from any side. and work as hard as you can. think you marioy and mike and we will wrap it up there and thank you. [applause]

the meeting will come to order. today we we are here to discuss the opportunities that the recent challenges to say that the growth in demand for electric power in united the united states. and that's a trip over to demand for electricity grew steadily along with our economy. in the decades following implementation of the north american free-trade agreement which is in 1990 and electricity demand growth fell by nearly 45%. 45%. for the past two decades electrical demand for load has been flat across the country. we are here today because that era appears to be coming to an end rapidly. but that's the growth in domestic technology and manufacturing sectors utilities and gridan experts across the country telling us electricity

demand is truly remarkable growth. meeting this demand growth may provide to be one of the greatest challenges we will face an will face in also inn opportunities for the toy first century for citizens. our defense and security but i wanten to thank our witnesses on what is at stake if we don't meet the low low growth below growth is driven by three main factors as we evaluate them. it's too reassuring of industry and advanced manufacturing spurred by the bipartisan infrastructure laws to chips act and the ira. construction spending on. manufacturing is more than doubled since we assign these bills into law. this is unbelievable. unbelievable. people don't realize how much is coming into this andli how rapiy advance and that tells you the strength of energy we needed what we don't have.

the world has been flat as a pancake. we are seeingg new factories to build advance advantage in semi-conductor technology practically every week. second is the revolution in advance applications especially in artificial intelligence and the rapid growth in a data cents to provide the processing power needed for those technologies and i'd stand they have an unquenchable thirst. third it's the electrified technology across multiple sectors like demonstrations pushed to flood the market with tvs which i think are way over there speed on. and i've been cautioning and warning them from day one. the north american electric reliability corp. ration projects in its 2023 long-term reliability assessment that they will be 90 gigawatts of demand growth by 2030. put that in perspective but that's over 10% of the peak of the west electrical demand which is 750 gigawatts. even that number is likely

conservative. nerc relies on data submitted in previous years industries in the forecast is growing faster than what they can keep up with last month and this is unbelievable last month the texas grid operator revised its 2030 load forecast from last year to add 40 gigawatts of new expected low growth. one state. that's like getting the entire state of california to the texas grid. that should be a wake-up call and i hope it is. we need to be prepared to meet this demand. let me be clear the low growth is an opportunity for for the generation to lose. the reason we have growth is industries which have defined the 21st century chips ai advancedfi manufacturing or tripping over one another to build america coming called the world but there's no guarantee of success to put it plainly. they can't be open for business if we can't keep the lights on.

if america can't build the energy of the structure needed to support these industries with reliable and affordable power we will be forfeiting the opportune to be on the forefront of technologies of the future in the control to china and other nations that we cannot the survey -- necessarily necessarily trust in between the frustrations policy and their inability to act in congress it seems like we may be in gr-year-old danger. we have heard from fercdo and nc that are grid reliability and affordability are at risk because we are retiring baseload faster than we can replace it. they told me basically we c are taking on dispatch whether it be cold nukes whatever it may be that we depend on for natural gas because of the environmental movement trying to replace it with -year-old internet and power and are very concerned across-the-board.

nerx assessment came out last week and this is a brand-new number. it shows that the country at elevated risk of blackouts this summer. if you live or represent one of these areas tell them to watch out. they are going to be inn troubl. the help rolling brownouts of blackouts and that should be concerning to everyone in this t administration every senator and congressperson they and congressperson represents those areas. last july and nerc had an energy policy is a brand-new category of the major risks facing ourr grid. when nerc nonpartisan said the policies you are putting out in washington is basically putting at risk. it's ridiculous that government action is creating new categories of grid risk instead of preventing risk. as if to prove nerx point epa finalized for new power plant. as far as i can tilt and to kill

natural gas from replacing it. it's a double whammy. i don't know what to think now. even though these dispatched resources are essential for liability and i have said this, the transition is going to happen. but you can't take something off before you have something equally as good if not better to replace it with. you might not like it. we are doing it better and cleaner than anyplace in the world and the transition is there. none is fighting the transition. he gets his job so we can do to take care of her family and make a living and that's fine but the bottom line is we don't have that technology. we aren't there they are to do it because of political political reasons enough that we are trying to make sure they understand. these the special resources and in this message we are serious about on shoring critical industry.

the ones driving the low grip. they wouldn't be in the race to take power a flame. they be racing to bring new generation on line instead of building new energy infrastructure it's harder. we have 2.6 million-megawatt hours of generation waiting an average of five years. think about that. 2.6 million-megawatt hours waiting to go nowhere to go with it. my sample in west virginia state we have one plant over 1800-megawatt state-of-the-art gas plant with carbon capture clean as it can possibly be. the companies telling me to have to wait half a decade before they get the green light to start permitting. it's unbelievable. and to be clear these are not just roams with fossil plants it's as or even worse for wind. i can't believe this chart. this is what's happening with

wind and how far it's gone down. they can't connect. there's no way to connect. solar is going much better because solar get into -- get into the grid system faster. it's in areas where the great authority there. would it be offshore for somewhere to where there's no grid system whatsoever they cannot get there because they can't get permitted and if the majority leader senator schumer the leaves that was done cured alll the problems i have news that didn't do it. the american queen power just published the 2024 as you can see we are on pace to install less wind in 2024 than we did during the worst year of the great recession. show the chart. now we are down to there. we have to make it easier to build transition pipelines to

meet the moment and the moment in that weather permitting is needed so the best really. in time it may help build new transmission let me be clear these who are using the tools we currently happen or not her placement for action. these help with one aspect in one part of a -- bigger problem. i know all of you will look into this is as my friend senator hickenlooper said they are a on congress's inaction which you are totally right senator. for sample in a row took action on transmission within region to transmission lines within the regions not for the interregional lines that would truly have the most reliability and affordability benefits. in affect them at all and only if the rules are art and current investors and they will be a challenge but i want to say considerable work remains to be done both at the commission and in congress if we are to realize

the modern electricity grid on which the continued vitality of innocent economy and security increasingly depends for some of these next is particularly interregional planning and permitting reform for congressional action could be critical for buying direction and momentum. just so we are clear permitting and transmission legislation is not partisan priorities let me also quote mario leyla a senior fellow at the heritage foundation who served in the white house during these trump administration but he said after ferc issued its new rules transmission expansion has only become more difficult. thesera are problems only congrs can solve. i have to say i couldn't agree more. they are critical permitting problems throughout types of infrastructure that only congress can fix and i remain committed to addressing that. myself and senator -- team have been working diligently for quite while. they finally have language we

will start sharing this language with everyone so people can see where we are and hopefully we can get our act together here but in fact each each witness the force today submitted technology that speaks in stark terms to the permitting challenges facing the source of supply and demand further look for to hearing more from our witnesses and with this alternate over to the ranking member. >> it thank you so much was determined thanks for hearing today's important hair. americans demand for witters is expected to grow rapidly through 2030 in fact we may be entering aid period of sustained demand growth unlike anything we have seen since the two decades following world war ii but as you said mr. chairman we can't be open for business if we cannot keep the lights on. theop biggest source of electricity demand is expected to come fromli data centers. data centers allow cloud computing and bitcoin and artificial intelligence but how we meet this demand for literacy love serious economic insecurity consequences for our nation.

