announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. charlie: ernest tony's is here, the secretary of energy for the united states. he has been negotiating with his iranian counterpart. he's a professional -- a professor emeritus at m.i.t.. he's taught there for 40 years and led the -- led the department of physics. he served in the clinton administration's undersecretary for energy and in the white house office of science and technology policy. for all his reasons and more i'm pleased to have him at the

table for the first time. there's much to talk about. we're going to talk about energy in a broader sense and what you think of where we are in terms of climate and other issues, but let me begin with nuclear talks. you have become famous forcing the two john kerry and often sitting next to foreign minister for reid who was at this table a week ago and is someone you knew at m.i.t. when you are students. ernest: we overlapped at m.i.t. and did meet subsequently in vienna when he was heading the iaea delegation for iran. as students, we did not know each other but i can assure you we did not have the substantive discussions that we've had for 30 or 40 hours one on one in switzerland. charlie: tell me what your role is. ernest: i would say more on the

side of the iranian negotiators initially that i think to reach an agreement that involved significant limits on the nuclear program that he was running and he was the foreign minister himself before that they felt without having the team of the foreign minister and the head of their nuclear organization there would make sense to stop -- that would make sense. so much of the agreement requires trade-offs among technical dimensions centrifuges and stockpiles of uranium. then i was asked to join john kerry and be a principal negotiator and i think it worked very well. i think both sides had good functioning teams and then we

could manage the technical discussions and we had this m.i.t. background and soon got into a problem-solving mode and hopefully that shows with the scope and specificity with what we were able to negotiate. charlie: is it often one-on-one just the two of you? ernest: many times. charlie: what are you trying to get at? ernest: i think the way i look at it is that the goal here is in the very long-term and i mean long-term, we are talking decades. it is to hopefully have established confidence in the international community pursuing nuclear power and facilities but

that confidence is frankly not there today. the degree of sanctioning, clearly we start out with a very strong said of restrictions on the program and overtime, that will eventually go to a long-term if everyone performs, it will have a nuclear program, obeying the nonproliferation treaty. what we have to do his for example, we set the united states in our p5 plus one and sets the metric for at least 10 years that a breakout time by which we defined as if iran decided to rush toward

accumulating the uranium or plutonium, it would take at least a year. enriched uranium or plutonium for a first weapon, they would have such restrictions that even if they made the choice, throw out all the inspectors abrogate the agreement, rush to get the material assembled, it would still take at least a year. charlie: today, it would take two or three months. but they headed headlong into a rush to make a nuclear weapon -- they would have a nuclear fuel within two or three months. ernest: i'm sure he pointed out something he said many times -- that we're using an unconventional definition. and he is correct that the standard parlance would be the

breakout time would be the time to do the weapon. we are saying it's time to assemble the nuclear material. two weaponize would take some additional time but we did not count that. charlie: now it's two to three months and disagreement would put it at a year? ernest: a year conservatively for at least 10 years. this issue of breakout time involves a trade-off. how many centrifuges, of what quality, how much enriched uranium stockpile is there, what is the enrichment of that stockpile and what is the rate in a breakout scenario that they could build additional centrifuges were cascade? all of those technical details have to be played off and fundamentally, we would engage

in that frankly, as was reported in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago and often, i or my team would call off to the laboratories and while we slept a few hours, they would make new calculations to make sure we were always observing the one your breakup. charlie: it is an interesting story. you have put together among your nuclear physicist colleagues a series of what? ernest: i should emphasize that once i joined secretary kerry in the negotiations, it became public that the department of energy was heavily involved. that involvement was there all the time. we have a series of laboratories and nuclear sites which is fundamentally the repository of nuclear capability and sat -- and had several laboratories and

to nuclear sites engaged in various aspects of analyzing the agreement. charlie: it is said we have a lot of knowledge about where their facilities are and what we are doing there and we even have models of some of the lab you are referring to. there have been reports of that in the press. so what do they tell you? they look and analyze what the iranians are saying to try to verify what assumptions you're making about where they are and what changes might be made in this agreement and what that might have. ernest: you can make trades -- these are all different parameters we have to keep balancing always adhering to the president's direction that we must have a one-year breakout time.

