greeted when he arrived at the veterans memorial in washington, d.c. may 301st, 1993. applause and booing and people yelling. bill clinton's first memorial day as president. that's what we remember in this episode of c-span the weekly.

should america eliminate fossil fuel use to prevent climate catastrophe and we want to give them the full hour. we did this debate at the university of miami in florida and boulder last weekend was debating wesley clark andot you can find both of those debates on the youtube channel. today we have a different debate opponent. let me briefly introduce. i will read the biography and then i believe they are going to come up to the stage after i introduce them. we are pleased to have with us

this morning the professor of atmospheric science at texas a&m university. a climate scientist who studies the science and politics of climate change. he's the chair in geosciences at texas a&m and 2022 he was named the director of the texas center for climate studies. he also served in the clinton administration during the last year he served as a senior policy analyst in the white house office and his latest book introduction to modern climate change won the 2014 american meteorological society's lewis officers award. we are also pleased to have alex the president and founder of the center for industrial progress, author of the moral page for fossil fuels. a philosopher who argues for human flourishing should be the

guiding principle of industrial and environmental t progress. he's the author of "the new york times" bestseller the moral case for fossil fuels and he is known for his willingness to debate anyone, anytime and has debated leading environmentalist organizations such as greenpeace, the sierra club over the morality of fossil fuel use and finally the moderator for the morning's debate, the editorial page editor of the denver gazette and longtime journalist and more than 25 year veteran of the colorado politicaln scene. he's been ante award-winning newspaper reporter and editorial page editor, senior legislative at the state capital and political consultant. let's welcome to the stage. [applause] ♪♪

♪♪ can everyone hear me? okay, good. .. let me just repeat it for the record. that is should america rapidly eliminate fossil fuel used to eliminate climate catastrophe?

hope we are going to do is have andrew go first. we're going to let each oneat t doing opening statement given them about something in it and a half minutes each. and it will go first to be followed by alex them will give andrew a chance to rebut anything he feels needs to be addressed that's any point alex raised,. >> thanks. let me begin by saying energy is most important thing of the world pretty up energy you can do anything else you want. the question is what is the best way to generate energy? we generate most of our energy from fossil fuels right now but my talk was of the disadvantages of fossil fuels. number one climate change i will explain why i personally and extremely concerned about climate change let's go back to the last ice age. this is basically what north america look like it was covered with thousands of feet of ice or

about half covered. there are different ecosystems, sea level was 300 feet lower. it was a different planet. if you walked outside he would not recognize your planet. now, it was about 10 degrees fahrenheit colder at that time to think about that 10 degrees fahrenheit the global average of cool the planet you get an ice age. were going to call that 10 degrees let's think about the future. we are on track for 5 degrees of warming that is half of an ice age unit. that has the possibility of completely remaking the surface of the earth. now we can try to adapt to this but it's a possible oro even plausible if you do that in 2100 our descendents are going to be spending all of their money building seawalls and a water infrastructure and things like that. they will be significantly impoverished by this. moving on, fossil fuels poison the air they kill millions of people every year around the world due to air pollution.

in addition there's office of the national security risk for thesear are headlines not that r out of date i feel like they are out of date. texas and gas prices could reach $4 per gallon isru every sector feels the tensions let me give you a headline that will never be written. texas window prices skyrocket in response to u.s. russia tension saudi arabia biden's plan to increase sunlight as midterms luma. those headlines will never occur will never invade kuwait in order to rescue wind and sun. fossil fuels are a commodity. these pricece variations gas is5 a gallon this is called the incredible. i have an electric car i fill up my tank for $10 and it's $10 last month will be $10 next month it is always the same.s this variability is damaging

when you are a small business owner what is the price of gas going to be any year? nobody knows how can you make plans when you cannot predict the price of energy? let's be clear that we need energy. the fossil feels of the only way to go in would be the first person in line sing let's burn stuff would dig out of the ground. but we have an alternative. the alternative is wind and solar. those actually are the cheapest power sources now. when i show people this in point this out, people are after stock they get angry at me. they don't realize we are in the midst of an energy revolution right now. most people do not keep track of this their knowledge of energy prices or a few years old. people in texas to build energy they know this. you go to the website it runste the grid of texas they publish statistics on what people are connecting to the grid.