the stakes couldn't be higher in many believe the race for artificial intelligence with communist china will be more consequentialeq than the space race with the former soviet union and the ai race has already begun. artificial intelligent consume and massive amounts of electricity but some estimates suggest electricity demand for these data centers will double between now and 2030. whoever secures support of electric power china or america will have a big head start in the race for artificial intelligence. right now america is not positioned well. our gridow is already strained. for years north american electric reliability corporation nerc has raised alarms about grid reliability. the premature retirement of natural gas fire powered plants increase the risk for blackouts and brownouts and much of the country. yet retirements continue in president biden is making the

situation worse. last month the environmental protection agency issued new rules that will force the premature closure of even more natural gas fired power plants. these plants play a major role in ensuring electric reliability. they also help make electricity more affordable. president biden doesn't seem to care at all. he wants the costs of complying with epa rules to be high. he wants to force operators to shut down these plans before the end of their useful life. it is a disgrace. we cannot regulate our way to electric generation but what owns the data centers the quality of the generation source is as important as the quantity of electricity generated. i acknowledge wind and solary cn help yet they are weather dependent. batteries too can help it if batteries are expensive and can provide power for extended periods. they require vast amounts of minerals from china to congo in the nation of the countries with

that human rights and environmental records. we need a reliable study and balance supply of electricity. nuclear coal natural gas and hydropower to provide that. this demand poised to surge it only makes sense to keep their existing power plants operating while also building a new generating capacity. our goal should be addition and not subtraction. mr. chairman of the 20th century w was the american century. which can truly the 21st century still up for grabs. much depends on how america capitalizes on the potential of artificial intelligence. ethe president's opposition to coal, to natural gas and to hydropower that fuels and generate 65% of our electricity is a white flag. it's a surrender an act of surrender to china. mr. chairman of this chart shows that china has added

262 gigawatts of coal-fired electric generation since the paris climate agreement in 2025. the gridlines how much china has added to coal-fired power plants to electoral generation. meanwhile the united states the united states has shut down over 100 gigawatts of coal-fired electric generation. what does this mean? it means that when china's ai developers need electric power the chinese communist party is going to makeha absolutely sure that they will get it. and they will get it from coal. when america's ai developers need power will it be enough and will it be reliable and affordable? right now under joe biden and the democrats the answer is no. the race for artificial intelligence is one america cannot afford to lose and we cannot win this or any other with china if we are unwilling to use the very energy sources that china is going to

exploit to the fullest. thank you mr. chairman. >> think you set up an effective turned her panel of witnesses and i will go to senator risch if i may. the interim ceo ceo and president of the electric power company one of her home state utilities in west virginia. gadhafi here. karen onaran present ceo of electricity consumers resource council. we have mr. scott gatzemeier corporate vice president of friend and u.s. expansion at micron technology then we have mr. mark onaran executive director of the national center for energy analytics and at this time i'll send to my friend. >> i thank both of you for holding what's really an important hearing today and covers a lot of ground and underscores some real shortcomings we have that we can

address. .. , micron technology was founded in idaho and they had a humble beginning, to say the least. it has grown to become one of the top semi conductor companies in the world. it continues to drive the company's advanced memory and storage technologies. they had given the u.s. a competitive edge in supercomputing. all is not well the semiconductor industry. those of us that serve on foreign relations and intelligence committee and work the national security lien have heard over and over again the shortcomings of the semiconductor industry.

it was driven by this my conductor industry following the siren of chief wages and moving production offshore. this has caused us some difficulties and it is very much the national security problem. with semi with the semi conductors everyone is aware and knowing more than the defense industry and the defense contractors how important microchips are, semi conductors are in the construction of certain products. they are in everything and now for their refrigerators, tvs, and in automobiles. but very importantly they are in just about everything we manufacture having to do withha defense. thus, what those of us who saw this came up with the chips act 52 billion-dollar addition to our budget to stimulate bringing

this industry back to the united states. this was not driven by a desire to subsidize the semiconductor industry. it was designed to meet, which wast a great challenge in semi conductor production. to bring it back here to the united states and close this gap on national security. it appears to me it is working. we thought it would. no one ever knows it to actually try it. but, right now this is happening. micron is leading the charge in on shoring chip production again. the company russo broke ground on a new fact has plans to build for additional fabs nationwide. brings more than 25 years experience across engineering,of operations and technology development is micron's leading expert's experience and expertise position him to offer a unique perspective on how

congress and industry must rise to the challenge of returning the american-born semiconductor industry to the united states. a key component of meeting that challenge is sufficient and dependable energy. it is no accident companies like a micron continue to invest in idaho. our states all the above energy policy support for client reliable affordable always on hydropower making it a prime location. this issue ofss national securiy and semiconductors fits very well with the subject we are talking about today. it does a demand a tremendous amount of energy mr. chairman you did a really goodnt job of underscoring what the experts are telling us we are going to need for energy in the future. so scott, thank you for being here today i look forward to hearing court testimony on this important issue breaker et cetera think. give a very report foreign relations committee you have to be involved with coming up right now perhaps sure scott will get

you upet to this quickly as possible. o-with that, let's are there testimonies you are first. quick term at mansion, ranking member and committee members, thank you for the invitation to testify atha today's hearing. my name is ben i serve as interim ceo president of american electric power company. aep is one of the largest utilities in the united states. serving customers across 11 state footprint diverse electric generation fleets and we own and operate the largest transmission system in the united states. this is a significant moment for our country, our industry and our company. we are excited about the opportunity and challenges ahead of us as we meet the growing demand for electricity in our region. demand for electricity is almost flat for two decades. we are now beginning to see the trend reversed driven by large customers such as industrial manufacturers, data processors and others require significant amount of power for the efforts of congress to support the development of these businesses

have been remarkably successful in companies are now building and growing here in america because in part abundant and diverse energy resources reliable and affordable power. however, in some areas of the country the demand for electricity available capacity just a few years ago a large industrial manufacturing facility it might require 100 megawattss or enough to powr at 100,000 homes. a facility at that site would typically be one-of-a-kind in a region. a major source of economic activity for the area. now it's common for single data center to require three, up to 15 times this amount of power for single site. as technology evolves power demand from data processing is expected to double nationwide in three years. one small example of the demand surge, open a ichat gpt requires 2.9 oh watt hours for requests. that's more power than a typical google search that would more

double a step change in infrastructure investment on accelerated timeframe would be required to serve even a fraction of the future demand in a reliable manner. as demand is rapidly increasing our nation'sis electricity systm is transforming to accommodate new forms of energy. theen pace of this transformatin must overtake the reliability needs of our system. electric power supply disruptions are steadily increasing. technological transformation to deliver it reliable, affordable and environmentally sensitive a power where and when they need it. continued developmentnt of the electric system it must be a central priority of u.s. energy

and economic policy. we need to think bigger and more comprehensively to address the many opportunities and challenges in front of us. for your part we ask congress work with regulators to ensure electric system resource adequacy prevent premature retirements of dispatch will power plants. this includes considering the impact of recent epa regulations which could hasten the pace of plant retirements diminish reliability. collaborating with constituents to evaluate thest establishmentf essential planning authority focused on reliability.th direct inc. to ensure viable, reliability safety valve mechanisms are in place to prevent premature plant retirements. congress should also expedite the developing of new 24/7 dispatch about clean energy resources to meet the growing consumer demand. this could be done through encouraging to allow for fast tracking of generation resources and the interconnection cues and

selected by utilities to meet their obligation to serve customers. encouraging the development of advanced technologies such as next-generation nuclear. passing a sighting and permitting package that accelerates development of critical infrastructure maintaining the inflation reduction act and the technology neutral nuclear tax credits would serve to reduce cost for customers. finally congress would encourage recent efforts to support the efficient development of necessary regional and interregional electric transmission facilities to ensure reliability of common economic growth and development. electric power industry will play a crucial role in helping the u.s. remain a global leader in advanced manufacturing and technology innovation. with the help of congress are federal and state regulators and agencies, we can serve the emerging demand and secure america's role as a leader for generations to come. to do so will need to work together to quickly build new sources of electric generation

high voltage power lines to deliver electricity where it is needed. thank you. cook's thank you. we have you next. >> chairman mansion, ranking member and distinguished members of the community d. thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. my name is karen i am the president and ceo of the electricity consumers resource council. is the trade association for a large industrial consumers of electricity. our mission is to ensure we have reliable and affordable power. and so we support the development and adoption of a rational and coordinated policy to ensure electric reliability at low cost. the purpose of my testimony today is to represent the industrial sector as one of the drivers of the electricity