charlie: some say that is not enough and cite the north koreans as an example. ernest: the situation in north korea is quite different in terms of the level of inspection and i should say in comparing to north korea, clearly the key issue is the degree of transparency and access to verification. in the north korea situation there were relatively few inspectors and they were very strained and where they could go and what they could look at. those lessons were heart of what drove the international community toward establishing this additional protocol which goes beyond the usual national safeguards agreement with the international inspection agency and provide additional access and transparency. that is all part of this field. iran is committed to do the additional protocol for essentially forever at least as long as they are part of the

nonproliferation treaty. ♪ ♪

charlie: lots of questions come up in terms of one, you say it is a conservative time. when it comes to inspection are you satisfied, secretary kerry

says it's the most intrusive inspection set up by this agreement -- is it in your ernest: judgment enough? ernest:the answer is -- ernest: is it enough? the answer is yes. one thing is we have in the agreement access to the entire supply chain, all the way back to the uranium mines and mills, continuing surveillance of manufacturing facilities and advanced technology for sealing of equipment that is not in use, continuous inspection is available. if there were an attempt to of a bad, they would have to obtain

the entire supply chain covertly. come in many different places. the combination of the inspections, the access granted through additional protocol and our national meeting, we believe it would be extraordinarily difficult to imagine this entire supply chain being together. charlie: supply chain is one thing another thing is military bases. they say they are not going to allow america for the t5 plus one or the iaea to inspect their military bases and no other country would. ernest: i think there are two issues here that sometimes get conflated. one issue is the ongoing unsuccessful today process of

the iaea looking at the military dimensions of the past program. it is still to be finalized, to be honest, but there, the iaea and iran must together and agree on the access the iaea needs to issue their final report on what is called possible military dimensions of their past program. we are talking about going forward. going forward, there will be a process in place with a defined time, by which iran must provide access to sites for which there is any rational, somewhat fact-based reason to be concerned. and there, a process is in place that cannot be blocked by any one or two countries. charlie: it is also said that

the united states would like to devise monitoring devices to be used by the iaea in its inspections and the iranians are scared that this is something that will allow the united states to spy on them. ernest: things like the additional protocol and using advanced technologies for -- for inspections, these are things we would like to see more broadly, not just in iran. charlie: to stop proliferation anywhere it might be. ernest: certainly getting to advanced technologies like special fields that would add the iaea so one could have a quick inspection, that is something we will have year and we hope to have in many places will stop frankly, those kinds of technologies are things that are national laboratories develop. charlie: are they acceptable to the iranians? ernest: yes.

we have discussed that. charlie: what about the idea of their desire to do r&d on their centrifuges so that if he goes for 10 years and is at the end of the 10 year agreement they will have done a lot of research on centrifuges so they would be able to be much more improved in their ability to enrich their uranium. ernest: the r&d issues were a point of contention. what i first want to emphasize is there would be no enrichment by any advanced centrifuge. only the original would be allowed in the first 10 years. in those first 10 years they

will be mindful of those activities but they will be able to make some progress. the ability to use advanced centrifuges is part of our whole breakout calculation and consideration. charlie: -- ernest: a more limited program than what is on the books. in 2003 the negotiation in 2003-2005 would have been a different set of facts on the ground. we have limited the program severely and -- charlie: he continued to refer to the 2003 negotiation.

talking about all inspections they implemented it in 2003-2005. they chose the path of confrontation. he said we are prepared to do this in 2003. ernest: certainly if there were a nightmare -- and there had been an international agreement back then, they had fewer than 200 centrifuges and now they have nearly 20,000. they have a uranium stockpile of about 10,000 kilograms. in this agreement, that would come down to 6.7% for 15 years, so it is a dramatic reduction in the uranium stockpile. charlie: the president of the united states and secretary of state are depending on you to

convince congress. i believe you have the credibility and you are not a politician and you can can its congress this agreement is good for the united states and it will for 10 or 12 years reduce their possibility of advancing. ernest: first of all, let me say that john kerry and i are both boston boys and maybe that is part of it. we obviously have complementary backgrounds. when i was introduced into the negotiation, it was for addressing these technical dimensions, via enrichment, be it the ternium production, reactors. certainly for that part of the agreement, i am working with members of congress, but don't forget there are many other dimensions to this agreement to the sanctions where secretary

kerry is the principal spokesman for that and secondly there are broader issues being introduced into the discussion about the nature of the negotiation, not about the results of the negotiation. for those, secretary kerry and the president are quite in the lead. ♪

charlie: the iranians have said at this table we don't want nuclear weapons. they say that all the time. how do you assess that? ernest: first of all, let me say we hope it's true and this is what this agreement is built on for the long-term. we have a specific restrictions that go up to 25 years and some are basically effect forever. the whole idea is over time, we all gain confidence in that statement. it is clear. there is not confidence in that statement, at least having applied certainly in the past. that is why we have these sanctions.