it is 90% solar, wind and battery 10% gas. because they realize the cheapest energy as wind and solar. what is my phone it beeping i will turn it off for the cheapest energy as wind and solar they know this paper? there because people often say what i about subsidies i don't want to get into that i argue in the q&a. the only thing that is not arguable look at the trend. this shows unfortunate people on that side have to look all the way over for this was a price event in june 2009 and 19. this is solar going down from there that is when going down from there tore there. this is each friend and this trend is not going to stop but is going to continue to go. what that means is we can argue about what's cheapest not wee have been solar the cheapest energy of the future there can be no debate about that. now people will tell you wind and solar are intermittent. that of course is true then the

question becomes can you build a grid that uses intermittent renewable energy be that still cheap i'm not going to give you my opinion not a claim not a hunch. there is an enormous amount of peer-reviewed research is gone on this over the last decade. so we know the answer. we knowr the answer and unless you can say where these peopleou were wrong your feelings don't matter. since an engineering problem people have solve this. owing to talk a little bit about how you build a grid that runs mainly on intermittent energy that is still reliable the firsm thing you have to do there are two classes of energy what you might call the fuel saver sets wind and solar intermittent power in the firm dispatch ofny willpower you can turn on andle off anytime you want. so for example the fuel savers are wind and solar that could be

nuclear, hydro, geothermal, gas and carbon pack capture. we want to for the cheapest grin is uses much renewables as you can and anytime the renewable song of enough power, it gives the quickest grid outfit you might ask whyhy do this? don't want have a grid that has one 100% nuclear that it's going to be a lot more expensive review it to pay the least amount of money, this is the grid you want to look at. and on average the grid is to about 75% renewable. there are eight different groups have different numbers. about 25% firm dispatch will power. let me, wrap up we need power bt we can get power from wind and solar it is the cheap energy source of the future. we can build that based on a g decade of peer-reviewed research that doesn't reliably provide

energy at a low cost. and, that grid will avoid the social cost climate change effective fossil fuels poison the air, the economic cost of price fluctuations don't pull us into wars. >> thank you in came with 45 seconds to spare. >> i can't believe i did not use was 45 seconds. >> are right. so when you havee a debate like this especially with the respective climate scientist i think that'spt what you is. racial assumption is a big difference. for the most part that is not true i think the key difference here which would not just me and professor in me and the whole z net zero movement is a methodology permit back on his a lot about methodology. ii have a very particular

methodology for thinking about this issue. and what is interesting about this methodology is nobody has ever disagreed with this methodology. and yet i have never met once upon a fossil fuel to remotely qualify it let me explain. there are four key factors we have to consider when thinking about fossil fill with their clients. when you think of the harms of co2 per you think about benefits of rising co2. we need to think about climate mastery our ability to master adapt to any climate danger and the benefits of fossil fuel. so my analysis usually what happens is a net zero movement is they do talk a lot about rising co2 harm for the ten to overseas date them. there's already been a little distortion in that realm. rising futures to be trivialized or denied climate mastery denial cannot be discussed and it is rampant. i will show you what the

professor is doing to seeming not too. going to go through each of these factors explain my view explain where the professor and net zero is still very long. you can start off of the harm. i generally find one of the more ominous commentators. but what they say is nothing resembling but we hear. when sea level rise as we are talking 3 feet by the year 2100 extreme scenario not like 20 feet in several decades lack of had before. we have exclusively, we have no idea in terms of what agreed policy will do pretend not to say what's going to be bad but i think it could be bad. that is kind of a measured things we talk about degrees fahrenheit was important to recognize we are up about 5 degrees or 10 degrees i don't like that think we need to be more honest about paycheck about 5 degrees or blooming 3 degrees from now. in today's the warmest day that

