Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Hello everyone, my name is Maurice Hamilton and welcome to our show. AD so we have a show now where humanity meets technology and I have my co host here, Kelly.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: Hi.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: And today we have a really, really great conversation with Andrew McCain. We're going to. With Andrew McCain is with the CEO of McCain Power Systems, if I'm saying it correctly. So we're going to have a really, really great conversation and answer some of those questions that you may have thought about but didn't ask anybody about power and energy. So Andrew, welcome to the show.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. Appreciate that.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Thanks. I'm really happy to have you here. So Andrew, I, I like to start our conversation up in what I call like a genesis question. How did you actually start your company today? And can you tell us a little bit about what you guys do and actually how you provide services to the market?
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah, so started in 2020 during the middle of COVID and yeah, just started buying and selling equipment and it was really at the beginning brokering equipment. So I'd find it, find a buyer, put them two together and it was more of a consulting kind of gig.
Slowly started building inventory and then one turned into two and so on and so forth. So we, we buy and sell generators, engines, compressors, pretty much anything. On the power system side we also have a rental division, a logistics division and a service branch. So there's four companies that we all do the same thing, sales, service, logistics and rental.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Okay. And some of the equipment that you actually provide for, is it a consumer, is it retail, is it more of a business type, industrial type operations? Who are your typical clients?
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Yeah, so industrial commercial grade generators is typically what we do. We do have, we're a Kohler distributor for residential, so we'll sell some for that. But yeah, mainly commercial industrial. On the generator side, a lot of oil and gas, a lot of rentals on, on that side of it, a lot of plant based business for, you know, all the gas compression, cng, LNG plants, stuff like that.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Okay, so let me ask you a question. In our being an IT company, some of the, the projects that we come across, we'll see the blueprints and we'll do the low voltage and we maybe even run the high voltage cabling for the companies. And sometimes we'll see that cabling and, and we'll see the electrical part of it where an organization may be putting a huge generator outside because we know that we're covered for like T1, T3 lines coming from the north side of the building and maybe from the south side of building so we have that redundancy. How do you guys look at it when you actually putting in a generator for an organization? What kind of questions do you ask that particular organization so that you can actually fit them with the right generator that's going to actually fit their needs?
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's going to be direct conversations with the engineers that that company's hired, so electrical engineers for that project. They're going to have a load profile, a one load, a one line diagram. We're going to take a look at that, their load profiles that's coming in. We're going to size the generator based off of that. You can oversize the generator, believe it or not. You just don't want to throw a 2 megawatt generator at something that's only requiring 150amps. Right. So we really rely on the experts on that side to size it. But then we're going to ask some questions on the load profile. What this is going to be, what this is going to be powering. Right. If it's life safety equipment, what measurements? Because there's some, you know, some generators need to be. NFPA100 needs to be able to start within 10 seconds to provide that, you know, life safety devices to come online. We ask questions like, man, can you never lose power? We've had a couple of companies that we've dealt with that have conveyor belts and stuff that really can't go down. So they need something actually between the utility side and the generator side. It's called a UPS system. Right. An uninterrupted power supply.
[00:04:20] Speaker C: You're very familiar with that.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: And so the battery power provides that 10 seconds. And so it, it's uninterrupted power. So we ask all those questions so that we're trying to provide the best solution for the customer and not just throw a generator at somebody or an engine or whatever. That's not what we're the small businesses. Right. We're trying to provide solution based deals for customers.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Okay, so you're going to fit it to other needs.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: So let me ask you another question. This is going to kind of like leeway into another segment where we're talking about energy from a more of a macro view. When you're fitting that client for that, that generator that they're looking for, are you looking for like propane? Is it gas? I don't know too much about it. How do you actually look at that? Say, look, there's additional costs besides the actual cost of the generator and there's more than just when you actually, you know, build it out there. Here are the additional costs that you have to think about when you factor this into your operations.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Yep. So it depends a little bit on what the engineer is spec'd in. A lot of times they have their mindset on we want a natural gas generator, we have a natural gas line. We want there never to be a never ending supply of gas to, to this generator. We've done deals in Florida and on the coast where they're like we never want power to go out so we want natural gas. Well, they don't know that the law, they actually shut down natural gas within 50 miles like in Florida of, of the coastline when disasters happen. So you could put a generator on something and it has no natural gas. So I think the, you know, relying on the experts of talking to the engineers what they've specked in and then talking to them about what kind of runtime. So if it's a diesel backup generator, you're going to size the generator to the tank for a 24 or 48 hour tank and then once it goes out, maybe help them with a redundancy plan for fuel drops so that they, you know, every 48 hours, if that's running at 75% load every 48 hours or having a moffitt or some other fuel company come out there and do fuel drops.
