Energy - Joint

material and just try and throw it away when that material is unrecycled you have material that's gonna be unsafe according to the nuclear regulatory commission for over 100,000 years. If we recycle with our process and I'll briefly explain, explain what we're doing. We will only have about 3 to 4% of that original high level radioactive material left and it will only last for about 300 years only, relatively speaking, um, until it's, it's safe for anybody to be around like I said, we know how to do it and we know how to do an environmentally sustainable way and also we want to make sure that nuclear can be fully accessed without states. And local communities being saddled with the Faustian bargain of clean generation of electricity, but because we haven't brought a sensible and known way to recycle that we're gonna leave that for generations to come. So that's one reason why I left government because I wanna solve this issue. So how are we doing it and why is there no recycling in the United States if McGuinness says that this is such a national treasure. Number one The way there are a number of countries that are reprocessing today, France, Russia, Japan, um, China, and others, they're all using a very arcane process called Pureex that actually it, it originates from the Manhattan Project, World War 2 and Oppenheimer and that process to this day uses nitric acid to dissolve the nuclear fuel rods to get to a limited number of isotopes. What happens ironically. is when you're dissolving in nitric acid commingling with the radioactive waste. You're actually ending up with more waste than you started from ironically when you're extracting we've eliminated our process our technology that we're in the process partnering with 4 national labs in the US government eliminates the use of nitric acid. We use a superheated pyro process and then an electrolysis process, so we are able to do a dry process and at the end of our process only have about 3 to 4% of the original high level radioactive material. We separate out the low level. Low level is disposed of every day. I was just in Salt Lake City a couple of weeks ago. Energy Solutions is doing a fine job doing that, so. That's number 1. Number 2, there's been a security Trojan horse in the Purex process that would make it unacceptable from a national security perspective policy to have a facility like the French and Purex, in my humble opinion, build in the US because they pull out a pure stream of plutonium. After all, that's the reason why President Carter put a moratoria, a ban on reprocessing because that technology had too much of a Trojan horse. We've eliminated that when we pull out the plutonium, we co-exct. it was self-protecting radioisotopes that would, that offers a very, very strong built-in barrier, so one could not reasonably get to that material and use it for nefarious reasons. The last reason why you don't see reprocessing in this country, I would argue is because all the reprocessing plants around the world, they're all state owned. They are not set up for economic efficiency, minimum overhead, maximum, um, ROI so that. is one of our opportunities is a private sector company. We came in and we brought in the state of the art tech modularity you can see our our that silver tri-vessel system that's one of our modules we'll have 10 of those, each one producing processing about 400 metric tons a year efficiently to give you a context of that facility which will be about 4000 metric tons when all is said and done, but compact, the size of. In a uh a state of the art nuclear NFL stadium, for example, and it's going to be compact, largely autonomous, but highest throughput in the world. All of the reprocessing around the world, Russia, Japan, France, China combined. It's about 2600 metric tons a year. This plant will process 4000. Wherever this plant is built in whatever state it will that state will become the largest clean fuel producer on the planet because why? Because again, scale, we have the largest fleet in the world. We have the largest amount of so-called used nuclear fuel um or waste and in the world and so we have that opportunity unlike any of the other countries have. This is a mining operation that's what we're gonna be doing mining and extracting all the valuable isotopes. We already have offtake agreements. Um, and indicators for 10 different isotopes, many of them only available from Putin and Russia right now for navy purposes, for medical purposes and so, um, suppliers and customers are scrambling because they don't have those isotopes. Where are those isotopes and plentiful, um, amounts our so-called nuclear waste. So that's our business. We're going to get into the market by mining and doing a triple bank shot like Secretary Rick Perry. my old boss used to say, there's gonna be a triple bank shot. It's gonna be good for the environment. We're gonna, we're gonna reduce that legacy even for example, in in Arkansas we can reduce it down to 4%. We're gonna have a tech hub that is gonna generate a lot of jobs and long term um long term generational jobs and then it's gonna provide energy security for this country. So that's where we're heading now and. We're scaling up. We're going to do similar to SpaceX. We're not gonna go from paper design to full commercial. We're in the process of scaling it up and breaking it down with energy engineering feedback and going through that process of of learning by doing. We're working with 4 national labs including Idaho National Lab at the end of next year we will have completed a 3 year lab scale