existed. you lead to benefits even think the harm would bake the demand if you were cold related deaths, far more people die of colds. given this chart have been vetted many, many times. there's also a global greening in terms of cross benefits. this is very significant.et the fact of this is not mentioned or acknowledged significant by the movement shows the kind of bias we are going to see much more apparently.at here's are really get and the problems with that view. it is a fact climate related -- extreme temperatures, storms, floods, drought, are down 98% over the last century. it is also demonstrable fossil fuel provides 80% of the low cost of reliable energy we used to master climate example using fossil fuels suit power irrigation and transport to make

us far safer from drought art mastery is so great that wonder million people in the world. in terms of the sea level for 100 million people they are below in totally fine. so here's what i find totally objectionable. this is never mentioned it has got thousands of pages it does not mention professor i've never seen him mention it's not mentioned here. this is like discussing polio and p the effects of polio witht discuss the effects of a polio vaccine we are masters of claimant pure and simple. nothing a climate mastery projects about future harms of co2 can be trusted because they deny our climate mastery of ability. certainly applies to professor. the final factors even more

egregious if that's possible is denying the benefits of fossil fuel. fossil fuels uniquely scalable and a source of energy. fights energy for billions of people thousands of places where it meets all types of machines you might have noticed professor only talked about electricity lecture sees only 20% of global energy use. fossil fuels are growing particularly in china and other parts of the world's want the most reliable energy it's curious where china's going in on solar given its cheap. if we look at solar wind the actual performance around the world it's very, very safe there only as in places of large subsidies the added cost when you see more at solar and wind the electricity prices go up. now why is this? it is very simply look at the group in germany as he sometimes solar wind goes to zero what is that mean? that means you need one 100% backup have to pay for the cost of the one 100% reliable grid

including transmission lines most importantly the reliable power plant. we try to cut costs on resiliency measures happened in texas or where live in california you have disasters. on l top of this billions more people need low cost reliable energy. so fossil fuels are uniquely cost-effective. at low cost to rapidly eliminate them. how could he claim this? he's using two denial tactics. he's unaware being very manipulative. this is partial cost accounting relying on your term. uses electricity anyone who uses us as either ignorant or defrauding preeminence very liberally. if you look at the actual numbers it says does not take into account the liability related to consideration but looks the cost of the solar panel put out the transmission

lines and not the backup for that singer got a really cheap employees only $18 an hour on set of $20 an hour you to pay to bring them into the cap expensive get the paper but a percent reliable stop at $18 is so cheap you need to look at the full process is partial, costms accounting. in terms of near-term possibilities you talk about nuclear hydro and geothermal in terms of supporting this magical grid. nuclear does not work with intermittent solar and wind. nuclear's redwood on s the bottm it works very steadily not intermittently pray gas the tan one goes up and down. hydro is location limited he also said i agree hydro is not something to expand. geothermal is highly location limited a fraction of a% it's not practical bird were either dealing with a tremendous amount of ignorance about energy, he has sam fantastic i've never heard of or engaging in deliberate perception.

they cannot be trusted to predict the future. i look for to engage in these issues. >> if you could wrap it up perfect timing. [applause] thank you both. gentlemen. [applause] is agreed, what were going to do is give andrew a chance tod briefly refute some of the points he thanks needs addressing. maybe a minute half and do that. >> sure, sure, sure. i'm not sure where to begin keeping my slides backup not going to bore you guys. a lot of the advantages mr. epstein talked about are not advantages a fossil fuel. a government model where you get the power. reviewed the power from renewable or fossil fuels are going to be important power sources solve the problem and

reduce we are almost there. so her subplot with germany in california on it. come on this is all of the states, the x axis is the price the y axis is how much renewable energy theyor have. this is not more expensive to have renewable energy that is false. as far as nuclear -- i have to say i had a patient on the thing he is not talking about. but he doesn't talk about is the cost. if you want to build a seawall that's tens of billions of dollars. who's going to pay for that? we are. climate mastery makes us poor. if you go to california to the allman producers. they are not trucking in water.

