that we have a hybrid solution as well, we're consistent from on-premise to cloud, is very big for our customers because very few customers are willing to go 100% to cloud right away. They've got a vision, they want to get there, but knowing they can balance that with a consistent, you know, management approach and security infrastructure as well. Intelligence is big too.  And then lastly, trust. And that was a key, you saw Sachi talk a lot about that at his keynote around trust. And we're really differentiating ourselves from that perspective in the sense that, you know, we've got over 70 certifications to meet various compliance standards. And GDPR on privacy is a big focus for us. It's, you know, while it started in the EU, it's actually pretty high on our North American customer list as well from a proprietary standpoint. So that's helping. But quite frankly, when I meet with partners, what they love is this go-to-market approach. So we've got a large sales force that our partners can plug into and take advantage of as we go to market together. And you know, obviously technology is one key element. Pricing is another key element. But knowing that they can work with us to go to market, we're not going to compete with them in any way. You know, we're really clear on what our proposition is and how we go to market. It's a big value proposition as well. Dave, we could drill down a bit on the partner ecosystem because there are some partners that have been going through that digital transformation like with Microsoft. There's others that, you know, started out, cloud native, if you will, you know, cloud first.  How many of them, you know, start out their businesses on Azure versus, you know, the options? Yeah, I mean, partners have always been a big part of our business model at Microsoft since day one. And in many ways, it's been a large part of our success, being able to scale and reach a broad audience. But I would say now with cloud services, partners are more important now than ever before. And as we focus on customer success, not just delivering technology, not just licensing technology, but actually focus on customer success, we need partner solutions, you know, like what Cohesity provides to provide that last mile of functionality that customers are looking for. And that's why, you know, this ecosystem is really growing at a rapid pace for us, which is really exciting. And then the other piece that we're putting a lot more emphasis on now, particularly as many of our partners are becoming more focused with, you know, specialized IP and really, we encourage partners to really be clear on what you do best. It's creating this opportunity for partners to partner with other partners.  And then the value prop to customers is we can just provide that many more solutions, end-to-end solutions that they can provide as they make a bet on Microsoft. And so the value prop there is super high. So, I mean, this is what we, it's been a continual theme of this conference and also here on theCUBE is the breadth and depth of this ecosystem. I mean, and you've just described how partners are partnering with others.  Is it just going to get ever-vaster? I mean, I don't even know if that's the right word, but... I believe so. I mean, you know, we estimate the total digital transformation opportunity at a global level to be $4.5 trillion. You look at the size of Microsoft and our competitors, we're close to that. So that's why I say this opportunity is just tremendous. And, you know, new solutions are being developed all the time. And we hadn't even thought of or dreamt of before. And partners are just, I mean, that's what I love about our partners. They're so innovative. They bring these new solutions to market. And so, hey, as far as I'm concerned, it's infinite.  Yeah, Dave, one of the challenges is just the pace of change just keeps increasing. It's the only thing constant in our industry, I think. Talk about how you work with your partners, how training is involved. Is there any things you've done from certifications or levels usually here, you know, the gold platinum and like that has changed in the last few years to enable this? Yeah, I would say, you know, we're really focused on simplifying how to work with Microsoft. It's been a big focus for us. A year ago, we went through a major field reorganization. You may be aware of where we lined up our sales teams by industry as an example, so they can really drive value to customers. And one of the things we did with partners was we were highly fragmented. So we had enterprise partners in with our enterprise sales teams. We had SMB partners over with, you know, small and medium business group. We had ISVs kind of over here. So that's why we called the one commercial partner group in my title, in my org, is we pulled all that together into one organization so we could really simplify how to engage with Microsoft from a partner perspective. And then we clarified, we really have three primary functions that within my team that partners plug into. A build with, a go to market, and a sell with. Pretty straightforward. A build with was, hey, you know, you want to build an application or a solution or develop a new practice area. I've got technical resources, you know, and other resources that can help partners build that solution or practice. On the go to market side, I've got a whole marketing team that can sit down with a partner who may not, because a lot of our partners actually don't have marketing expertise. They're great at technology, you know, great solution, but they need