charlie: he says that the sanctions are not what brought them to the table. his that what brought him to the table? ernest: certainly that was part of it for sure but our job is not to do anything other than have an agreement based upon that agreement. charlie: is it your judgment of foreign minister and your counterpart negotiated in good faith and they are prepared to sign a deal that will restrict their ability to have a nuclear weapon? cory: absolutely. there's an excellent chance at least -- ernest: absolutely.

the parameters we have already worked out to find this very stringent regime that i've mentioned for 10 years. i believe they are compared to go forward. charlie: some have argued they are just trying to delay one more time and that has been their strategy all along. ernest: we all agree that we are converging to a conclusion at the end of june. charlie: what happens if there is no agreement and you can't agree on all points? ernest: if there is no agreement, i won't venture a complete guess we know that congress is likely to take additional action ernest: like sanctions -- charlie: like sanctions or something else? ernest: i'm not sure. i think it got worked out

between the administration and congress, at least if there are no amendments added on, to be acceptable in the sense of giving us the room to complete a deal by june 30 and congress will have a voice. i think i am pretty optimistic that we are going to have a good deal to present and i think it will be incumbent on iran to observe its terms to the letter. charlie: and if they do that, we will insist that the drawdown of the sanctions will be phased in and will not happen immediately? ernest: secretary kerry -- i think we have been a clear they are going to be phasing in a

sense for sure that the key parameters of what we discussed earlier, the parameters that determine the one-year breakout time those have to be put in place for that sanctions relief to kick in. for example, the 10,000 kilograms coming down to 300 kilograms has to be done. charlie: before you eliminate sanctions? ernest: that is my view. secretary kerry -- the general agreement is if you have the key nuclear parameters met before we get the kicking and of the sanctions. charlie: they were pushing that the french were tougher than we were on the iranians. ernest: it is an achievement in

its own right how coherent the p5 plus one were on this. in that last weekend, the foreign ministers all six countries were present. many of our partners, including the french, came up with important ideas to help in the closing of the agreement. charlie: characterize for me how remarkable it is to have an agreement at this moment that has not yet been completed and may not need completed, but a framework for is it remarkable if you look at where it was when we got this? ernest: one way is to look at the reaction. when it came out there was a lot of surprise of the scope and specificity of what we had negotiated. charlie: you were surprised you got what you got? ernest: i think it has been expressed quite widely

including by many who were skeptical about negotiating with iran on this issue. charlie: why do they want to do this? ernest: clearly mr.zarif getting relief -- mr.zarif getting the sanctions off the table is a major driver. maybe i'm going to be a little bit encouraged by reaction of some of the and people of iran as i understand them to have been when the framework was announced. and i hannah: a lot of them are kind of rejoining the west in a more normal way. charlie: is it fair to say that if in fact, to be successful on

an agreement that most people believe can achieve its objectives for both the iranians and the united states or the p-5 plus one that it might open up iran, might lead to them to have a better relationship with the rest of the world and might, in fact, lead to a broader consideration of other issues that separate iran and the united states or p-5 plus one. ernest: first of all, i have to make it clear, he negotiated a nuclear agreement and it was about a verifiable agreement that met the conditions. so i want to make it clear that aspirations for that outcome that you described and i do share them, but they did not influence this. charlie: this was only a nuclear deal. ernest: hard-nosed agreement -- charlie: nobody was saying we can do this or that. charlie: no. on the other hand, i don't see

how we could not wish to have that aspiration realized, particularly fit means that some of the other iranians -- iranian actions that make us pretty unhappy were to be ended. charlie: before we turn to other things what has not worked? i get the impression as to when the sanctions will be lifted there's not been a final agreement on that. ernest: i would say exactly the phasing and triggers for releasing sanctions still need to be worked out. there are still issues. we mentioned earlier in terms of i.a. e. and iran. so that that can be closed out and there are other issues which we haven't talked about. again, it's not in my bailey wick but they will be continuing u.n. sanctions, for example, for the ballistic program, the arm

embargo issues that i think still need to be addressed but that's for the foreign managers. charlie: if you have enriched you ran yum enough to have a nuclear weapon, as a physicist, what does it take to then have a nuclear weapon and be able to deliver it? ernest: as you know, i cannot answer that question fully but with high enriched uranium, i think the general consensus is moving to at least a crude weapon that could certainly spoil a perfectly good day otherwise for a country with iran's scientific and technical capabilities is clearly doable. it's a whole different issue to the second part of your question to of course then be able to design that weaponization for delivery on mifflets, etc. but

obviously we're not going to get into the details of that charlie: some have said at best this kicks the can down the road. is that unfair? ernest: absolutely. again, this agreement is an agreement which has many milestones at many time periods for quite a long time and it's a -- its goal is in the end. as i said earlier, it's not a very short time frame but in the end the goal would be to have the international community have confidence that iran has in fact demonstrated that this program is for nothing but peaceful purposes. fit proves otherwise then we still have the options on the table to react. charlie: let me return to energy policy. what is our energy policy? ernest: our policy, the president's policy, the energy policy have been stated pretty cloorl.