do not heroically building a pipeline they are ripping their trees out of the ground.ve co2 fertilization is not helping them. the master of the climate is not helping them. it's too expensive to do it is too expensive to master the climate when you have cheap renewable energy available. if you look at the studies that have been done like the barkley 2035 our net zero americans that include the cost of transmission lines and that. again you have to look at the peer-reviewed literature to build a reliable grid he is right we also need to electrify things that's part of the problem need to be electrified a lot of fossil fuel we can electrify many of them probably 95% the last 5%la is hard like international flights that can be difficult. quick standard thank you. i hate to cut you off but i've got too.

you have both written plenty and are knowledgeable about it. our audience includes many energy experts. after term a layperson like me would use. i could see that with questions coming in. i'm going to try to dispel some of that with maybe a little more technical questions a lotng of which no one going to try to balance that with some priority. let me start off with one of those notice alice's written talking points that make it unlivable. andrew wrote this month and rolling stones the amount of the war in the world is on track to experience norma's will transform our planet in unimaginable ways.

somebody like me is not an energy expert. looks at both of those and thought what if they are both right? in which case incentives bearing no expense in your attempt to curb climate change should we trye to adapt? can we? certainly we have to adapt in climate change we don't avoid it. people have to realize adaptation is not magic.em people say will use fossil fuels to master the climate. that is expensive. hume houston almost got wiped out by hurricane ike in the late 2000. they have been proposing to build a dike to basically save -- is going be wiped out without this at some point. $30 billion. she compared the price of houston but they just can't get the money. it is extremely expensive to

adapt. we can avoid at low cost a lot of the m warning. if you can buy it more cheaply than you should do that. >> ellis driven observation on that? >> i've been disappointed by anna's response to my opening. putting myself in his position. somebody had pointed out i was using fraudulent statistics in terms of cost of energy and also i'm usingie imaginary scenario n terms of hydro and nuclear and geothermal, solar and wind that would really give me pause instead of their some academic studies in the future. so i just want to reiterate the conclusion the earth will -- has become more livable fossil fuels and possible fuels is made it will bull. so we continued not to do prettt get if you look at the benefits

of fossil fuel what are they due? low cost reliable energy to power machines for billions of people to be productive and prosperous. including -- number 50 times safer climate than we were 100 years ago. that needs to be stressed ralph look at climate damages again this is 2 degreeses fahrenheit they are flat. in some cases they are declining. there is no climate crisis at all. there's actually climate write out 3 degrees more fahrenheit is going to be a disaster. this is for those anecdotes of look at the big picture. big picture is clear masses net zero is premature death. >> to follow up on that, if indeed let's say there is an teincrease in the average global temperature of one -- 5 degrees by the end of the century. does it make more sense nonetheless i think is the

question to adapt and extend what we have to do so rather than necessarily trying to go to net zero on carbon emissions? >> net zero should not even be on the table if you look at the full context. what policy should you have? given energy is so important toe engage in any liberation that is possible of low carbon alternatives. rnwe are very fortunate we haven unbelievable low carbon alternative that washi cheaper r electricity than fossil filled the 70s which is nuclear. i was virtually criminalized by the green move with the point nuclear's ten times more today for inflation as they were in the 70s. i think everyone should be in favor of the nuclear rising nuclear. they actually work to reduce co2 commissions not my highest