demand we are speaking of today. so after decades of decline in manufacturing, domestic manufacturing is seeing a resurgence in the u.s. according to a recent report from deloitte research center for energy industrial, the number of manufacturing facilities in the u.s. grew by over 11% between the first quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2023. construction spending on manufacturing has nearly tripled since june 2020. what's up with 37% year-over-year and generate 2024 when construction spending reached adi high of $225 billio. as a result the industrial sector is projected to add 36 gigawatts of additional power by 2030. bringing manufacturing back to u.s. shores has many

implications and benefits that we talked about. this is bringing investment into communities that have been neglected in theas past. bringing thousands of jobs whether that be through construction, permanent jobs to run the manufacturing and the secondary jobs to support those workers including retail, food, and h housing. according to the nationall association of manufacturers, the industrial sector contributed at a yearly rate $2.9 trillion to the u.s. o economy. in the third quarter of 2023 and it projects we will need approximately 3.8 million in manufactured workers in the next decade. we've already heard about national security implications. we can no longer rely on hostile foreign nations to supply our critical infrastructure. our critical minerals and our computing power.

we saw the devastating impact during supply chain interruptions it behooves us to create more, manufacture more here on our shores. at this point we must right size our grid. we must meet this demand by reducing regulatory barriers that we are seeing but we know the risks, we have heard them today from varying energy supply to extreme weather like we saw in houston lastt week. we cannot take any options off the table right now. we need all of the above resourcesab and we meet infrastructure to support those resources. we need an agile and flexible grid that can manage a variable supply as well as a variable demand. demand is going to change the profile. so, we really, really implore

this committee and congress to pass significant permitting reform for transmission infrastructure and other energy infrastructure. we have seen federal energy regulatory commission has taken some measures to address interconnection backlogs and transmissionut we have a lot moe work to do. i ask everyone to come to the table and work on solutions. take nothing off the table now and finally even though we all appreciate it wish to be good stewards of the environment epa rules recently came out further complicates eight tenuous situation on our grid. we cannot be further impeding our reliable, safe and affordable electricity. electricity underpins our trnational economy. our national security prosperity and ingenuity here in the united states for setters again i thank you so much for your invitation

it will conclude my remarks and look forward to your y question. >> chairman mansion, ranking member brasa, senator risch and members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to testify today and represents micron represented the importance of affordable reliable sustainable energy. i serve as a corporate vice president's found it more than 45 years ago in boise, idaho the basement of a dentist office. today it's a world leader in design, development manufacturing of storage technologies. women expansive ip portfolio more than 55000 patents. over 40000 team members worldwide. my current plans to invest what are 25 billion with the support of bipartisanship's and science

acts. in boise, idaho 45000 jobs. we are seeking ships funding for our existing in virginia that will be excited to host you or your staff on the tour. washington has been focus on that vital role play in economic and national security. micron is the only manufacturer of memory. our memory and storage products are essential to storage and data centers and numerous other devices. without memory none of those devices the per markable capabilities that shape our modern world. micron has expensive memory port further from the ships that will be made in idaho and new york to virginia to micron's latest hbm 3e.

our high bandwidth and memory powers degenerative ai models by enabling them to break their data bottlenecks. the fastest highest capacity 30% more energy efficient than other products available across the industry. micron manufacturers significant efforts to reduce our consumption of energy which is detailed in my written report. however between the expansion of u.s. semiconductor manufacturing, new data centers, other manufacturer in the u.s. has been highlighted for electric demand won't go faster in the coming years and has in decades. u.s. manufacturing data centers the estes to modernize its grid x-men electricity generation capacity part comes energy permitting i will speak to the challenges we face. hydropower and the northwest

capacity is constrained on the transmission lines that move energy from the places that's generated to the homes, farms, businesses that need it. sustainable energy without transmission. we plan to import for that megawatts from affordable reliable from the pacific northwest in the summer when a surplus of energy is available there. and that went to the pacific northwest energy demand peaks, utilities there will import energy across transmission line from oregon to boise. b2 h began late 2006. this i have a notice to perceive proceedfrom the federaloc gover. $1.7 billion. top of the permitting costs exceeded over 220 million.

construction is finally slated to begin later this year's of completion 2027, over 20 years after the 2 project began. federal permitting process adds to decades hundreds of millions of dollars and the cost and not a permitting process to enable u.s. manufacturing renaissance or ai leadership. above all micron supports efforts which will ensure affordable reliable electricity which could include a balanced approach to permitting reform that utilizes all avenues to supporte the growth of domestic manufacturing, improves reliability maintains low energy costs and addresses the new need for sustainable energy sources. i willi leave you with this. micron's main product is memory intensely an competitive dynamic business. succeeds because we provide an edge often help requirements are

better performance metrics. we have been growing and planning to grow the digital economy. it's imperative congress also plan for the energy demand united states could remain competitive in a destination for limanufacturers like micron. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> good morning. and thank you for the opportunity to testify. senators come if i may as a personal observation and a longtime observer of this great committee and occasional witness. it is music to my ears to hear significant bipartisan convergence on such a critical issue. some personal interest because i began my career as a young physicist in new jersey and ohio. we are, as you said at the rear

pivot in history we are witnessing the emergence of significant and unanticipated new vector for demands. i'm referringsp specifically to the emergence of useful artificial intelligence, ai. especially whenly it's combined with thene next phase of expansn for the cloud computing infrastructure that was pioneered in the united states and expanded to thewo world. while there is debate and outright guesswork about the future specific uses from ai will come from civilian and military, no one doubts the ai build is here. utility planners and energy pundits have rediscovered a basic truth that for the arrival of new ways to boost the economy illustrates a long-standing correlationlo but it iron law tt links the t growth with rising energy is an especially electricity use it. h we've a good idea what we are now seeing such surprisingly leaps in your term forecast for electricity demand. put in monetary terms not physics terms that i grew up with, but in monetary terms everyev billion dollars spent on data centers leased over

$60 million year electricity purchases. last year before ai acceleration kicked into high gear capitol spending on u.s. data centers was running it over 100 billion a year. now the edition of ai enabled hardware is accelerating the rate at which data centers are being ordered and the energy use per data center. a billion dollar spent on a new ai infused data center likely drive something like $200 million in energy purchases. billion dollars spent on ev's is a billion dollars worth of new chip factories generates only about $20 million a year in annual electricity ai has eight voracious energy appetite is not news and the technicalal community. myriad of studies pointing out the so-called training phase is equivalent to a building not flying an aircraft can use as much electricity as driving a tassel anywhere from 30,000 to 4 million miles. the use space flying the ai

consume 10 times more electricity. there are for all practical purposes a limited numbers of potential applications for both training and using ai. of course ai will become more energy efficient. the latest ai chips are 100 fold more energy efficient over the last half dozen years. they will get another hundred fold more efficient by their 2030. efficiency will not solve more problems of rising electricity demands. it will do the opposite. just as it did in the rise of the first era. lower cost which makes the proliferation of the benefits of the product to servefi as a possible special and digital domains of. a smart phone one was used much electricity as a skyscraper single data center would use the entire grid it. it's because electricity gains there's billions of smart phones and thousands of data centers. consequently already rivals

energy use by global aviation. that is before ai. you can count on the pattern repeating with ai. electricity demand coming from the expansion of the cloud will continue to overshadow the combined impact of newhe ev's ad chip factories. whether ai expansion is in fact fully realize and chip factoriee expansion of chip factories and ev's as wellin america, that will be determined as other witness centers have said on whether we have adequate electricity but whether it is affordable and available when it is needed. given the skills electricity jam from the cloud and ai particularly the demands for restraint manufacturing promoting ev's nations electricity producers now need access, full access to all options electric power plant now needs to focus on additions to, notot transitions away from existing electricity production. u.s. is the cloud later today they pioneered it. they pioneered ai much as the