But yeah, that's typically spec'd in by the hey, we want this and then we'll supply that.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Okay, so here's a question and this question Kelly may interject on this one as well. So we spent a considerable amount of time in California about a year, year and a half ago and there's two things that we really noticed a lot of. We notice a lot of the, not only the windmills and we noticed that when actually west Texas here, there's a ton of all over the place. But we also noticed that in California there are not only the wind turbines, but there are a lot of solar farms. I'm talking, you know, you can go miles and miles and miles and you'll see these solar panels all over the place. So when it comes to, when you think about on a more of a macro scale, I think it's actually more than just people just putting up a wind turbine or with a solar panel for it. How would you actually go back and say if we look more into society and saying how can we actually be impacted by this? What are your thoughts when it comes to actually looking at deciding a wind turbine or a solar panel or Some kind of alternative energy. I know there's a lot of different factors to consider, especially when it comes to more like, and I'm kind of pinpoint a little bit better, a little bit more specific when it comes to like industrial or you're working with organizations. How do you actually look at that and say, okay, you may want to consider an alternative?
[00:07:41] Speaker A: You know, I think that most of those right now, if I'm not mistaken, I don't know a ton about the solar and the, the wind on how it's distributed for the power. I would say that a lot of that is, is government regulated from the utility company and they're putting those in and selling that during those peak times back to utility company.
You know, solar is one of the only ones in batteries is only where you can actually store the energy and then, and then distribute it out. The problem with, with anything like wind is if the wind's not going, you're not producing power and you can only store so much power right in batteries and in solar. So, you know, I think it can help fill in the gaps. I think that there, there are, I think, some really good things that companies can look at to, to be a barrier between what, what they're using on maybe a reciprocating engine side for backup power. And then, you know, incorporating the wind and the solar just has to make economic sense for the companies and for the, for the businesses and then kind of make some decision based on that that makes sense.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: And we're going to talk a little bit more about regulations in our next segment here. But one of the things that Kelly was, was mentioning earlier about when you think about the wind, wind turbines, we're thinking about on the coast and out in the different oceans out there and how that's actually have an impact on the, the whales and, and maybe some of the animal and the wildlife, you know. And so those are other factors that I would think that you probably want to consider as well when you.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that when we talk about green energy and we talk about alternative energy, I think they're great options. The problem that I have is with my background working at a variety of different companies, I worked at Siemens, I worked at TF Cable, which did cabling for the wind turbines. I have a broad spectrum of places that I've worked. We're not always honest about the negative side of it. And when you start working with it, it's, it's really important, I think, to be upfront and transparent about the struggles and the challenges that we have because it can be something as small as a refrigerator or an oven or a car. You know, you get one of these EV cars. What happens when the battery goes dead? Yeah, you can run it on gas, but it's not running. You gotta pay to replace that battery. What about the battery itself? That's going to. How are we going to get rid of it? The things that it takes to make them, you know, just generate the battery. We talk about we want to get rid of oil, we want to get rid of fracking and things like that. Okay, ladies, well, get ready to get rid of your leggings because that's used to make those. And I don't know, one of my girlfriends is willing to get rid of those. And so we need to have the other side of it and just know what is going to happen with it. When we were younger, the lights went out, we dealt with it. You lit candles, you played games. Now I don't have my phone. I can't do my business. I can't send this email. We literally can't function on a normal society without our electricity. And so what's your take, your expertise and your take on that?
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I think having an honest conversation of what those power sources look like. We all want to live in a better world. We want to create it for our kids, our grandkids. Nobody's denying that. Nobody in oil and gas is denying that. But we have to have an honest conversation of how is power made. Right. I think most people are pretty naive on that side, but there is nuclear, there is renewable, and then there is fossil fuels. That's really all we have. Right. And so when, when you're talking about clean energy or green energy, you have to really look at the negative on that side, too, to say, you know, does this outweigh the positive? The United States has been the best nation in the entire world, hands down, of reducing our emissions level since the early 2000s.