priority but you can have it as a priority they also make energy more available to more people. i gets the green movement. i went through every statement is made about nuclear on twitter. until this sure is very hostile to nuclear calls it very expensive that's another distortion. it's only expensive it's a green movement he is a major part of and supporter of. liberate nuclear liberate natural gas liberate aneo alternative bullet 8 billion people have energy do not hold them back by total denial about solar andu' wind. >> i'm going to ask you a different question rather than follow up onmeme nuclear. mrs. one from the audience it says environmental justice seems to require making way for the poor and middle-class more expensive. is the only solution to reducing fossil full fuel use making america families via tesla? >> i hate to do this to have to

respond to alex. in france they run nuclear power they have to stand up and done nuclear plants. it is regulatory. so his statement we can't do it is absolute wrong. getting back to your statement. switch?ed to if we want to get a world that does not have air pollution we have not mention the millions of people killed by fossil fuel poisoning in the air. if you want to get away from that which i think we should we need to switch to electric. i don't think everyone needs to buy a tesla. one thing we see happening is ten years ago people laughed if you told them the penetration of electric cars would have today for think what's going to happen in the future has this innovation cycles driving down renewable energygy price, drivig down all these other prices. again, remember just to hammer on this point the numbers you

complain about them but look at what the texas producers are doing. they're building a wind and solar . they don't care there during the calculation they've made the calculation. nowin certainly this whole revolution energy we are now experiencing this going to drive innovation. i think everyone will be driving electric card ten or 12 years. >> is like the flat screen tv. >> in 1988 my sleeves and my ibm selector? >> you mentioned a study here's another reference by one of our audience members does a study include the full cost of power including the backup required intermittent wind and solar generation? >> that's a great question that

is a fundamental mistake people think about when they say it renewable energy needs backup. if you want to design a grid it's a mistake to think about this as energy versus energy source. you want to think about from a grid's standpoint too. what you want on thehe grid is have g us much of power as you n for wind and so if you cannot get enough power you turn on power it is including the cost of that. that is part of the grid. it's completely the wrong way to think about it. the lazard studies just the amount of energy you're thinking about it wrong if that's what you think about it. >> can i respond to that? >> this is a great difference between us because i think it's completely wrong about this and want to reexplain the thought i explained itt earlier. you have to look at the full cost of things if you take something like we went all the solar and wind you can think

about that like an unreliable worker who is willing to work cheap hour for $18 and our sitter $20 an hour but again there cost associated i mention transmission costs important things are backup costs. a professors being too literal intermittent unreliable input like solarrn and wind and turn into a reliablelu output.e' you absolutely have to look at the full cost. he mentioned no correlation if you look at the number what happens to the number sitting at solar and wind. some of the places he is showing her super cheap electricity already there's a lot more distortion here. i just want to point out this is a huge distortion desecrating the same price on something that is unreliable and something as reliable. as one executive put it's like tsaying but in the same price n the car that worked for a third of the time in a car that works all the time. they are totally different the reason solar and wind or having

increase penetration as we have an unfair grid that pays the same for reliable and unreliable and then subsidizes unreliable on top of that. it's amazing market revolution in economic perversion baseded n this worship of the sun and wind to decriminalize nuclear the log term getting something done. so people have done that study. you need to look at the full cost that's what this study the net zero american study that is what they have done. they have done that. this is not something we are ignoring. >> the first of all any projection i have a rule that any projection about the future that is not acknowledge the present is invalid. all of these studies if every single wide look at are in total denial.he they have claimed it made it already. that tells you the skill of their accounting. something that is made things more expensive they are denyingg that. it's denial about the future and

all sorts of making up of hypothetical things based on the assumptions. but i go by his wits actually happen. europe ten years ago was saying the same things you are the same things they were there and have total predicament where they are dependent on russia because they believe these fantasies instead of looking at reality. at these ideas are so great to implement them in one place around the world to be successful. do not force us to ban fossil fuels is what you are advocating in the name of economic total fallacies in fantasies. tl: : : s i mean there's denial going on, but it's not a great aisle from the energy groups just so they don't shoot the piano player. can any good come of higher average global temperatures down the road if they were to come to pass and you know. i think both of you say that is likely that there's good of