u.s. was a dominant aluminum producer just 25 years ago. producing again a monetary terms of billion dollars of alumina requires a purchasing for 9-dollar and electricity. happens on low-cost coal-fired goods in china which has become the world's dominant supplier of aluminum for the u.s. now has a single digit percentage share of global aluminumm supply. different materials in different industries but the energy implications of the two domains e i suggest has a relevant lessn for us. thank you. >> click sanger's arthur question i will begin. ii b have got so many questionsi do not know where to start to be honest with you. first i want to ask you all, simmer over anxious thinking it took care of everything. do any of you believe what rule took care of our permitting problems we have getting built? especially transmission or

pipelines does anyone believe it cured it? nobody? no okay. we all understand essays within the region for all it did is if you have a regional transmission states what you can do some repair but it does not take care interconnecting. we all agreed the charts we have here let me show on this chart if you live inn these areas or represent any of these areas coming this summer they're predicting you'll have a rolling a brownouts or blackouts because the demand will be so great. i doesn't account for the winter that would change right in that winter when the load is different in the winter. we understand that but i would ask you coming from the technology end of it where are you all looking to a put your nw databases and things of that sort? do you look at this and find out where you might have more reliable power or you might go and recommend putting a plant or a center in an area where they

are going to be reliable and not basically intermittent? works power reliability is incredibly important to our industry. >> doess that factor into basically making decisions on where you're located? >> yes it did. when you look at new york one of the reasons that made the decision to go there as there is a nuclear power plant 40 miles directly north of our facility with a direct line connection to 345 kv substation across the street from that site should. and looking at it was one of the most reliable substations on the grid when we were looking at were to select our sites. it's the reliability of the system is incredibly important. small millisecond blip and our power it would take down our factory to up to week by interacting process. so reliability is incredibly important. >> and winchell to the chart is a is before on wind. actually all of ourll environmental friends are big on the win. i know our majority leaders big on wind. wind has hit a slump is going

down it takes long to build the transmission lines. a record high wind has dipped clear down to hear. you agree or disagree with this analogy of what happened to wind? because we cannot get transmission built. >> i'm trying to make the point we all had to have permitting reform. we have worked on this committee and a bipartisan effort. you pointed out we all understand. how desperate we are needed. have you all had any contact with the white house, john's office, the claimant department there? about the need to get permitting done? have you had any input at all? haven't reached out to you at all? no? none of you. have you tried to reach out to them and tell them how desperate we are trying to get

transmission and things built? i would encourage you to do so if you haven't. please do so. the other thing is on china, do you believe china has a competitive edge with the amount of power they have dispatch of will to them? doing to comment on that? >> have a profound competitive edge and low cost higher electric power as you well know any profound competitive edge on exporting the critical minerals and materials we used to build unreliable power. if we do not the capacity, back to the production end of it ai coming on so strong if we are not able to keep pace and be a leader in the world, are we in jeopardy that lack of power we have? >> i think you said it. you cannot run a business if you cannot keep the lights on. we need additional generation. we encourage investigation and all sources of new like new hydro nuclear small modular reactors, geothermal battery

technologyth for wind and solaro makeke them more reliable becaue we run 24/7. encourage look at all sorts of generation requiring a new generation to beir created befoe you retire existing generation. >> since i am a customer of yours anyway, are you concerned about the amount of epa regulations coming out and power plants that you are going to be closing more reliable power than what you intend to do? >> very much so. epa is a big fan of ccs the think that's it most available technology. you know that a pilotec programo explore department capture. we have got experience with it. and it has its challenges in front of us. it is not a proven technology today. no is the infrastructure to move the carbon to sequester it available. so, while it might be a viable technology, a proven technology in the future, it is not today.

it is unrealistic to expect that it will be available by 2030. dd plants being retired earlier than their time? >> we will have to have that conversation with our commissions. there were not scheduled to be rules -- if you don't comply with these rules, you need to shut the plans down and that would be a premature shutdown. >> on the premature shutdown, who continues to pay because your rate was based on the life of the plant? so it's based into the rate of west virginians and we will be paying for shutting down earlier in bringing out other power so it's a double whammy. for the most hard-pressed and challenge people basically, doesn't make any sense at all. no sense whatsoever. i hope you speak up loud and clear and you put statements out >> and who's going to pay the freight. >> we plan to do just that senator. >> thank you sir.. >> senator. >> just to follow-up so in 2021 you testified before a different committee in the senate that,

quote, renewable energy can only take us so far. you went on to say at higher levels of renewable cost of the energy system begins to sky roblght in the reliability degrades still true today? >> yeah. i made that testimony when i was of seal energy but that statement still holds true because it reflects the grid i'm a big proponent of renewable energy and we address climate change and risk of it and the reality is more renewable generation you put on the grid at some point that grid saturation point and value that have renewable energy diminishes and integration cost increases and it's the reality that the big grid we're part of need 24/7 dispatchable degeneration and it needs to be that. >> dangerous to have them offline at this point. mr. mills let me go to you.

what would be the consequences ifou the federal state regulatos effectively product use of natural gas and coal to meet the growth. >> and the profound disadvantage g to politically, you can only consume the energy to produce and since we all have witnesses and all of the members of the committee understand now that we have soaring demanding for economically drin need for electricity, we won't get that growth without the power. >> so, sol argue that electric batteries that argue that rapid deployment and will enable us to snore energy for longer periods of time lower cost. what's your assessment of the state of battery technology and affordability of electric service if we rely significantly on these batteries? >> technical physics point

batteries don't produce energy but they store it and extraordinary expense of ways to store battery roughly a hundred more times than traditional ways to store energy. tank caverns, piles of coal they'll play and are having a sphapght role in short-term stabilization for a long-term energy storage, the united states would have to deploy tens of trillions of dollars of batteries at scales that the world cannot manufacture nor produce the minerals for. >> so let me follow just the head of the department of energies loan program office he recently argued that projected growth endemanding for electricity that we've all talked about been reported broadly in said it is significantly overstated he claims many large energy users can control when they need electricity. he saidy they might agree to sp using power during times of demand. he also said that individuals will stop using electricity during times of high demand in response to highdu prices.

in your view, will this be enough to address growing demand for electricity and if not why not? >> well first, another physics point man side management doesn't produce energy it is avoiding use of energy. economic growth requires more energy. also, utilities have been very, very good at managing demanding for abouts a century this is nt a new discovery in the utility industry. i would say that principal discovery is that our society is more electrified and fewer and fewer sources, quote, low hanging fruit where we would turn to i'll pick on mike because spectacular company where you would turn to them when they're running their factory who -- who will tell us as i worked in if you take power away from milliseconds you cause astonishing economic destruction. i have had that happen to me whensh i ran as a young man. so you don't get to ask them to turn it off right now. the wind isn't blowing and batteries are run out when you have a four hour bat battery you

don't have a pile of coal nearby or more electricity if the wind -- cloudct covered. it is not a solution. but it is a tool in managing cycles, society is cyclical. humans are cyclical to peak demands can be shaved but don't produce energy. b>> since you turned to micron i'll turn to micron both electricity service and the quality of the electric service that you get are incredibly important to micron. what's the impact of temporary voltage dips that we talked about on faculties like yours. >> i've had opportunity to recover a fab from a minor power blip minor seconds tens of millions of product lost in that fab recovery this would be on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars project loss on other larger facilities that billing.e so absolutely a large economic impact, and while we are putting