There are some big players out there that are increasing that. We need to keep being a leader there, but we need to have an honest conversation. And that's a. I mean, I'd love to be on here. We could talk in depth about that, about the negatives of, of, of the wind. Right? Yeah, it kills. Has a negative effect on whales and fish. All the oil that the wind turbines, I mean, each one of those wind turbines requires like, I don't know, 300, 400 gallons of oil each. Right. And when they go out, guess what needs to replace on there? There's a generator on that, a diesel generator that starts in black, starts that thing. So a lot of people just don't know this and we need to have an honest conversation and be willing to hear both sides and, and come to an agreement to say like let's keep, let's keep pushing innovation further of trying to create good clean energy but then also not stop our economy and stop the money flow of things because.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Everybody loves their liking.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Shoes and they love their braces and like all of that comes from Orland.
[00:12:49] Speaker C: Gas jumping in your car.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: I have a couple of questions for you, but I want to have this commercial break first. I want to talk a little bit more about the future and also talk about how regulations and government, how they actually impact and what can we do as consumers to actually even increase the, the footprint of green energy. We'll be right back after these messages.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Welcome back to our show where humanity meets technology. We're with Andrew and he's actually talking to us about energy. And Kelly, of course, my co host, I can't forget my wife co host here. And we're talking about that. Andrew, you actually touched on something a few minutes ago in the last segment. We talked about how United States is actually really leading the drive and actually pushing more of a green initiative. And I look at and read all kind of information about United States. We have Finland, we have Denmark, we got Australia. These countries are doing a really, really great focus and make that happen. And then we have a lot of countries that really want to make it happen, but they have a lot of corruption, they have a lot of instability, they have wars, all kind of things that we really cannot control. That actually pushes us to the next level. So when we talk about the really big push and that big drive there for actually how we can actually do that. What are your thoughts? And especially I want to kind of pinpoint this a little bit on something that's happening in the future. A lot of people, a lot of politicians talk about like for example, the new energy grid. And I know that there's a lot of our energy grid is so old and outdated now. What, what are your thoughts when it comes to the concepts like the energy grid and how we can actually even take it to the next level as a country and society?
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
I think making an analogy to old technology is, is key. So like your old plasma TVs, your old cell phones, they were huge, they were heavy, they were inefficient. Right. And everything got smaller, more compact. And now we have a computer in our pockets at all times, a cell phone. So the Same thing's happening with energy. Right. The innovations that are coming out are going to be better, they're going to be more compact, we're going to be able to provide power at a bigger scale. But that takes time, utility from a grand scale. It takes 10 to 15 to 20 years to create these PPMs and to build on the amount of power that is needed for our society. So, you know, you mentioned in California rolling brownouts and blackouts that happen out there. They've incorporated wind and solar to help with those. And so they can be power generation because there's no new power generation. Big power plants going out in California. Right. So I think innovation and moving us closer to that and you know, our businesses and small businesses and honestly the big, big guys, I think investing in that is going to be what, what brings us to create the power at a cheaper rate but also more efficiently.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: And you mentioned a cheaper rate. Because I look at one of the biggest factors that's really slowing us down to go to another level is the cost. Would you, I don't know, we talked about that before. Would you say the cost is probably one of the huge.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: I mean, if you think about utility and creating power, you don't think about it. It's a private company right here in Houston. You got Entergy and you got the ercot. Yeah, they are a private company, but they are heavily regulated. So you have, you know, people on the left and right that are arguing how do we make more power.
You know, the bureaucracy of it all kind of holds a lot of that stuff up. But once you do have that innovation, you put that in. Where does that burden come back to? Comes back to the taxpayer. We're all going to be paying more taxes to say, okay, we want more businesses to come here to Houston. That's going to be great for economy. Well, how do you get that, that power that's going to be needed to sustain that area. So I think from an innovation standpoint, we're going to have to add to that. But that takes time. You're going to see a lot of bridges and this is for like small businesses, medium sized businesses. You're going to see a lot of bridge to utility micro grids that pop up that use.
They're going to be using natural gas reciprocating turbines, stuff like that to produce a two of three, a four megawatt power plant to have an AI data center or. And that's going to bring jobs, that's going to bring more innovation, that's going to bring a lot of really good things to a local economy. But that stuff takes a lot of money. So that would be a way that doesn't pass on to the, to the taxpayer that's a private company that's, that's going to put in that power themselves and then they're going to sell that to, you know, the Amazons and to the, you know, the, the big guys that are coming in here. Or a company that's, that is trying to make jet fuel. Right. Or manufacture jet fuel. That company wants to come here to Texas, they don't have power for it. How do you do that? You create, you have a company that creates a micro grid and now they're a mini utility providing power. There's still bureaucracy there, but that allows you to be competitive with the big guys and the utility companies.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Excellent. Now, my next question. This is probably something that Kelly can relate to and that's more residential, something that, what can we do to really kind of lower the cost? And we can actually help with the, with green energy as well. I know I can walk around the house and if I leave a light on, I'll definitely hear my neighbors can hear Kelly saying in a really nice way, because she's not yelling at me, but saying, honey, you left the lights on. You know, but those are the things, those are the things. You probably add a little bit more about that. I'm sure that those costs probably add up over time.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So lights, fans, the bigger motor starter. So your AC units, your heaters, condensers.
