there were co-ops. they wanted to try to get access to validate memphis, believe it or not it would be easier for the electrons to go to memphis then come back into texas then for them to get electricity from the windfarms of west texas so once again transmission was in the way. they built a very large, there were environmentalist, there was labor. he madesure that the

conductor , the powers that all the jobs were associated with building this would be local so that generated some and there were republicans, republican county commissioner in the county north ofmemphis was one of the most outspoken fans of this and went toe to toe with the centers from tennessee over this but once it became very political . >> i've got two questions. you mentioned either voltage direct current. >> that's what this was. >> was it that way coming back there were good reasons for it. >> you also mentioned there was a need to get an answer forward or not and find another way so what about direct-current and now we've got 78 million new houses in this country that all have a piece to play in the grid because they're all energy

innovations. they all can be retrofitted. so my issue is, my interest is direct current is the forward part in micro grids. >> if you were to generate electricity for a solar panel, that's direct-current. converted to ac and when you plug your computer into the wall, there's that box that always gets really hot. that's converting from acto dc because your computer is running on dc. we could do this all over again, we should just have a dc grid and remember there was a lot of argument in the 1890s . the problem is that we made the choice to go with ac and imagine saying you know what, on january 1 we are all going to switch driving to the other side of the road. that's what we're talking about a multiple of. but your question is about micro grid.

micro grids have a huge potential role to play in the future, i've spent a lot of this yearreporting on pg and e in california, lots of interest in micro grids there. but even a micro grid , what a micro grid is is this city block that we're on right now would have the ability to detach from the grid if there's a blackout or just a generated flow of electricity . >> which would have been nice yesterday. >> which would have been nice yesterday but nobody even with micro grids is talking about balkan icing the whole grid. there's still interconnection and the need to move power around so i don't see why micro grids and a better transmission system can't play with each other. i think they frankly could. >> solar flares and emp, electromagnetic pulse, one of those could put the whole country out. >> and i've read many long

stories about emts and i hope we don't have one. >> we're going to have a solar flare. >> so far we've done okay. we have 100 years track record and we're surviving so far. that might be putting my head a little bit in the sand . >> there are transmission lines all over the country . has anyone been able to tie them together? >> the grid exists, we do have a grid that moves power all over theplace . the way i described it is that what we have right now is the road system before the interstate highways. you can drive from here to seattle but if you're using back roads, if you're not in using interstate highways, that's what we have right now so what we're talking about is building a superhighway so

that much like interstate systems, you get on here and you stop in chicago to spend the night and you keep going . much more efficient, much easier to move power around but, and i have a little bit in the book, we've been building bigger and bigger grids. the name superpower comes from an idea to build abigger grid to tie together the southeast and every time we build a bigger grid , it gets more efficient. the costs go down. we're building a better network so what shelley was trying to do is say the time is right to think continental. let's stop thinking about tying together the southeast united states, let's stop thinking about it eastern grade, let's think about a continental grid because that's what is going to take to get significant amounts of real energy . >>. [inaudible] we are saying

that it's going to be cheap and saying it's not, it last longer and it's going up like a j curve in the silicon valley task force. so they want cheap and safe and one thing i heard recently on political wind talk is 47 percent of the wind power is wasted but it also curtails because it's not being used and at times lucrative, how about using some of that to make energy? it's not pie in the sky. they need a pilot project to industrial scale to separate the water. >> what you're talking about and there's a lot of conversations about this is because we don't have transmission, we have wasted electricity .

so what can we do with it? what can you do in west texas in the middle of the night when you're generating gigawatts of electricity that no one wants and you can't move anywhereelse? there are different ideas, people talk about hydrogen. the coin is an idea . farming out there, get cheaper electricity. i don't know where that's going buti'm interested in that . and i think that it's worth taking a step back and realizing what we're talking about is that we currently have an abundance of low-cost electricity in different places in this country so navy we could build a better transmission system to move it around and share, maybe we could come up with an idea like hydrogen to generate more hydrogen in those places . but with that you're still going to have to build a new pipeline system to move the hydrogen around .