help. And so we've got marketing people we can assign to help them build a marketing campaign and go to market. We've got lots of great funded programs as well. And then I've got this sell with team and they're actually aligned to our field sales teams and they plug partners into our field sales teams. So you can imagine, you know, every now forecasting meeting that happens or pipeline review with our sales teams, I've got somebody sitting at that table representing partners and plugging partners into our go to market focus. And so partners are loving that. And one of the metrics we track is partner attached to pipeline. A year ago, when we started on this journey, 25% was the partner attached to our pipeline. We're up to almost 90% now in terms of partner attached to our pipeline as a result of having that direct connection into our field team. So it's really, again, that's simplifying how you build with. We'll be clear on how we do that, how we go to market together and then how we co-sell together. Yeah, as I look forward and I hear the places where, you know, Microsoft's leading towards the future. Talk about AI, talk about IoT.  That's going to propose even more challenges to the broadening and deepening of the ecosystem. What should we look to see for Microsoft? How do you plan for kind of that future of even more diversity? In terms of more partners and more capability? Yeah, I mean, we've got a major partner recruitment effort. But quite frankly, a lot of our new solutions actually comes from our existing partners. So they're looking to round out, set up new practice areas. So we're always, you know, willing and open to sit down with partners to help them map out that future as well. And then there's a whole lot of partners out there including partners outside of the US that want to come to the US to help partner with us. And so we try to be as welcoming as possible because there is so much opportunity to your question earlier that we can all go after together. I want to ask about culture. So Satya Nadella up on the main stage and in other various media reports and interviews, he talks about Microsoft's culture, the culture he wants to create and cultivate, creativity, collaboration, inclusiveness, a real embracing of diverse perspectives. So that sounds great. And especially in an industry where the tech culture has pretty much a bad reputation as not being diverse, not being relentless and competitive. What's it like to work there?  Yeah.  And I think Satya talked about that on Monday. We talk about it all the time so I can't remember when it's talked about not, but this approach is different. It's not that we know what we're doing. We're, you know, we're growing really well. We're, you know, stocks flying, all this kind of stuff. It's not about kind of, you know, just getting excited about those accomplishments. It's all around, hey, how can I learn more? And how can I, you know, do more and capture those learnings and just, you know, grow in the market? So it's found, it's really founded in this growth mindset. But then the three key elements that sit on top of that are around customer obsession. So I talked about that and putting the customer first. It's around one Microsoft where we can't operate in silos. We need to work together and, you know, be selfless as possible so that we can achieve, you know, greatness together. And then diversity and inclusion is a big focus for us. We put a lot of emphasis on that. And that includes, you know, bringing in a diverse workforce where we've got a really big focus on that. And there's good business reasons for that as well. Our customers are diverse. We want to make sure we're developing products and interacting with our customers from that perspective as well. But then inclusion's important as well. And one of the ways we look at it is, hey, diversity is, you know, being invited to the party. Inclusion is actually feeling welcomed while you're at the party.  And that's a big cultural change. We've been going through the last few years that I wouldn't have said was around as strong in the early part of my career at Microsoft. So how do you do it? How do you make sure, I mean, the hiring, as you said, the numbers are bearing out, then how do you make sure people do feel comfortable and that they have a seat at the table?  So we got the best cheerleader with such. I mean, he reinforces throughout and his leadership team and down.  And it's a top priority for me. We review that regularly. And it's not even just within Microsoft as well. So we're actually doing a lot with our channel. We believe our channel could be a lot more diverse as well. So as an example, we started up this women in cloud initiative within the U S and we've got led by Gretchen O'Hara who's runs my go to market marketing team and doing a great job, you know, it's literally up to a hundreds now of women that are in our channel that are, you know, learning from each other, sharing from each other, supporting each other. But also, you know, people like myself and other males and others getting involved to help, you know, nurture that environment and make sure that everybody feels really comfortable that, hey, this diversity inclusion thing, it's really, really good for all of us. It's not only, you know, the right thing, it's also good for business. Right, exactly. Yeah, great. Well, thank you so much, David, for coming on theCUBE. It was great talking to you. Good conversation. Thanks so much for having me. I'm Rebecca Knight for Stu Miniman. We will have more from Microsoft Ignite in just a little bit.