[00:19:07] Speaker C: Even dialing down a little bit on your AC or up and down on your heat a little bit. Put a hoodie on, you know, put it on, cover up with a blanket. If you're sitting watching tv. That adds up over time.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: And it's, that's everybody doing that. Right. If we're all selfish and thinking about, you know, my comfortability instead of like, well, you know, this might help us provide power to X, you know, so thinking about how it helps humanity. Right. I think that's the biggest thing of this, this show.
[00:19:35] Speaker C: Right.
And I also think that it's really, really important you hit on this. And I, I, I love it. It's be open about it. When I like, our government will come in and say, okay, we're going to do XYZ by 2029. And it's like, hold on a minute.
You're a politician, you're not an expert. We need to talk to the experts, bring the experts in to a meeting, put the cameras on them and let them discuss what they want to do. It's not, it's a good thing to have a goal, but to set that goal in stone. I think it harms the American people because it's going to cost us more. There's going to be mistakes made along the way and it's easier to take your time and fix those little by little rather than doing something and we're like, oh, we got to cut this whole wall down or the whole building's a mess or the foundation is off, like you need to fix it as it goes along. Do you agree with that?
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think that, don't be in a rush. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think oversight on both sides, right. So transparency and oversight, making sure that you're looking, you know, the private sector is looking at government saying, hey, we're going to put some, some a check on you and vice versa. I mean we're, we all have the IRS sticking their heads in our business all the time for our taxes. Why wouldn't we do the same thing and say make sure that we're spending the money the right way. Right. And, and there's already so many regulations and you know, that are for the good. Right. That had started early 2000s and on to reduce our emission in our footprint when it talks to power. So those things are there, they're there to, so that we can better ourselves along the way. And that's going to improve innovation. That's one way the government has stepped in and said we need to improve innovation and make this a more livable space that we live in in the long run. But if there's too much overreach, you know, the hand needs to be slapped and vice versa. So I think doing it transparency and transparently is, is in my opinion the only way to do it. And it's the best way to do it. And you can have conversations across the aisle with people you disagree with and say, man, okay, I see where you're coming from and how to get there. But it's not just by stopping, you know, it's not by stopping what, what we've been doing because there's no other way to do it. There's no other way to produce power than what we've been doing, especially in a fast changing world.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Excellent. That makes sense. So I have my last question would be going really pretty similar to what you just mentioned there. And I think that we as a society have seen it where we've seen the extreme of saying you can't use a gas stove, you can't do this, you're a lawnmower. You can't do all these different things that we can't do and everybody put all these regulations on it. Then you have some other people say, oh, oh, everything's okay, everything's fine and dandy. And I think that there's actually a big, that intersect where we actually have, where everybody's supposed to get together. I think there's a lot of conflict there and a lot of people saying I don't know what to believe anymore. So. And it goes back when you talk about energy, I think that that psychologically can have an impact on us. What do you think about that?
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Sorry, I lost my train of thought.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: But it sounds like you're saying that you agree that, you know, when you think about all the regulations that the people are pushing us so much and they can actually kind of like have a diverse effect of actually trying to get us to the next level.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: Over regulated.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: Just for sure that micromanaging and pinpointing and that can halt you and then you're, you turn around down the road and you're forced to rush it ahead and that's when the, all the mistakes happen and everything, you know, that's there.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Are some very large power problems. I'll relate this back to something that I'm working on. Very large power projects approved during the Bush administration all the way through to the Obama administration. Well, it was a coal powered power plant.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: And it got nixed. Well, how can we use that? It's a steam turbine. How can we use the steam turbine but use a better, less emission thing? But a billion dollar deal that got nixed after all the money has been spent and that's through bureaucracy and it's taking 15 years to even get that power to be approved. So I think that yeah, we can nitpick things and we can, you know, slow things down, but we need to come together and make a more streamlined way to get power to people so that we can continue to innovate and continue to do the things that we do as Americans and lead the way.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: And bring in the experts.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: Exactly. So we want to thank you guys. We've had a really great conversation talking about power, talking about Energy with Andrew McCain from McCain Power Systems. Make sure I'm saying it correctly right there. And with my co host Kelly here. So we really enjoyed everyone's. Enjoy. Just join us for this podcast here because I think this is a, a conversation or topic that everybody can relate to and we just want to thank you all and so we'll catch you on the next one. Thanks foreign.