we have three high-level objectives. one is support continued economic growth. good jobs, etc., and certainly the energy revolution of these last years has been very important for that. secondly, energy security, and i want to emphasize that energy security is not justing? within our own borders. it's something that also involves a collective energy security with our allies and then of course, the environmental challenge, most especially the challenge of global warming and climate change and on to the climate side, the president's action plan in 2013 emphasized both aspects, mitigation -- that is get greenhouse gas emissions down and stop or at least slow the global warming. mitigate the impacts of climate

change but secondly adaptation that the plan recognized that we are seeing impacts of global warming. we will see more and we also have to adapt at the same time as we try to minimize the consequences. charlie: is the impact more alarming than you ever might have imagined? ernest: i think in almost every case, the signals that nature is sending us are at the bad extreme of the uncertainty bands that the scientists have been telling us. that scientists have often underestimated the rate of change that we have seen. charlie: give us a graphic illustration. ernest: for one thing, a very direct illustration would be things like the shrinkage of some of the ice cover in the world, glaciers, etc. charlie: -- we are seeing sea level going up. i was just down in houston where

sea level has come up eight inches. the acidify occasion of the oceans. of course, the sea level rise combined with more extreme weather so storm surges have led to great destruction, whether in the gulf region or something like sandy in the northeast. we are seeing these unprecedented droughts in many parts of the world, certainly including the western parts of the united states. california. increased wildfires associated with -- charlie: is that all associated with climate change? ernest: it is certainly consistent with the expectations for decades of climate science. so again it's goebel issues absolutely, the more and more you get to a -- small regions, the more it's difficult to assign responsibility of an individual tovepblet global warming, but the patterns are

completely consistent with what we've been expecting for decades. so you know, this may be a little bit flippant but you know, the old story about if it walks like a duck and looks and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. so the globe is warming -- charlie: important cons queenses for all of us. ernest: the impact of co 2 emissions, for example, greenhouse gases is there to see. after all, we've had a pretty good idea between the connection between higher co 2 connections and average warming since the 19th century. the 19th century. charlie: those 18 somethings [laughter] . ernest: yes, the only difference then was the expectations was the problem wouldn't arise for

1,000 years because in those day is they did not predict the rate of economic growth and zrillization so we're seeing it play out -- industrialization. why do you -- we're seeing it play out before our eyes. charlie: why do you think there are so many doubters? from congress to some people in the committee. ernest: some people in the academy. charlie: do you know anybody that you respect? a fellow scientist? ernest: i won't go there. in this dimension i have real questions about it. charlie: what do you mean in this dimension you have real questions? ernest: let's say this. i'm going to combine science and policy a little bit because in the end it's what we do about it that really matters so if you're a scientist, you can certainly focus on lots of questions that

are not fully resolved in the climate science, which in my view does not take away at all from the bigger conclusion about we are seeing the drive to war -- more warming. the more warming is creating a number of the phenomenon that we discussed earlier. the issue is do the -- in science, research, there are always open questions as you go farther and farther into the issues. do those questions rise to the level to obviate the need for public policymakers to take prudent steps now to address these issues? i think the answer is clearly no. we need to take those issues. i mean, the idea that we would not respond -- i mean, if you were a corporate c.e.o. and your risk manager told you that

there's only a 9 % probability of something bad happening and you said oh, well -- i don't need to react to that. you wouldn't be in that job very long. charlie: you think the risk we're talking about is 98% or 100%? ernest: it's very close to 100 in my view. certainly in terms of what we need to know to take pursuant policy steps. charlie: is this disagreement over what's causing global warming than the reality of global warming in your judgment? ernest: the reality of global warming is reality, as you say. no one disputes it. then there are arguments about whether it's manmade. again, in one hearing i made the statement they know how to count and therefore i know what the conclusion is and that remains the case. we know how much co 2, for example, we emmitt from