in all sorts of energy savings, type opportunities variable speed drivers with, heat capture recovery we're putting that all into to try to lower our demanding ability to flung watt a base load we run 24/7, 365 all the time and you cannot just shut it off. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> senator cortez masto. >> thank you. thank you mr. chairman. ranking member i'm one those that believes we need permitting reform. me start with you and i want to express my appreciation for endorsement of one of my bills expedited generator interconnection procedures act. gifa for short i was pleased to see your testimony call on congress to consider this legislation as soon as possible. really in order to ease what we're talking about this interconnection back logs enhance grid reliability, and

lower energy costs. as we've all been talking about in our aware lawrence lab recently determined over 2600 giga watts in inner connected cues at the end of 2023. can you talk about why expanding on some of the ways this legislation -- works to alleviate the bottlenecks. and it will have a positive impact on energy development and grid resiliency. >> thank you for the question senator yes it was a supporter of that proposed bill. we are at a point where we need again as my testimony stated all of the above resources. we have a lot of resources that are hung up in the inner connection cue that are ready to put steel in the ground and start producing power. and unfortunately due to regulatory constructs, at the markets -- these are being held up through red tape and, you know,

restudies and so we really need to find a way to standardize and perhaps automate some of these study processes so that we can do it quickly and quicker and get these resources on the grid. furyk has done work with order 2023 but we still need to go further and it is just the first step. >> thank you. while i have you because you mention this this is a concern of mine because i think as we build out -- our portfolio around clean energy, we need to assure we have a work force and you talk a little bit about it. so when considering the severity of -- of literally growing and moving forward and clean energy all of these projects, what do we need to be thinking about for that work force is this there or should we putting more invest m and what type of investments in the work force? >> absolutely. you know coming from the utility side before i join the consumer side, that was something we

heard from the utilities quite a bit that the workers to come even managing our electric system. the same for manufacturing. trade schools things like declined. there was more prominent focus on liberal arts education we moved away from the trade, education that we need. we need to encourage more workers to look at some of these new emerging jobs. we need to make sure they're well paid we need to make sure thatll they can exist in this society and can prosper. so we really need to be investing in our future work force and we need to start doing that now. >> thank you. mr. are you familiar with advance reconducting? can you talk a little bit about that? there's an opportunity as we're talking about building out the grid in transmission the technologies also going to help us with that capacity. isn't that correct?an

talk a little bit about that? >>ty grid it is a grid enhancingening. technology. we have used it a couple of years ago in south texas where we used advance conductor technology to -- in a 300 i think a 330, 334kb and to your point it increased capability by 40%. i would caution, though, that you do have to find specific applications and specific regions and a lotsp of other technical things before you, before it can produce those sorts of results that i mentioned. but we have been -- very big proponent of grid enhancing technologies making sure that they also have a cost benefit, you know -- favorably score out on that and when theyst do we're all in. >> are there other countries using this type of technology advance conductors? >> other utilities? >> countries, i believe so. but i would have to check to see how thatav makes sense of they are. >> thank you.

thank you mr. chairman. >> now we have senator cassidy. >> mr.-- the chairman just reminded me we have that coal fire plant in shreveport,, louisiana? >> shut down, still paying for that absolutely. because it did not go to its life. so when we speak about higher energy costs, and they've risen significantly during this administration. part of that is the -- kind of unrealized productivity of sunk assets, and let's be clear that's regressive. that is regressive. poor people pay a greater percent of their income from the unrealized potential but i will note by the way in northwest, louisiana in we support that area, and y'all have great reliability. so i also want to give you a congratulation a shoutout.

my state consumes our state consumes energy and we have reliable energy so i appreciate that.s let me ask you this i've recently toured a little bit off senator cortez masto in southern korean 100% of their electricity right now isle being supplied by renewables. we've got to hand it to them it is remarkable now i don't think southern california is huge of manufacturing but more than i thought there was. now admitted in another time of the year, it would have a mix. but just to say this kind of low balance it is possible, correct? as much as i believe in fossil fuel in necessity for base load -- in a place like southern california, with lots of renewables, et cetera certainly it is possible correct? >> i will tell you all sincerity they're connected to a big grid that's somewhere has that dispatchable 24/7 likely fossil fuel that is supplying them. you can stream renewables from

different places but at the end of the day they're corrected to grids that have fossil capability on that. >> even so -- as historic micron located down stream from a nuclear power plant that was one of the reasons you did the united states subsidies rolled into it but that's okay. i'll leave that. so -- so for that -- always got to be on. even if you're like -- this great -- utility in southern california in which that time they're using 100% renewables you've got to have that base load. >> absolutely. and you know, that nuclear power plant is not behind but on the grida supplying resources that's resources to the entire grid for the benefites of many customers. not just micron. >> thank you. >> i've been interested in the judicial review aspect of permit and reform any comments on that? >> i think. as you know senator.

one of the big challenges for large manufactures of any kind is that the permits are -- effectively in infinite period of potential review judicial, other forms of review which is why -- we see exactly the kind of challenges especially the transmission line, in idaho same was true in maine where i spent my siewrms transmission line that never got built. >> so again chairman knows how lawsuit after lawsuit can effectively tie up something and kill the project. so i like to say that the folks on other side of the dollar want powerlines and folks on this side want pipelines. but we really want both. because we know that both are essential. so is it fair to say to say that permitting reform that we benefit both power and pipe are the same ones that benefit pipe and power? >> yes, sir. that wouldld be a terrific outce to -- accelerate the permitting of both because the world cannot operate without both. >> got you. >> sir i know micron had

development in -- in china. i know that because the chinese have been somewhat -- noncooperative with your economic development there. is the power source there coal or what is the typical source that you get there? >> i don't know what the power of our back facility but micron we're one of -- very few manufacturing companies that does not have front end manufacturing. >> does not have what -- >> a fab in china. >> got you. i want to point out i learned that 60% of chinese power is generated by coal typically don't turn on scrubs because that decreases deficiency and oftentimes built on pacific coast that means trade winds blow them over to the united states. so the degree that our energy policy increases the cost of energy and therefore, encourages someone to move to china. we're actually worsening global green house emission because

we're increasing consumption and national gas. and natural gas is accounted for a decrease in absolute emissions in the united states less than i think now certain 2005 you'll dell me even earlier diet despie more electricity usage. i say all that and i yield back mr. chair. >> right on, brother. [laughter] we -- we have senator cantwell now. >> and the chips and science about. this break through legislation is on tray took triple domestic chip manufacturing capacity by 2032. so we should be excited about that. and thanks to the act that's the largest percentages semiconductor growth rate in the world. so can't emphasize how important

that is and many people here played a -- big role in supporting that but we have same issues in the northwest and power council, calculates that the region will needat 3500 mega watts of renull generation in 2027 and 14,000 by 2040 so that -- i think that's a doe estimate puts pacific northwest in need of 56% more transmission capacity by 2040. so we're very proud of our a.i. cloud computing all of that. but we have to figure out what we're going to do about the power needs. you mentioned hydro i wanted to ask you what do you think the priority there is for hydroreliancing should be? do you think we need a tax credit to help spur base load keep base load power in place?

and what other things do you think we need to do in a transmission capacity that would be interesting for your next phases of production? >> so -- first, i mean we're fortunate to operate in idaho where we have a lot of access to hydro and pacific northwest generation and then we will be operating in new york where again there's additional hydro access. so it is absolutely a good source of, you know, sustainable energy that we should be continuing to invest in. but i would also say we need to beer looking at all sources of sustainable energy looking at nuclear small investing in improved battery storage technology for wind and solar which we've discusseds here as well and then geothermal in other sources any additional generation that we can get is critical. and then for the grid and the northwest i mention putting that in place interconnecting idaho,

washington to more where there could be seasonal demanding fluctuation in differences of generation being able to share that's how that transmission line is going to be critical for the pacific northwest enabling inner connectivity. >> there are some savings right? saving, i think it is like one-third or one-fourth of the cost to basically save -- electron than it is to produce one and there's some capacity to build into the grid on smarter technologies that would help us and moving power around where we needed it. >> yeah. when you look at the availability of power from lower cost sources during different seasonality and then also you look at the cost of -- of asset if you will of a generation source that sits idle because wind or solar are running at that time if yowxd sending that power somewhere else -- to where it could be utility liesed as lower cost that could help savings as well.