higher global temperatures. no that there will be higher global temperatures. and is the >> that there willre be higher temperatures. >> let me ask you first is there any good that could come of that? >> it is important the fact about warming it is not publicized i think because it is sort of incriminating that it tends to take place in colder places and colder seasons so it's becoming less cold than more warmth and get even if there is significant negatives there's huge positives. people like warmth it is crucial to light. heat related deaths are far fewer so i want to point out a pointeo of philosophy. the reason people don't care is they have a philosophy that the

planet we inherited was perfect and any impact we had a somehow immoral and inevitablyig self-destructive. this is a religious dogma and most people accepted it and that's why they are so concerned with all these negatives and they don't appreciate how safe we made the earth. if you look a at the world froma pure pro- human perspective. >> we are adapted to it so if you look around the world we have built our entire world around of this temperature. people in siberia assume it is never going to melt. when it melts the houses split and people build cities right on the sea and we have trillions of

these adaptations you assume a temperature range and if it is outside of the temperature range you have to repair. so there are trillions. it's extremely expensive for us to adapt. will there be some positives? theree, are some people that pot out we are warming the high latitudes more than the equater. i live in texas. i really don't care what happens in canada. i care what happens in san antonio, austin, houston. it's not just in the winter but also the summary and it's going to be expensive. we have i to run our air-conditioners more. it's going to be expensive for us to adapt.' >> some challenges again with conventional thinking can we

talk about the introduction of fossil fuel and how it saved the planet. >> i don't think that it was about to die and it was ,preindustrial. >> but the? part about generatig more co2. >> if that was the only thing happening.ar so if you had a greenhouse but of course that's not what happening. as i mentioned before in california you have these farmers that can'tli get water o it's going up, that's great but again other things are happening and i would also point out that

the historical perspective is a interesting but i want to factor in the enormous benefits of fossil fuel and climate masters that i want to reiterate fossil fuels provide 80% of the world's energy and growing especially in hathe parts of the world that ce most about the low-cost reliable energy like china. the world is drastically short ofco energy. this is an important concept. here we have solar and wind that are mandated but there are 3% of the world's energy that are sototally dependent on the reliable sources of energy and we have a claim that we can ban

the world this would literally end billions prematurely so the details of what it does or doesn't do anything in the realm of thel possibility is masterful and nothing compared to the senate if we follow. soon to be the most popular produce so much of the world's carbon emissions. so that was out there. >> it's a global problem i'm not

someone that is an expert on the international negotiations but the point is we can do this physically and with few exceptions are convinced they are looking for u.s. leadership on this problem. there's enormous leadership capability on. more coal plants in the pipeline so fossil fuels are by four the most going forward the only way to deal with it is not

agreements. its lower cost sources for the low carbon and no carbon energy and the insistence on solar wind is contrary because it reinforces the criminalization and unfairness of the reliable's. there is no climate catastrophe. un power the world and lower emissions over time and a totally humane way but as long as we are on this dogma that is this religious idea that we want the energy from the sun and wind we are going to end billions prematurely and if we just focus on doing it in america we will become even worse than germany with russia right now.

europe has been the leader on this issue and look at them now. >> let's go further into the morality of it. his going green a luxury of the postindustrial economy or that's what i'm told. >> philosophically it's the idea of the human impact on nature and primitive religion or philosophy which is the idea that our impact on the world. the thought of global warming is like a modern hell narrative it's not like 3 degrees fahrenheit. people have this religious view that we are so this is a primitive view and it's b not a view held by anybody that lives in nature so if you are, you

understand that you take for granted to the world you live in and think of that is natural do you support and adopt these green policies and what we do is we have a totally nongreen society but we've closed these on the rest of the world telling them not to build coal plants and gas andso somehow to use sor and wind to power flashlights or charge a cell phone instead of having a real economy so it is fundamentallyhe harming. >> as they ran and implicit elitism and going green in the green movement? and i realize that is a broad brush. >> they do the peer reviewed research and it's making stuff

