1:08:55 Also, by the way...I know why they never mention it. These panels aren't made for free. No! Let me deconstruct it for you John because there was some very specific claims made here that were contrary to what I understand about renewable energy and of course I consider nuclear to be the true renewable energy but thats scary He's saying, and thank you by the way for the lesson in business economics Mr. Gore, you're telling me that it makes a lot more sense if you can buy energy cheaper why wouldn't you do it? Of course! That is the difference between water and ice Mr. Gore between loss and profit I think is what he meant to say
1:09:37 So, this claim is odd to me because every single study I've looked at, every piece of research and just doing the numbers myself is not that hard. The cost and the ongoing maintenance but particularly the cost of setting up solar and wind is prohibitively high compared to other sources of energy And then there's another little annoying point is that there is a time in Texas not necessarily because we do have a lot of wind here and a lot of this wind that were talking about as generated in West Texas. It is quite remarkable, that's T-Boone there, T-Boone Pickens
1:10:13 But, you know, there are times when there's just no sun at night particularly and times when there is no wind. And then there's times where there is none of both. So to say that an entire city...Georgetown now we have Georgetown up until this report which you're about to hear from NPR I consider it to be part of Austin. Now it's like, yeah but we all could say hey Georgetown is part of Austin. We're big here. We're inclusive. It's all fine. So I wanted to understand how they could switch to 100% renewable and still keep the lights on. Do they have huge battery storage? The claim is really out there, and the reason they did it is because of money. Here's a recent NPR report about
1:10:53 Georgetown, Texas. Today we're going to visit one of the first cities in the country to be entirely powered by renewable Remember this is the claim and this is NPR's Al Gore NPR claiming 100% renewable energies I don't think they're ever gonna accuse Georgetown would be on the next Berkeley Georgetown Texas population 50,000 The mayor is Dale Ross We're about 30 miles north of Austin Austin's phrase is you know keep Austin weird now what we say is Austin keep your weird Oh, hey. Hey, Mayor? Suck my dick! Alright?! You're no longer a part of Austin. Mayor Ross wears a lapel pin from Trump's inauguration He is sitting on the park bench in Georgetown's historic town square It is a great city on planet Earth So I think people all over the country wonder how it that such a red city like Georgetown such a conservative place
1:11:41 was one of the first cities in the country to be powered 100% by renewable energy. Because it's our love of green, green rectangles and green energy. Green rectangles meaning dollar bills? Yeah so if you've got Andrew Jackson or Benjamin Franklin on them I prefer...Benjamin Franklin is my favorite but really with the first and foremost it was a business decision When the old power contract was up in 2012 Georgetown City managers sat down to look at their options they realized that wind and solar power are more predictable The prices don't swing up and down like oil and gas. So the city can sign a contract today, and know what the bill is going to be for the next 25 years
1:12:16 That's especially appealing in a place like Georgetown where a lot of retirees live on fixed incomes. We're driving up to this municipal building in Georgetown, Texas and the roof is covered in solar panels Hey there! Howdy! Chris Foster By the way this-this has put in there in this report just as a little bit of color because it has nothing to do with what we're talking about but the reporter says oh Look at it, the rooftop is covered in solar panels. Has nothing to do with how they're getting their energy but just all for color and for lying this is a lie this whole report is covered in solar panels. Hey there! Howdy Chris Foster manages the city's energy usage he presented a bunch of options to city managers and when they picked 100% renewable foster realized this could be a big deal only one other American city has done this in liberal Vermont
1:13:05 The wind energy that Georgetown buys is produced hundreds of miles away in West Texas. The city can only get that energy because of changes to the electrical grid that former governor Rick Perry put in place. The mayor says Perry deserves credit I truly believe he was a visionary because under his leadership, those transmission lines which run from West Texas and the Pan Am, if the state hadn't put those on the ground to transmit that energy we wouldn't be having this conversation today. Now Rick Perry is the Energy Secretary And Rick Perry is part of this scam even though I'd love to have beer with him seems like fun guy This is a scam and I'm going to break it down for you
1:13:45 So first of all, it is true that they purchased renewable energy from a company known as SunEdison and they started this deal in 2015. When SunEdison's stock was up around $20 if you look at them today they've been delisted from NASDAQ they are a bulletin board stock for nine cents so on the brink of bankruptcy So the first lie is this 100% renewable energy. You just heard him talk about the grid, what happened is the windmill parks farms in West Texas were connected to THE Texas grid so because there are no direct transmission lines from any solar farm or any wind farm run by SunEdison or anyone else directly to Georgetown it is a lie that they're 100 percent on renewable energy
1:14:40 It could be that way if they had about, you know $9 billion worth of batteries because 155 kilowatts is being delivered. It's not a big town but I hadn't heard nothing about this investment in batteries what is happening is this is the grid scam and this is all over Europe uh you know you can buy your energy the energy markets we deregulated you have a company that has windmills They feed their windmill energy into the grid and... Yeah, it gets mixed up with all the others. It gets mixed up with everything else exactly so to start off with it's a complete lie because they do not have power at certain times but you're buying from them with a consistent price You could be getting coal energy gas energy nuclear energy and if you look at the overall statistics which I did for Texas only 10% of the entire energy supply that is from renewables is in the grid
1:15:32 So all energy in the Texas grid, the percentage that is renewables is 10%. So it's a lie. A boldface lie that they have 100% renewable energy. They buy from a company that provides that but it provides renewable energy but let's see how does SunEdison do this because that's the part of the freak me out? How can it be cheaper? How can they provide this cheaper? SunEdison used to be a Monsanto company just to show you where their corporate leadership comes from They are in the business of creating something new called a yield co. And the yield co, they have two of them currently even though they're a nine penny delisted stock, they have to yield cos currently at about one at 12 and one about $18. The yield co is where the energy properties are stored and when...and they go public with these with this yield cos or called yield cos it's basically a derivative with huge tax advantages because of the way it's structured as an investment
1:16:29 And the Yieldco buys up bankrupt solar and wind farms that are operating, but they're bankrupt. So they buy them pennies on the dollar therefore they have almost zero of the investment cost and yes every kilowatt hour after that is of course at a hugely reduced cost because you didn't pay for the initial upfront costs, which by the way the American taxpayer did most of. We paid for Solyndra and all these companies that are now bankrupt and these companies are putting into yieldcos therefore able to provide this energy very cheap but unless we have a complete supply line of bankrupted companies to pull into the yieldcos this is not going to end very well look at their stock price! And then just add insult to injury
1:17:17 They were promised the city of Georgetown, they would be able to sell their excess energy back into the grid. Well it's amazing with this great deal they did it turns out that Georgetown lost six million dollars on this deal last year! Why? Turns out that the energy they purchased is the most available. They have excess at peak times when there's just tons of energy, so when the wind is really blowing or the sun is really shining but guess what? Everybody connected to the grid... Do I have to guess? No! Everybody on the grid has excess energy There's no place to sell it. There are no buyers So they lost six million dollars on this stupid deal A complete scam and lie Okay And that will be that for today show