Welcome back everyone to where humanity meets technology. And we're here with Andrew McCain here and Kelly of course. And, and we want to talk about in this segment here a little bit about data centers. And I don't think that people understand that when they look at a data center how much work goes inside of it. You have millions and millions of feet of cabling. You have five fiber, you have all the servers, you have racks. There are so many more, so many components that is actually built into the data center. But, and that's just actually getting the data center operational. But if we actually look at the more of the infrastructure since we have Andrew here, we're going to talk about some of those other key factors that's actually that, that people don't see some of those hidden factors such as the size and how much power. You need to talk about redundancy. So Andrew, when we're looking at data centers, I know it's a, it's more of a subjective, it depends on the size of the data center. And we hear about all these big corporations, especially here in Texas where they're going to actually open up these huge, you know, 300, 400,000 square foot data centers and, and these are supplying the world with all the data that they need because everybody knows when you actually click on it, you, if you click on your information, you get it. Nobody's going to say anything but the second something goes down, the world knows about it. So let's talk a little bit about data center. Talk about the amount of wattage and the amount of resources and the redundancy that goes into the data center and what that looks like and even just.
[00:26:42] Speaker C: To keep it running.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you think about a data center, right for let's call it Facebook or Twitter or chat GPT like all of these servers, right. There's an AI component, there's just a storage component of, I mean you Google something, it's there for forever, right. You can dig that all that stuff is stored somewhere. People don't really think about that. It is stored somewhere and that is a powered piece. It's getting powered. And typically those, those agreements are they called ppa. So they're power purchase agreements and they're long term for these data centers. So they're 15 year contracts where they're guaranteed power. They call it the five nines. You were talking about that, we're talking about that. But it's a 99.999 uptime. So these guys are getting power to their data Centers to produce things like chat GPT for us and Facebook and Instagram and I don't have tick tock but they have tick tock. Like all these things require a massive amount of power and all of that power source has to come from somewhere. So typically what they're doing Is they're creating PPAs, power purchase agreements with. So they have a tenant which is the data center is going to be on a site, they're going to have a PPA with a power provider and that's right here in Texas or in Houston is Entergy. Right. So Entergy is going to say we have 100 megawatts worth of power. We're going to provide that to you. Okay, cool. That's 15 years at this price per kilowatt hour. We're going to pay you a guaranteed rate and there's a variable piece of that as well. But there's a fixed fired hour charge of what you're using and then there's that fixed rate. That's what we're going to be at for 15 years. Well, what if that goes down? Right. What if a storm hits? Right. And that 99.999% goes to998. All of these data centers have redundancy, meaning if that's 100 megawatts, they have a hundred megawatts of backup power. 100%.
It's not a, they call it an N plus one scenario. This is like an N plus, however much redundancy you need and it is to ensure that they never lose power. And so that redundancy piece, it adds to the economic cost. Right. And so there's a variable there. And so everybody is trying to get to the end goal of how do we produce a kilowatt hour for a data center site that we can make money on. That's what business is about is everybody's trying to make money and produce that back to the consumer. Right. And redundancy piece is a huge piece of that. And, and it adds a lot of power, a lot of on site, you know, infrastructure. You talk about cable and yeah, people don't think about that, but it, for every bit of power that you have coming from utility, right. You have to have a backup to that. And if you don't, people are going to pay the price. You know, some, some agreements are million dollars a minute, you know, if you're down. So it's, it's wild. It's wild. Yeah, it is.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: You know, think about what the cloud. Right. So, oh, I want to put my information to the cloud. So what do you think the cloud is? You know, it's a data center. It's a data center and you have to have that. And when, when Andrew was actually going through that information I could see physically in my mind there about the. And this is something that relates directly to your business for it. When you're building in these huge gigantic generators and two and three of them on the site there, the amount of energy that it takes to actually keep those, the systems running and the maintenance that's involved with that. There's a lot of moving parts with that, a lot of cost.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Yeah. So we actually, we were fortunate enough to work with a company called distributed power solutions, DPS. They put in a 200 megawatt data center. It is I think the first, the first one in the United States that's self sustained. They actually did a cnbc, did a job a show on it and it's over in Virginia. And we actually built the, my company, we built the 2,2 megawatt black start generators that are back up to start those turbine turbines. If they go down now, they have redundancy there with extra turbines that aren't running. But you're right. Cycling things on and off, right. If you're running a 200 megawatt plant, let's say with multiple turbines in parallel, there's going to be times when you got to take those down to service them or it's, it's electrical and it's, it's mechanical, it's going to break. You have to have service agreements, you have to have the redundancy piece to have another piece there to swap it out if something goes wrong. So there's a lot that goes into the planning behind it and making sure that the infrastructure stays up and running for the consumer. And that's the most important part. You talked on a minute ago, like when our cell phones don't work, I mean barrel last year I remember where we lived over in Katy, we had power but our cell phone service was down like it was. And for us a week of that you're like when is this gonna end?