>>. [inaudible] >> all these ideas are being discussed and i'm not smart enough to figure out what wins but as a reporter it's cool to step back and say wow, we are at a point where we got a lot of cheap electricity, we've got a lot of potential . we've got a great wind resource, a great solar resource, how do we useit best? california as this great problem right now . 4:00 in the afternoon they got more solar than they know what to do with. if they had wires, they could share with arizona andlater in the day they'd swat back and forth or maybe hydrogen so it's a good problem to have and we're figuring it out . >> how are you? good. i what i haven't heard you talk about is natural gas. we are producing more than we ever have and it's our largest source of electricity and it's cleaner than coal. it's 177 million americans every day because they're

cooking with it, it's going to industrial facilities, powering the grid so why not natural gas? >> says the head of the natural gas association. >> i wrote my first book about fracking and natural gas are going to have a resource like wind, then every once in a while it's not going to blow. you need a system that's nimble to accommodate that. >> in today's renewable. >> absolutely and i made this argument many times, natural gas and the nimbleness of the combined cycle makes all this better. makes it feasible to have this mix so yes, if this is what you want me to say, i do completely agree that natural gas has been an incredibly important part of this. what's happening i think you know as well as anyone is that natural gas and renewables are increasingly pushing coal off the grid. now the question becomes in a

few years when cold gum goes from 20 percent, does natural gas start filling that pressure and if you're a natural gas producer or you want to build a natural gas power plant thatdoes such a good job with this , how do you create an incentive so those don't also go out of business which we've seen recently there was a bankruptcy or a couple of plants close to california, that i think an issue that we're getting to and where getting to more quickly than i thought. but yes, right now i do agree with that. natural gas has been an important enabling factor area compared to five years ago there's a big difference. we can export natural gas right now, exported very easily so if we figure out a way touse wind here , and use less natural gas, we can always send it to another part of the world which is what we are increasingly it looks like we're going to do.

>> i hear this talk of obviously wind produces solar and less talk about hydrogen i wonder if you could go with whether or not that conversation, you mentioned we're moving past hydro and how does, how both are going to do with in the future and out of the 30 you know if we're going to take all of them? [inaudible] >> this will be our final question. >> i'll try to give you a pretty quick and easy answer for that. hydro is great. it is difficult to envision building much new hydro these days. i think it would be politically kind of very difficult to find a new hoover dam and all of the changes to the natural world.

i can only imagine what the environment would look like for something like that.you do see some small hydro facilities going in butit's really not even part of the conversation because they're so small . >> what about comp hydro. >> good question. but the other thing is with the changing weather patterns, especially out west, the need is very low levels, there are questions about how effective hydro is going to be going forward because you need water to make hydro work. pump hydro, where it exists, pump hydro is a neat idea. when the gentleman was asking before what do you do with this excess power, maybe you use it to pump water uphill basically where it sits behind the dam and when you wait it's agreat battery . when you need it, you let it run through and generate electricity so i could see more hydro products but again, we're not doing that many big projects right now. it's difficult for me to see a new big dam beingbuilt . >> on thinking of is the

ocean and title power, is that driving the conversation a little or is that states out a little bit? >> total power it's the opposite problem, it's not being phased in. it's a great idea but no one's managed to make the economics work. there are a couple of places in the world that seem to have good ties but prices are just way, way too high right now. >> is there a chance of that changing the future? >> i think it depends on people putting their bank power behind . i mean, someone had to figure out i think i can bring the price of wind down by building a new , better wind turbine so it depends whether someone figures that out. >> a final question foryou, and epilogue . so what is next for kelly and what is next for you -mark.

>> so skelly is working at the investment bank lazard and his job basically is to go out and find interesting projects to fund. although he seems to be getting a little itchy and a little looking around and saying what's my next development project so i wouldn't be surprised if he jumps back in. what's next for me? pg and e. a big utility and a big story and we're coming back on wildfire season in california and hopefully i think for everyone's sake, everyone hopes there's not another major wildfire like we saw last year. i'm interested to see whether pg and e shuts down large portions of the western california grid which they say they're going to a week at a time to prevent wildfires because so far the story has been kind of a regional story in san

francisco if it loses power for a week that will become a national story pretty quickly . >> sounds like you should write a book about that. >> maybe. >> i wanted to saythank you to russell and everybody for joining us today . [applause] >> or anyone interested in russell's book you can buy a copy of superpower at our register. if you want to get your book signed go to the signing line at the foot of the table and leave your chairs where they are. >> you're watching book tv on cspan2 with top nonfiction book and authors every weekend. book tv: television for serious readers .