up. show me a study that shows that. we can't really check each other on the fly. it's the cheapest energy of people cannot, people in africa or less-developed places cannot afford to master the climate. i don't think that it's going to end human society but it's possible and plausible i said initially we will be spending all of our time, all money trying to stay alive and master the climate but it's not cheap. look at the seawall's and all of

the kind of investments people have to make. >> you make predictions about the futureun acknowledging the present. from 170 years we have had 2 degrees of warming and fahrenheit. we are talking about three more and what we have seen is its drastically reduced the rate and if you look at the kind of change we are talking about they are extremely slow and they are involved in always rebuilding itself anyway so these are very slow masterful changes. keeping billions of dollars is not a slow masterful change and i keep pointing out every example around the world increasing the cost they deny

the present and most no they are crucial forst the future. find a place and make it work because the fact isst that it's just killing people and making people insecure like europe right now. let me do time check. we want to reserve a minute or so for each of our speakers to

come up with what they've come here to say. at the same time a tremendous amount of questions that show how learn and you all are and we've only scratched the surface. some of them overlap and some of them have been addressed in various ways.

i think you have to look at the time of when people build out their infrastructure. so if you look at that it shows ten years ago it was the most expensive o power so germany but a lotve of power when it was expensive and if it's going to drive up the cost. we should thank germany because they are spending a lot of money on it. they are building solar, 100 gigawatts.

you can't have a reasonable debate if you don't know the revolution we are going under or through right now. >> i'm going to try to say something noncompetitive. so,ru this solar and wind are nt replaced.00 they depend on the reliable infrastructure so it is true as some of the prices go down they will add less cost but they do still add cost everywhere they are used. there was one other point i wanted to make. >> you wanted to ask about the ethics study.

>> an audience member asks or points out that renewables are more expensive is the 29 university of chicago ethics study. are you familiarr with of the study that was directed to the professor with both of you are familiar i will start with andrew and go w down. >> i think the studies tend to be too conservative so we have to keep looking. 1 thing is the ability to solar and wind because they are unreliable like the first 10% is cheaper than the second 10% or if you have to add more and more of this unreliable infrastructure to get a larger and larger percentage but you need to be infrastructure as well so if you look at a place like texas they've spent about $70 billion according to robert rice to get to 21% of solar and wind so to get to the 75% number, you are three and a half times that you have to spend all this new money on infrastructure and one of the important point s

is this drives up the cost. it's subsidies, mandates, preferences. not one person in this room and proved the vehicle including the professor would pay the same amount and then of the unreliable employees, so this is a total corruption. and we are not even talking about the 80% of energy that is not electricity and about the billions of people that laugh at the idea that solar and wind can justify the rapidly with no cost. >> they have a renewable energy standard mandate like colorado that t i understand and is the part of what is driving some of this? >> the way the grid works is

it's a freee market energy systm and it's right that they have an option every day where the energy producers come in and say this is how much i will charge and then they say okay we need a 60 gigawatts and we will take the cheapest and wind and solar because they are a cost of zero they have an advantage and i 100% agree the texas market because of that the incentive is to continue building wind and solar that is the cheapest energy source and i understand it's a disagreement here. you may not believe me now but you will believe me and a fewle years. i remember his name but he was right you willn understand i am right in a few years if not sooner. so in texas people building wind and solar and up eventually

creating an unstable grid as i talked about at the beginning you need to have this power on your grid and there is zero incentive to build nuclear in texas or to build other types of power and that is a problem in the market. it's not a problem in the energy anddi that's a big difference we have. wind and solar are not the problem. the problem is the market. you need to redesign the market to give some advantage you have to have that on the grid. we will give you extra. i know. >> so it does require more regulation of the market. >> absolutely the government needs to come in and solve that problem. it requires both. athe way to think of it is the proper policy of the government has been monopolizing and something that i call long-term