[00:31:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: First world problems, right. But that's the world we live in. And I think everybody can. When you start thinking about this and like we spoke in our previous thing, having a transparent conversation to say like it's not just easy, right. These linemen that do that work, I mean they a huge important part of our infrastructure and keeping us up and powered. But I think a lot of what we're having to do is plan for the Future, how do we, how do we get a better power system grid and have that redundancy there? You know, maybe it is a little bit higher taxes on some piece of the pie, but maybe it's a smart way that we do it over the next X amount of years so that it's not a burden on, on us right now. And maybe it's a savings plan, maybe it's. I, I don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: I don't have all the answers by.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Any means, but it's just something that we all need to think about is, is, you know, there's a, a huge demand and not enough supply of energy and how do we get there? We're gonna have to have some bridges and some, you know, some, a way to, to bridge that gap between the utility side because it takes a long time to build that infrastructure.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: When you were saying that, I thought about two concepts there. I thought about, and this is something that impacts everybody, everybody's looking and watching this broadcast right now. Everybody still have their information, their data backed up. You should have that information to where you can actually have it stored to the cloud, to some kind of data center, wherever it may be. Because you never know when you're going to need that information. But if you think about this, because our world has become a world of data. Everything is data. I see everything for it. Everything's numbers and data. I see numbers and data with everything now. You know, and I think the amount of data, especially when it comes to the amount of usage of video, I mean pretty soon you think about the automation in our homes we're going to have where you can actually talk to your refrigerator and say, hey look, order me a gallon of milk and a box of Jujubes, you know, because you can actually do that because everything's data, everything's with video. So someone calls you, you're gonna have video in your home because that's how much data that we actually get into our society for it. So I think it's really imperative that people think about what the data, when they're built, when we're building these big data centers and you mentioned the word, like they have to be scalable, you have to have that and it's gotta be backed up. That is so much. And I came to think about the petabytes that it's gonna take to actually put the storage that's inside of these facilities for it. But I just get all gay and hit. You get all excited when I think about the doubt about it because there's so much there. So I think it's huge. And I think about the resources and like I said, the maintenance and the cost, but it's just like. And everything's going to, everything is data. Government's going to use it, you know, everything's going to be data.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: I think to go back to the humanity piece of it is like thinking about how much it takes worth of power.
Let's use the. You're going to save it to the cloud. Well, what if that cloud goes out?
You know, what if that cloud, you know, what if that data center goes down for. And you can't retrieve all those, those important business, you know, contacts that you have in your CRM system.
You know, if we all haven't done our part and, and invested in innovation and looked at the humanity piece of it, it's like, man, I need to shut my lights off at night. You know, I mean, I mean, it really does go back to, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. But being aware that that power, I mean, it's, that it's not making itself right and thinking about how it, how it gets made, you know, I think is an important part for all of us to think about, you know?
[00:35:09] Speaker C: Well, and I think about just the evolution. Let's look at a tv. When I was little, you got up, you physically went over and you changed the channel. That's what you did. Then we had remotes with the channel that you could change. Then we got to the point where it was digital. So you hit a button on the side, you could still move the channel around, move the volume and have the remote. Now we have TVs, voice activated. Some of them don't even have the buttons on the side. If you lose that remote, you're not watching tv. And so we recently purchased our refrigerator. It's WI FI access. I talked to a friend yesterday that bought a new oven. They can turn it on in their car going home, so when they go home, they can stick dinner in the oven. So everything is changing and eventually they're going to take those buttons away. So we're going to be at a point where our.