>> what about the tax credit idea? we already have it for wind and solar why not for hydro? >> they have for their nuclear power plants that they had to work on -- maintenance acts theaf with theirti nuclear plants to keep them online and running so to continue hydroplants funding that could be a program that you could look at and follow potentially. >> okay. and what about other sources of energy you mentioned battery technology you didn't mention fusion but we have three fusion companies going to work in everett, washington do you think there's other things that micron is looking at as we think about these data centers and a.i. integration into the grid? >> i mean, we produce semiconductors not energy consumer of energy. but i will say we are working to innovate in factories to lower

consumption but it is in data centers so every generation of our technology we're working to reduce the power that they consume since 2011 we've done a 10x reduction in our power and other products on the market so we're working to effectively reduce our consumption in those way. >> i can't -- i don't have enough time but that's monumental success right when you think about -- driverless cars or other applications it's an immense amount of energy and memory that's required. that's all. thank you. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator. now -- thank you mr. chairman i want to follow only the comments from senator cantwell about that hydro just thinking what about

we have in place with the hydro production in this country and how it is provided us that great base load wonderful dwoak more. we know we need to be doing more. but when we're looking at the number of -- hydrofacilitys up for reliancing and recognizing how much it cost to reliance and how long it takes to do it. in what's to say that we're not going to have some of these facilities who are just like -- not worth the time, nor the energy and it goes back to the permitting but it is something that i think as we think about our energy -- demands, we have got to have some better projection here. i was in a -- defense props hearing and we were talking about pack ads number one priority, at j bear in anchorage area there it is a

training facility. and they just very casually say that it's going to increase j bear's power requirements by roughly 50%. and thinking about what that means, this is in an area of the state where we're talking right now about importing l and g from canada because our l and g reserves in cook inlet are going down so we're thinking about what it's going to mean are we seeing brown ad what's happen wring do we get this resource we have ao governor saying we're going back to coal. there's -- there's more than a little bit of panic and anxiety we had our legislature just shut down, just last week. but the whole -- so much of the focus has been on our energy. umand increase consumption so question for probably mr. mills

the forecast we see in filings by the rto over years but eia latest 2023 annual energy outlook only forecast demands would grow by 1% on average from 2022 to 2050. i cannot -- i cannot even begin to think that that is -- reasonablyly or remotely sane. it is just -- it is not the world that we're living in and we're seeing this every single day. what --e what is the discrepancy here? terms of the forecast whether it's from -- eia or rto. is the problem in how they're collecting the information -- they're forecasting issues, we've got to get a better handle on what's coming down the pike here. what do we need to do?

>> well, i don't know where eia is getting their information. that sounds like a forecast that maybe would have been accurate four years ago. but not with what we're seeing. not with what we're seeing in today's world, i mean, in -- in central ohio we're going double our capacity and five years. and -- we've talked extensively about amount of demanding we're seeing i think one thing that has to what within the rto structure is -- it's incumbent upon us as a utility to get the updated forecast in a timely manner so they can -- they can have full information. >> do you think they -- that they'reor collecting their right data in order to give you a forecast that is accurate? >> well, the rto typically collect their data from their members. so we -- we need to tell them how much load we're seeing. and then, of course, there's a risk adjustment process, and how much of that is actually, you know,, serious, how much may be it is duplicated et cetera, et ceterait but we're working closy with them to get those forecast

right, and they're recognizing and you're starting to see it senator, in what's happening with the pricing of capacity, for example in the pgm market it is a three-year capacity window does not encourage capacity that needs to be built for 30-year time frame. >> you want to comment on this? >> another problem is the obvious one that's hard to predict the future. but one thing we know it is predict is innovation occurs episodes they're -- >> okay. but tiewk me because we just passed chips act couple of years ago we know that's coming so how are we -- howw empowering incorporating what we know legislatively what we know from a appropriations perspective we should see coming our way. >> senators i would say this was a blowing on the horn when the chips act was passed i did right and didn't testify before the committee that the effect of that could be to increase electricity demands and the

entire electricity is used to build semiconductor chips because ireland 20% of the entire country electricity use run data centers. this was predictable. it was predicted in the technical literature, i'm one of the players that tries to push into the public policy -- domains but we're told that we'll -- see efficiency solve, quote, that problem and what i've pointed out in my testimony said for years is efficiency doesn't solve the, quote, problem when you have -- met new demands from new innovation the invention of the car led to demand for gas and invention of chips for kids for electricity and so on. so the hard part is that, and i have sympathy for the leaders of electric utilities and rto's they're stwuk trying to guess what innovators are doing in this market. they're stuck with guessing that a new micron might show up one day. there are i can, promise you is

a student of this industry, there are -- there are hundreds of new microns brewing in the country. five or ten of them will succeed in a very few years, they'll demanding astonishing amounts of energy and all act surprised. it's predict thabl it will happen what's hard to predict is exactly when but it is not a century. it is a few years. you know, sort of close by saying that demands as we're discovered occurg faster than e can get permits to build power plants or relianced hydrodams, and this is -- this is a part that has to be resolved what we want for growth we won't get it. and what we want don't want to permit and this is doesn't matter transmission line for wind or gas turban and gas line for the gas turbine. >> thank you senator now we have senator hickenlooper. >> thank you mr. chair. and ranking member barrasso, i

have and continue to support your bipartisan efforts to -- >> we've now got con tepts for you we're going to have everything at your desk. >> ready with that permitting form and assist any way i can. obviously, we need to accelerate all of the points that you all are making. and it's far beyond whether someone iski on one side or the other on the climate change debate. the world is changing so rapidly. and a big part of the -- of the ability to respond to the greater need is going to be our ability to move electricity from one placety to another. i'll start with -- how would you just say specifically just a couple of examples of how permitting delays impact your members their ability to grow? >> right. thank you, yes. so you know, we are looking into communities as the micron we're

looking for the reliable. we're looking for states and regions that have, that are open to infrastructure expansion that they are not shutting those conversations down. the permitting, of course, when we delay getting that infrastructure in the ground, we cannot command our operation there is because we will not be able to reliably support our operations. we need to have that infrastructure in place the longer it takes to permit, we either move to a different state or we do not expand. .... aying this permit and getting that infrastructure that we need. >> all right. and i think the same was said in terms of reliability. >> absolutely. >> the same constraints exists in restrictions. and we've been discussing all

about the predictions that they have provided that the transmission would significantly lower cost then and enhance for liability. we've got a big wires act that hopefully help coordinate interregional buildout. i've discussed with several of you over a period of time. and the speed and reliability act would streamline permitting reform on nationally significant lines. micron is obviously is obviously making huge investments in new york and in a boise but how does that reliability and access to low-cost influences decisions? what's on the reliability side we talked about the impact a millisecond dip in a power canan have in significant product loss for us.

reliability is absolute paramount two. availability as well. that is where the cost of an action is extraordinarily high here. we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity i'll talk about for a second 90% of the a worlds drm was made here in the u.s. in 1975. today, less than 2% is made here that's micron facility in manassas, virginia. with the planned investment in ida company in new york will get that up to over 60% of our capacity, 12% of the world's capacity is built here in the u.s. here again. if we are unable to get the power i did the generation or the transmission to the locations where we want to build up an opportunity missed for the united states. >> i appreciate that night and icelebrate micron's innovatn and success. even though you are idaho wouldn't comment was still on the west take that level of invitation.