fiscal analysis if you look at thehi electricity needs and what things will meet that in the long term being most effective at the lowest price and you tend to favor things like nuclear anm coal to some extent natural gas and the point that i missed before the main distortion involved in the claims of solar and wind but even with solar panels and wind turbine those do not go down and definitely because they are physical materials. a lot of those are going up and in particular the chinese solar panels are dominant because they involve chinese coal. they are using coal to make solar panels and why is that they are so cheap so they are using coal and that is an advantage they have over us and the other thing is they are using low environmental standards and slave labor like. >> somebody wanted me o to say that i guess.

but that is relevan' to the situation. it's a humanitarian evil but it's one of the smaller distortions either engaged in or repeating withoutt knowledge but it is important and at this picture is just a crazy distortion. >> what you said right now at least one of the questions coming from the audience can you explain the impacts compared to theol drilling rig it's a variation of the theme but what about that if you want to look at that in texas or what was brought up now they are making these solar panels cheap but they are doing it with coal and at some point the production chain.

setting aside questions of ethics and morality is there a sort of cart before the horse? >> a couple responses to that. i was in china probably five years ago in mongolia you drive down the road and there would be a coal-fired power plant and a few kilometers away you could see wind turbines and as i said i'm not an expert on the chinese grid. my take on that is they recognize the need dispatch a bully renewable energy. they understand that. >> how are you can turn on and off. it could be nuclear, geothermal. it could be hydrogen, hydroelectric. there are lots. it could be long-term storage, batteries. so there's lots of things and they understand f that and they are building fossil fuels to stabilize the grid and you need to have some dispatch of will power and i wish they were building nuclearre but alas they

are not doing that. as far as thet other part of yor question -- >> there are supply chain issues. >> ouwhat does that do to climae action with traditional fossil fuels? >> i don't see a problem with that. right now once the solar panels are available you can shut off the fossil fuels. that's how you make advancements you use the power you have to get to the power system you want. >> let me ask each of you now just to do about a minute and keep the order that we started with and you go first. your memory is better than mine. >> that's exactly right. i want to reiterate what i said the key methodology to look at

the context precisely the factor of the claimant mastering and if youfuels benefits look at the reality today you recognize how the world works and the situation is fossil fuels have unique massive and near-term benefits both for the people that have energy and the billions more who needed. at the claims they are not necessary are placed on the distortions and the idea that solar and wind are insecure even though the supply chain is controlled by china i forgot to mention that. so ten specific distortions of the professor has engaged in and i don't mean to protect him personally butis the whole movement is based on distortions and about denying fossil fuel benefits and claimant mastery and when you look objectively at the full context it is obvious that the world needs vastly more energy from fossil fuels for the next couple of decades and eliminating them rapidly is a death sentence for billions of

people and should be condemned as an evil idea based on falsehoods and so that's what i've tried to explain today. >> as i said at the beginning and i will say again we need power, no one doubts that. at the power source that is the best power source for us to use. a lot of people have done analyses the show we can significantly eliminate the fossil fuel use. i don't think there's any analysis. he says a lot of things that i think you're just not correct. a lot of facts are just wrong and i am happy to engage with anybody on the audience if you e-mail me i would be happy to look at these things. but all the people that are experts suggest. it's not correct to the grid. this is a problem-solving climate change is a huge risk.

fossil fuel plays in the atmosphere. wet' haven't talked about that. these are things that don't exist, these are significant disadvantages. >> thank you both. let me just point out o that 56 people had questions and obviously as i said we are only scratching the surface and it goes toed show how engaged you l were with the debate and how engaging it is. thanks to both ofn them for in the spirit of coming together civilly and engaging like this for all of our benefit i'm very impressede by this and the fact it's here to provide such a change for the food for thought

so let's applaud both of them. [applause] thank you, gentlemen. it takes a lot of courage to get on the debate stage and many people refuse to do it so kudos. [applause]