activities. some of that net gets absorbed by oceans, etc., but we know that we are increasing the greenhouse gases. charlie: the sequestration a significant alternative? ernest: going back to your original question about what's our policy. we've laid out in great detail, one of those challenges is the climate challenge, a very important one and this is an important time to address that internationally. but our philosophy, the president's policy has been what's called all of the above so we believe that it's our job to enable all fuels to have a potential in a low-carbon marketplace. so foring? like coal that involves carbon caption sequestration. that's the way to address it. i should say carbon capture

utilization and sequestration because, of course, there are opportunities to use co 2 for beneficial purposes which helps pay the cost of the carbon capture. today this there is utilization going on by using the co 2 to enhance recovery of oil from mature wells. but that's the key. and as with everything else, by the way, all of these technologies in many ways the goal of innovation is to continually push down the costs and we're seeing a revolution in costs of low carbon technologies. charlie: we're seeing a revolution in costs of alternative sources and i'm told and i've read that you're optimistic about some. ernest: yes, i am. as was thomas ed son. [laughter] charlie: so what feeds your

optimism about solar as an alternative and a practical and price-acceptable alternative? ernest: first of all, of course, the resources is enormous as you probably know. charlie: then there's the question of capture, isn't there? ernest: yes. you start out -- in one hour the solar energy reaching the surface of the earth is roughly speaking the energy used by the world for a year. so we have a big resource. now, we have to capture it, do it more efficiently. charlie: and store it. ernest: and then as the amount of it grows, then we have to store it. so first of all, we have seen -- by the way, in the last six years we've had probably a 20-x deployment of solar in terms of amount. still small but it's growing very fast. 20 times what it was 10 years ago. a big part of that has been the

cost reduction. the costs have come down incredibly. charlie: the technology? ernest: technology absolutely. technology and the beginning of scale. so manufacturing, scale etc. i believe we will reach the so-called holy grail of a solar module costing 50 cents per walt. i believe we'll do that within a few years. we are well below $1 now heading towards 50 cents and maybe below. charlie: from solar? ernest: from solar. from a solar module. charlie: what does it cost today for what we use today? power plants? ernest: well, so a -- dependents on what the plant is.

certainly a nuclear plant is maybe $5 per walt. charlie: wow. 50 cents versus $5? ernest: yeah. however, to be fair, the nuclear plant will run 90% of the time. the solar module will produce effectively say 20% of the time. but you go to a natural gas plants and you're talking $1 to $1.50 per walt. charlie: is solar energy a bridge? ernest: we have called it a bridge to low carbon. driven by market forces, natural gas is at a price point where it has displaced quite a bit of coal and in doing so lowered our carbon ecommissioner -- emissions. charlie: what are we using that for? ernest: a lot of it is an

increase in energy but it's also a very low cost of energy in the united states. it's been a huge factor in increasing our manufacturing capacity and bringing companies back to the united states for manufacturing because the operating costs are low. charlie: right, and everybody knows we desperately need to increase our manufacturing capabilities. ernest: and we've created -- the united states economy in the last years 7000, 800,000 -- 700,000, 800 now, manufacturing jobs and gas is a part of that story. charlie: wind? ernest: uh-huh. charlie: will it contribute? ernest: it is contributing quite a lot. it's increase has been maybe threefold.

20 fold for solar. wind is now up to producing over 4.5 maybe percent of our electricity in the united states. so it's becoming material. technology continues to improve as well in terms of cost reduction. in terms of larger turbins that are more efficient etc. so wind, i think still has a big way to go. charlie: what's the impact of the agreement we made with china? ernest: the first impact is that the announcement last november has changed the name of the international discussions on climate change quite dramatically. let's face it, there was often a fallback position in many quarters oh, well, china isn't doing anything. well china is doinging? . -- something. for one thing it has changed the nature of the game because china

and the united states together -- charles: because they made a commit? ernest: they made a commitment and we believe they are very, very serious. charlie: they have a very serious pollution problem. don't they use a lot of coal? ernest: yes, so their coal -- they are now using half of the coal that the world uses and -- but in their commitment now, i think we're going to see coal use in china peak maybe in this decade and begin to go down. charlie: how about nuclear? ernest: nuclear, they have by far the biggest construction program in the world. immense. charlie: they're commitmented to nuclear? ernest: they have a big commitment on nuclear. charlie: is their dokse slowly -- solar ahead of us? ernest: i wouldn't say so they are producing a lot of solar but