i realize innovation grants everywhere you do not want to create enemies but we appreciate all you've done and you'll take this investment make the most og it. >> had known each other for many years well back into my gubernatorial ways. ap testified at last year that you're being asked to connect loads across the transmission system footprint equal to roughly 10% of the total u.s. electricity demand today but earlier this month doe release the preliminary list of national interest. many of these primarily designated areas fall within the service area. how would that final designation of theig high-priority areas mae it easier for you to access new transmission infrastructure and connect new generation? how much of the work has been

done? >> good to see you again. we are very supportive of vagal wires active want to continue to work their staff on that. as far as the national quarters, we had a tremendous amount of success work with our states to get transmission cited. miwe have had to use imminent domain less than 3% of the circumstances. i think what the national quarters bring which does not have the ability across the full grid is the rare cases where we need a federal backstop to step in when it is a critical transmission line for reliability that is where i think it only has that authority in these national quarters. that to me is the bigger thing that have a national court or in my humble opinion because states should be leading the process for it that's critical in that process. >> totally agree, great but thank you all. appreciate i'm out of time i might come back for second round

of questions.f mr. chair? >> mr. chair i'm glad i could be here to help balance thingse out there. >> i'm so happy you're here. [laughter] looking forward to this frequency knew you would be. thanks to all of you for being here got to start with mr. gatzemeier i don't remember it you are for you remember of university of north dakota team.nding swim and you received a bs in electrical engineering. so obviously a jock on campus and obviously managed to get electricalal engineering degree, pretty impressive. then went on to a reasonably good schools not as good to get an mba at fort collins and ms at barkley. so i just want to make sure people are aware of your impeccable and outstanding credentials. probably if you would had something west virginia and

there as wellve it would've been trifecta. [laughter] >> now you see where we are happy is here? >> or governor to go for aboutr 10 years so we go way back. >> awayk. back. but seriously i did want to welcome you. and your testimony you say epa has finalized new power plant sector regulations and i quote which could hasten the pace of plant retirements diminish reliability" at the samee time saying we expect -- we need to increase electricity over the next five years increase it. so, don't we need to be focusing on dispatch about resources 24/7 to provide additional electricity is not going to magically appear out of thin air, right? aren't we on the wrong track and don't we need to have it work with our baseload industry to make sure we can't meet our we r

electricity needs and not like a third world country with blackouts and brownouts which of have already started to happen. >> i agree with you. i would love to see renewables on the grid but you cannot substitute 24/7 dispatch will generation. in fact if you look at the queue rightw, now the generation q isr 2.6 terawatts which is more than double the existing capacity we have in our system but if you look witters is in those cues only 95% of that is non- dispatch will generation. >> it was 3%? is over 95% less than 5% is dispassionate 24/7 generation. we absolutely need to hang onto what we have a box i heard of the first time i wanted to make sure everybody else didn't. [laughter] works the absolute need to hang onto whatto we have. the epa rules i believe will hasten the retirement of dispatch will generation up and agreed today to good sense to disagree with him and why?

what the records show side mr. gatzemeier is dependable electricity important all your business or is it important to do what else? which is incrediblyan importanti know it's important all semiconductor manufacturers. minor interruption milliseconds can cause our factories to go down for a weekor and cause tens of millions of product loss. so incredibly important in our factories onn 24/7 365 at peak output operations we require the baseload to meet our demand very quickly do argue it's vitally important in terms of our economy being a competitor than a global economy? would you argue it's important for national security as well to be able to generate energy for ourselves and our allies? >> absolutely guests. >> i would guess any other

thoughts on how we not only maintain but increase our baseload for any of you who like to respond to that? >> senator, the fastest way to increase power supply since were talking about demands occurring in the next few years not deck it is not things we don't know how to build but things the fast construction of dispatch about power will come from gas pipes and gas turbines the primary source almost every state it's also true in europe it's happening around the world. but especially here. >> would you agree american technology and ingenuity is the driving improvements to environmental standards of the same time were producing energy at low cost and that's a better approach? thedo regulations that shut us down force us toen get energy fm other countries? >> the question answers itself sir. >> i like that answer.

thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you,rs senator. and now we have senator king. >> think it mr. chairman. what is bothering me about this entire discussion is we are only talking half of thehe equation. we aren't like in a car on a railroad track with a train coming toward us we are talked about the cost of a tow truck. the cost of not addressing climate change dwarfs the cost of addressing climate change. their reliable studies indicate as much as five times in houston today the power is off. you can talk about this and dismiss the studies and talk about environmentalists and everything else. i would say who is paying attention to this, the insurance companies. cold eyed businesspeople there is a report this morning texas has had to create a risk pool

because people cannot get homeowners insurance because of the volume of these violent storms. so, i just want to put the context here. no one is saying we should go back to hydro because they love the looks of dams. they think we should be tight but renewable power because the alternative to moving is catastrophic. in terms of dollars and cents. i just want to lay that little bit of context. i agree with you all, mr. mills permittingabout reform. i've been working with the chairman for years. the whole point is the process cannot take forever. last week we had secretary of the interior. a talk to her about it. the delays they have a during their studies that eisenhower retook europe in 11 months. i suggested she send an e-mail to a permitting staff

eisenhower. but to act like the transition is just something we are doing because it's a nice thing to do or become some elite group says we should do it is just not accurate. transmission is obviously big part of the problem. i like your testimony, some of the whole answer but part of the answer. if you have an indication you increase throughput by 40% without building new 4 poles. that's the kind of thing and dynamic line management is gotta canbe part of that as well. the other piece is the queue. no one is talked about the queue. i think you testified there is as much power waiting in the queue of the various rto's around the country that's double the total amount of power being produced in the country right now paid by the way it's not all non- dispensable.

big lots is a batteries batteries are dispatch a bowl. that is a technology that's obviously in development for the other kinds of storage technologies good old pulp agstories had been around for 10 years. 1 all of those kinds of alternatives. how do we get there? i guess i will go back to my original question but do you believe we have to address the threat of climate change? >> absolutely. and i think there is a lot we can do but we also have to balance that against the need for reliable and affordable power. >> absolutely. >> i have spoken many times about this in my former role i was speaking to someone who's in the industry for this industry can make tremendous strides to reducing carbon emissions and already has.. more thanon we probably ever fet possible. but percentage less 20% is going to require different technologies that we have today.

i'm a big believer. >> it took the words out of a map a big proponent of that may be carbon capture becomes viable. we have to have technology move at the speed of value. we worry when we prematurely shut down power plants that are running they have very negative impact on reliability potentially the ability to fund this terrific growth we're seeing across the country. >> you agree though the queue is a barrier in itself? in terms of what is it waiting in line?ne >> guess i do. that is why we think it should be encouraged to fast-track those resources that the ability to serve fuel are essential to reliability. don't have that today, saturday. >> we talk about all the above there are so many options.

to more efficient conservation it used to be in theco conservation business. we cut energy use is significantly and a factory hospital. those you can use somewhere else. thoseur are not generation. but they free up generation to view somewhere else. plenty of options, think you will hear testimony rethinking mr. chairman. i do not know what to say. say something in west virginia at. [laughter] >> i cannot quite speak that language up but i'm getting close. >> thank you verycl much. i am glad senator king noted how important it is for us to deal in this space with climate change. i agree this industry certainly has got it. when you cannot afford homeowners insurance because of these need to cover the results of extreme climate change

disasters including i have to say itt wildfires such as what molly experienced, at least we have one major industry with climate change thank you for agreeing that something they have togr do. so i am interested the importance of clean energy goals. the analysis of the global recently power demand concluded quote many of the large technology companies private equity groups that owned and managed data centers have pledged to use green power electricityci for their needs we expect renewables to ultimately supply a majority of the incremental to the facilities." can you elaborate renewable energy commitments the role they played in locating plants building with the help of the chips insides act? >> that they committed by the

endh of 2025 to be one her% renewable in our factories in states?ed or elsewhere where available. there is other thing we looke into co-op solar projects language with idaho power with the black mesa project which is a 40-megawatt project. in addition to that we're looking at additional ppa's right of the goals. >> so much as the cost of contribute to micron setting some energy goals? >> i'm sorry what was a question? >> how much should the falling cost of renewable power play into micron setting its energy goals?