Yes, we think right now we don't have control when the lights go out. It's just going to progressively get worse if we don't stop and plan, like you said, ahead.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: I agree. And I really want to thank you guys for your thoughts and opinions on it. Because when I think about the data is everything. And just like we said, we put great emphasis on the data, how much they cost with it in order to build a data center. It's humongous and it's, but it's essential. And when you watch the news and you hear about Softbank building a massive 18 farm, 100,000 square foot buildings and there's going to be all these big data centers for it, it does impact you too. And you have to think about it, how much it costs to do that and how it's going to impact you as far as what your information, because your data, your information is key. So thank you Andrew for sharing that and Kelly for actually providing that insight. And so we just need to just want to take a few minutes and just talk about data centers and how important data centers are to our society and it's not going away if they're going to grow and they're massive and we're always going to need them. So thank you for watching this segment on data centers and I'm sure that you all can relate to that.
So let's talk a little bit about what we've learned today. We had a really great conversation with Andrew McCain with McCain Power Systems. So Kelly, let's talk about that. We discussed with Andrew the power and data centers. We talked a little bit about how it impacts the society as a whole and how we can actually do our part when it comes to energy. We talked about the looking towards the future and how the power grids and how important updated power grids are to society. And then we actually kind of also discuss a little bit about how data centers and data is going to really impact us in our entire lives. So listen, I like when we actually had the first conversation and this is something small but it's really, really large. And we talk about how we can actually be in our own homes and how we actually may leave windows open, we may leave the air conditioner on or the fan on or we may have not have the right temperature for. There are some things that sounds like that we could be doing right now to actually not only conserve energy to lower our costs, but to actually conserve energy and actually have people put better and more efficient type equipment in their homes like windows, more efficient fans. We just installed a new air conditioner in our home. So we home home energy. What are your thoughts on that? What do you think about that?
[00:38:55] Speaker C: I think that efficiency is really important in the home. I'm relating to you homeowners out there, especially the moms that have kids that leave lights on, they leave doors open, they leave windows open, fans on when they're gone from school, all Day. Those things make a big impact on our grid. They make a big impact on our bills. And I think that's something that we often think of it, oh, I want to be comfortable. Are we wearing, Are we, are we utilizing it to the best of our abilities in each of our homes? Because. Because you think I'm only one home. I'm one house on a block in a city where there's massive people. But if everybody cuts down, that's huge. And when you were talking about our grids and how outdated our grids are and how we have to update them, that is a huge overhaul. And we've talked about it for years, how it needs to be addressed, it needs to be repaired, it needs to be. It needs to grow. With the way that our society is growing. I think about the electricity that I use on a daily basis versus what I used 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and 30 years ago, and it's a big difference. So I think just starting at home and doing our part there will make a big difference. But that doesn't address the issue that our grid needs to be fixed and that how are we going to deal with more and more people using more and more electricity?
[00:40:28] Speaker B: Well, I guess the good and bad of that would be if we don't fix it, then one day everybody will be living off the grid.
[00:40:36] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: That's how we have to look at it. And I like one thing, one other comment that Andrew actually made when he was talking about we don't have a power, a problem with, with the energy per se. We have a problem with storing the energy.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:53] Speaker B: Once we retrieve that energy, how do you store it? And we didn't talk about this during the conversation, but Andrew mentioned that there are solar panels out there right now, which is like a dandelion. And I have to get the exact name of it. We'll let you get that information and show it and provide it for people so they can look at that. But they have these solar panels. You can put a solar panel in your home or your business. And, and you know how dandelions actually follow the sunshine?
Now, dandelions are the weeds. I'm talking about the sunflower.
[00:41:25] Speaker C: Sunflower.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: Well, we have the sunflowers. And sunflowers, they actually, they, they turn, follow the sun. Naturally. They follow the sun. And if you actually just imagine if we have a solar panel that actually follows the sun, you know how much energy, how much more energy that it can attain. And once we get that energy, I think that it really is going to come down to Keeping that energy and storing that energy so you can actually have it. Because unless you live in Tempe or Arizona or southern Miami or someplace like that, a lot of other places don't have sunny like 360 days out of the year.
[00:41:56] Speaker C: Exactly right.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: So you need to store that. If you need to store that. And I think that that's going to be a key thing. Something else we didn't really jump into. We didn't talk a little bit about hydrogen. We didn't go into those kind of conversations. We'll bring another guest in for that conversation to talk about that. Because there are some kinds of, a lot of different alternative energy sour think.