i personally believe we still lead in innovation and i think he still lead in the technology. charlie: what's the impact of price? for example, oil recently went back up this week over $60 a barrel. is it going to continue to rise in your judgment and what impact will that have? will that allow much more tracking on our part? there was some reduction in tracking as oil prices went down to $3535 -- -- $35 or whatever they got to. ernest: first of all, the oil price is still quite below what it was a year ago, let's say. charlie: people i know in that business have been using an assumption of $70 a barrel for a lot of their declarations. ernest: even when the oil plies was down to $50, let's say, our

energy administration the data arm of the government still predicted that this year we would produce more oil than in 2014 that there is a reduction of the so-called rig count but that production is actually -- has actually still been going up. it is also clear that when the prices were even lower than they are today, that many companies were reducing their capital investments for future exploration production etc. so we don't see our production particularly going down. we see the rate of increase moderating -- moderating for sure. charlie: do you have questions about tracking in terms of the environmental issues? ernest: i think we have the approaches that can really keep the environmental footprint of hydraulic fracturing quite manageable but we have to make

sure that those practices are always being followed. you know, the major problems over the years nave caused with hydraulic fracturing operations have really been from poor well completion. it's not about the tracking itself. charlie: bringing it to the surface? ernest: yeah, getting the water down and getting it up, etc. so best practices have to be always put in place and threaten some of the issues around some of the seismic activity that is now being looked at. that has come -- in fact, an academy report recently emphasized that that's coming from disposing of wastewater as opposed to the tracking itself. charlie: is there so much research going on in battery capacity that we're going to see a higher velocity of change and capacity? ernest: absolutely. batteries remain of course, a

huge transformational potential. i could go through all the things that we're doing but let me just put it this way, that we have reached costs batteries. there was an announcement recently of a home battery -- charlie: batteries for the home. ernest: he was talking about $350 per kilowatt hour of storage. if you look at batteries for electric vehicles, that's kind of the ballpark of where we are there as well. the holy grail is getting down to $100 $125 a kilowatt hour, so we have a ways to go. but the cost reduction from where it was only a few years ago, over $1,000. once again it's the same story.

as we are pushing on these technologies we are driving these costs now. and let's say for a vehicle, the battery that you need for a plug-in hybrid may be 15 kilowatt hours. suddenly it doesn't look like it's kind of out of the ballpark and if we get another factory or two we could see again another transformation in transportation, in energy storage at the utility level, at the consumer level. the consumer level would be very important. if you have a solar system you want to integrate it with the battery so you could shift the solar power to the time when you want it so these technologies are incredible. look at l.e.d. lighting, right? you take a 60-watt incandescent bulb and now you can go to a

big-box store and get your nine-or 10-weat l.e.d. so you're using 1/6 of the energy for the same effective lighting and the costs are now approaching $5. so we are seeing i firmly believe, an -- a clean energy technology revolution and this is in the end going to be an important stimulant to the policy steps we need for a clean energy economy. charlie: what is the threat in your judgment, and how real is it, of our eelectric grid to cyber terrorism? ernest: well first of all, if we didn't think it was a serious problem we wouldn't have assembled a whole set of utility c.e.o.'s in a group to address cyber. obviously i can't get into too many specifics but first of all

our energy infrastructure, not only the grid but our energy infrastructure is a major target of cyber attacks. charlie: you mean like every day? ernest: like every day. even less time than that. charlie: like every hour. ernest: and the number is increasing. fortunately -- charlie: is it terror? ernest: our defenses thus far have been that we've not had a major incident from that but we have to keep staying ahead of the bad guys. charlie: happened what happened with hurricane sandy is an example of what can happen when there's a serious assault -- ernest: that's right. and the one most you big to us is the electric grilled. you're right. an irony is and this is what we're working on very, very hard

is that a solution to many of our challenges is more and more use of i.t. in the grilled. the transmission grid senses any reliability incidents coming. do you get good services and yet the more i.t. we have the more we have to guard against a cyber threat so this is a very, very major focus. charlie: thank you for coming. it's a pleasure to have you. charlie: thank you. it's great. charlie: thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ we live in a pick and choose world choose choose choose. but at bedtime? ...why settle for this? enter sleep number... don't miss the memorial day special edition mattress with sleepiq technology. sleepiq tells you how well you slept and what adjustments you can make. you like the bed soft. he's more hardcore. so your sleep goes from good to great

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angie: critical moments. greece makes another payment and says the next two weeks are crucial. ahead of estimates as domesticic mobile assets losses at sprint. more green, "the avengers" opens in china. welcome to first up and a good evening drew those joining us in the