>> obviously we look at the cost of energy. we are in a cost sensitive business. we want to continue to drive that it be effective. and fortunately in the u.s. you can get renewable energy credits it. you can look at renewables that are effective today. however it does not want generation out onto the grid with the amount of demands we are talking about, the cost of energy would rise and create problems pretty and said then you would run into availability issues, reliabilityli issues. those are the things we would like to t avoid through change here with transmission and an additional generation of a multiple sources coming online parts of solar, wind, battery technology to enable those to be more effective geothermal. we talked about nuclear with the small modular reactors and other investments that could be done to continue down that path. to meet all of the goals we are looking for. >> i think you are an example of a private company that pays

attention to these issues. you described how new data centers could require three -- 15 times as much of power as a more typical industrial plan. do you think utopia should require data centers with such a new demand for power energy storage on site in order to shape back their demand for ther power from the grid with periods of deep demand? >> has an interesting commentary. some think we need to look into. i meet traditionally i referred to by colleague data centers are backed up because of the importance of making sure backup power. increasingly as we look around data centers are more open to doing exactly what you described. i also want to call to your attention that data at center tariff we filed an ohio.

recognizing this extraordinary growth needs to be funded fairly by the data centers and not cost shifting to other consumers. we think it is a critically important first step as we move forward with the date it center the demand we see. >> i agree. mr. gatzemeier do you have a comment on this question? >> unfortunately, right now we have power conditioning coming into our site we do not have cogeneration or large power backup that could sustain us through eight reliability event. in the case of eight reliability issues we achieve power in that would impact in a negative way. >> i'm running out of time thank you, mr. chairman. >> think you'd senator. so now i get to have a second round by myself or at least until the chair gets a back he will be looming over my shoulder soon enough. [laughter] oh my god, there he is looming over my shoulder as predicted.

lett me ask a final question. mr. mills i will talk with you. you've been at work in this for such a long period of time i think you have a perspective. part of what america values in this strange creation of a democracy that most of the time functions pretty well. people have an opportunity to voice their concerns we have spent a lot of time designing process counties and states will be heard. two of the biggest reasons put forward on terms of the slowness of progress. especially expanding transmission but also making sure it's efficient where it needs to be, has been the process but also the litigation. how would you rank those relatively speaking in terms of

where weof should put more attention to try to move more rapidly? again i am a big believer climate change as israel and happening at scale the costs of avoiding are an enormous spirity delaying our response is going towi cost 5x or 10x what it cost that within that where should we be focusing our attention? >> youou know, the former practitioner at building things as all physicist and engineer yu are asking me too choose between a process in litigation. [laughter] is the lesser of evils. it is a tough challenge. but seriously what you find for most industries the threat of litigation is real. hypertrophic examples it's the fact of the kill things. but on average i think we find in businesses is it is a process it's a regular tory process. it's the sand in the gears the economist would talk about that faces a businesses small and large in the united states.

the national manufacturers association puts out semi annual study the actual cost of process in the form of regulations but they monetizedi it and of course the united states the last city came for it large firm is $18000 year per employee and for small firms $36000 per year per employee for regulatory compliance process. that's a huge head win for businesses to start and expand in the united states. i would say if i had to choose the two oh say the process system the regulatory systems federal our big impediments. >> i appreciate that i would argue the process is again uniquely american critically important. that we do not want to eliminate it certainly there are ways we look at something like this were really both sides of the republicans and democrats we are urban ever known has an alignment of self interest in getting things built more rapidly to address this energy

challenge that wee face. i think it's may be a time to go and relook at some of the processes. extra people's voices are heard. there is an inherent sense of fairness how decisions are made but we do it more quickly with that i yield back to the chair, the man who must be respected. [laughter] who always is seeing both sides of the fence but let me just say to all of you, thank you for your expertise you bring to the committee. it is something we need to continue to raise the alarm. i can see a real catastrophic situation happening in our country and not being able to meet the demand no matter what side of the potable fence you are on it is a shame they've divided us up to a tv or on there's only one team, the american team every american express ever up dependable reliable and affordable energy because they always have. we built the system around with the needs of the country are. and in the defense of our country get to situation now because of political will if you

will whoever's in charge once a push one agenda over the other. i've always said this if it is and not feasible, it is not reasonable. and if you cannot do it we are not there we have not matured rick carbon capture i was a governor at the time. the center of the site this, you all went into that venture 900-megawatt plant, correct? >> i am understanding in order to prove he could commercialize you all did that we, showed we could take carbon off, liquefy, pressurize it and put it back in the ground if you don't scale it would've taken one third of your power. when president obama and i told her this i said you said going to build a coal fire plant i will break you and you would if you made us use carbon capture at that time we did not have the maturity and technology. you cannot build a plant the cost 900 megawatts of investment

and only get 600 megawatts of return. that is the problem. that's how you will break it. when they said it's a war on coal, there is no alternative. see the shut it down or get out. so that was the problem. i would tell you this politically it change my state of west virginia to being over 75% democrat registration. old line conservative democrats but they were still democrats he switched out to 80% republican one decade because of that. the only thing upset about transitions don't ever take someone's job away fromo them unless you have something equally if not better. you will pay the ultimate price on that one. this transition going on we gave the maps and everything else. my state will be hit eventually because if it wasn't for west virginia two years ago without polar bomb or whatever they called it, remember, shut

everything down. every coal plant we had and you can confirm h this, you are running about one or 10% putting out everything you had to keep it from falling apart it would have gone down. that's all were asking to realize we are not defending fossil over at renewables are either what i'm looking at the mode we have and the need. we have replaced district growing up going to do special 24/7 at that time was nukes and coal. gas has replaced the cold. lisa gaston frees up in texas and people died barely afford to do their brit smrs are coming on we are all in battery storage we are all in. wind has the greatest challenge of all i believe of all of the renewables they want to use because of permitting. so, we need permitting's for pipelines to move carbon capture and get it matured. we all need it. that is all we are saying since hundred schumer said he thought

it was not going to go anywhere i think it must go somewhere and we have it ready to go we will enter work with our republican colleagues here. our democrat colleagues we will go and see if we could move this from this committee forward on the floor. but again, your expertise means an awful lot to us. i want to thank you for that but what we are going to do is go ahead and join the meeting were going to have members will have until the close of business tomorrow to submit additional questions for the record with that, thank you. the meeting is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> on saturday president biden will be in new york to give the commencement address tohe u.s. military academy at west point too. ill be his third commencement address at the academy by his

first as commander-in-chief. watch a light at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now our freeobile video app or online at c-span.org. ♪ this memorial day weekend on c-span q&a retired u.s. senate historian betty share stories from her book scene, people, places and events that shape the united states senate. a collection of brief chronicles of senate history she presented to senators during their tuesday caucus luncheon. between 2009 and 2023. some of the stories told include the influence and power of senate majority leader lyndon johnson for the story of the first female senator and went mark twain worked as a senate staffer. what has not yet a famous author. he was a promising rising author at the time. he was working on his first book and looking for a job that would help pay the bills to

essentially promote his writing career. stewart, despite his sinister appearance did give him a job and he became a clerk in stewart's office for at that time that was not unusual this senate only met a few months out of the year. they often hired reporters and correspondents as clerks for those in a mutual beneficial experience for both of them. he did not prove to be a particular good citizen employee progress betty with her book seen. sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span q and a. q&a and all of our podcast on pn the free c-span now app. ♪ c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more including buckeye broadband. ♪ ♪ ♪