[00:42:15] Speaker C: There's so many components that we aren't discussing.
And we just need to make it aware to everyday homeowners and everyday people like us that, that depend on that energy, that depend on that electricity. I remember this winter where people that owned EVs couldn't charge them. They literally couldn't charge them. Electricity wasn't down, it was cold. And you had mentioned a little bit that when you live in the warmer states, you have more sunshine, but it doesn't shine 365 days a year. You still have your nights, you still have your colds, you still have your storms. You still have. I mean, we had a dusting of snow this year just in Houston, and we're not prepared for that. And so I guarantee you, we were cranking up our heat, putting on our fireplaces, which are no longer. You're not out there chopping wood, you're flipping a switch for it. So even in that, we think, oh, put the fireplace on, but it's still energy. And we really need to think, how do we move ahead, do it right so that we're not living rolling blackouts and brownouts every single day of the year. I mean, that's, that's, that's real. That's real life.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: It is real life. And I, and I, I remember seeing those images of the people leaving their, abandoning their EV vehicles there. I said, well, well, when you abandon that vehicle, are you actually leaving a vehicle or you're going to come back for it?
[00:43:42] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:43:43] Speaker B: But that's a problem because your, your vehicles, it's just, it's kind of, it's, it's dead. It's not going to do anything.
[00:43:48] Speaker C: Right. And there's a limit even on that battery charge, how far you can drive. And I don't want to be limited. Oh, I have to cancel my doctor's appointment and pay $50 because my car can't make it there for all because I couldn't charge it last night because they were doing a rolling blackout. I mean, those are things, those are real life things to think about.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: Right. And you know, changing topics a little bit. I know we touched base a little bit on efficiencies with governments and we looked at the United States, we looked at, we all know that there's a really big focus and you hear climate change and a lot of people have different definitions with climate change. You know, okay, we talk about ice age and you could talk about all kinds of different things. That's another conversation.
But we have to take a look at it and understand that there's a reason why Denmark, Finland, United States, Australia, some of these countries are really pushing the push for the energy efficient. But we kind of touched a little bit about that. But this still brings up that discussion. What is the balance? You know, we can actually go and have people tell us that maybe perhaps you actually tell us we can't have gas stoves or we, we can't have these kind of appliances. And, and that kind of. Is, is that really pushing it towards the, the mark where you get to the gray area? Maybe then you probably want to go into. Because that particular part of it, it doesn't make any sense.
[00:45:07] Speaker C: Is that realistic to live like that? I mean, honestly, you're back to using more electricity? I mean, there has. Sometimes I feel like when we come up with a new idea, which I love being part of the United States because we are innovative and we encourage that in our people. But I don't think often enough we take a step back to say, hold on, if we move this way, what are the potential areas that can affect us negatively and what are the potential areas that can affect us positively? And when we get people in a room that are not experts and they're pushing an agenda, I think that's where we can get into trouble at.
We need as a society to I guess encourage our government to bring in the experts they can talk about.
[00:45:59] Speaker B: True. Well, I think the biggest thing is that we need the government to actually sit down and have a conversation. Maybe that's. We have a bigger issue, but we can start there just having, just sit down, we need to talk about this. And you can't yell at each other, you can't go back and bicker. Everybody has to be able to be able to present their case and we have to do it with, with the right scientific people in place to actually go back away. The pros and cons.
[00:46:21] Speaker C: Well, and I don't consider, I don't consider myself technologically an expert, but when I see people saying, oh, the cloud, your data's in the cloud, they know nothing about it. And so that's when you need to bring in some experts.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: And Kelly, I think that you brought up a really great point. And I know we're going to have some additional conversations on the importance of data center and how data centers are really impacting our lives because we need to have that conversation about everything we do involves data it does.
[00:46:53] Speaker C: And to have that data, it uses, oil, it uses, electricity, it uses. I mean, it's just to keep that data center going.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:04] Speaker C: I don't think the average person understands what's behind the scenes. We just need to educate people on it, let them know.
[00:47:11] Speaker B: And that's what we're here for. And we want to thank everyone for joining our show where humanity meets technology, because we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about how the data center and how it really does have a direct impact on society and how that technology does make a big difference. So we want to thank everyone for joining our show today. We're really happy to have everyone and we'll look forward to having you join the next one and we'll have another interesting conversation for you. Thanks and have a great day.
[00:47:37] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:47:39] Speaker A: This has been a NOW Media Networks feature presentation. All rights reserved.