demonstration of this novel recycling process demonstrating that we can pull out those different isotopes. Reduced down to about 4%, the original high level ready rock material and do it efficiently. Without any nitric acid, we're very proud of it. We're going to have our. A full commercial we're talking to different states where it's going to be. We may have 2, we may have 3, we may have a west coast, east coast. This facility. Will operate we plan for about 60 years now. Our facility is, is pretty unique, um, recycling facilities require a large workforce and the in France I believe it's at least 70 or 8000, but that's an older, less efficient facility. Ours will require about over 3000 jobs. The beauty of it is, and we're very stakeholder conscious, the beauty of it is the majority of the people that will work there are trades based. They're going to have generational jobs. These salaried jobs range from 75 to $125,000 a year. We're proud to be a tech corridor where where wherever we build. So, And this is gonna be a, a generational uh tech corridor jobs based economy and The last point is we're proud that we will be a major tax revenue generator. We are not looking for any tax abatements. Many companies do. We're not, uh, we want the full benefit to go back to the community. All we need is to make sure that we find the appropriate location and that was supported by the state. Uh, we want alignment, uh, we wanna make sure this is as much the communities owned um generational asset as anyone's. So. At the end of the day, We are going into the market through recycling, but then we're gonna, we have our advanced reactors. We have a very important announcement that's gonna be coming out with a microreactors and the beauty is these are recycled fueled reactors. So they're very sustainable. And very uh. Much less environmentally impactful. At the same time a major jobs generator long term um energy security. So that's where we are, the full suite of the tech we're bringing in almost all the other companies are, they're going into the market whether it's just through reactors or fuel or. Interim storage or waste management. We're going to offer. The full integrated set of services. For the customers. I'll stop there in case you have any questions, I'd be happy to entertain any. Representative Ladyman. Thank you. Am I home? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm over here. Uh, well, I, I'm pretty excited about what you're saying, actually, um. And we would like that here in Arkansas. Um, The, uh, SMRs, there's one, I got a couple of questions and you can cut me off, Rick, if you need to, but, uh, there's a number of different types of SMRs, and a lot of people are confused about that. Can you, uh, explain a little bit about the different types. I, I was in Canada a few months ago and I saw the one that GE's building in Toronto, but it's more of a, I think a heavy water I believe they just downsized their typical. Unit, uh, can you kind of talk about the different types and what type you're looking at, whether it's sodium cool or. Sure. And thank you again for your leadership and legislation we think is very important, by the way, so essentially for the small modular reactors, um, you, you can break it down into most rudimentarily, um, light water reactor technology whether uranium-based fuel and it's much the same design with the reactor pressure vessels that you see in Arkansas one nuclear power plant and the other light water all the reactors are operating in this country, 94 of them are. light water pressurized reactors right now, so some of them, including GEs and Newscale and others, they are more advanced, but they're still light water reactor in the uranium base, which makes a big difference from requiring more masks for the uranium and to get the same amount of density because I'll mention our reactor, which is not using a uranium-based fuel. We're using a transuranic based fuel, and that transuranic based fuel that includes pluton. but with the security wrapped around is superior in energy density and less weight ratio, so suddenly a reactor, a microreactor, um, that is generating 15 megawatt electric is going to be 5 times larger than our hope reactor we call ours, which is a molten salt reactor with recycled fuel generating 250 megawatts of electricity and we're gonna be 1/5 the size because it's the magic of what we call the transuranic fuels, true fuel. The other types of small modular reactors in addition to the light water reactors, small modulars, um, are, you have the non light water reactors. Including high temperature gas reactors, you hear about the triso fuels, DOD project Pele X Energy, others are using the triso fuels. You have the sodium cool fast reactors such as Bill Gates is, is reactor that they're deploying in Wyoming and then you have malt and salt reactors. We chose molten salt because first of all, it actually freezes up at about 400 °F freezes up relatively speaking because we bring that salt up to a. much higher temperature, so that reactor is already molten. You're never gonna have a core melt because it's already in a in a liquid state, but it's a steady state and it's ultra safe because it will freeze up rather than spread and contaminate, and also I reactor is near pressure um atmosphere pressure, um, so that what that means is you don't have to have these large reactor pressure vessels. To keep in that higher uh pressure and so that offers a lot of savings for costs. You don't have to spend as much money on, on, on, on concrete on um other materials that you would need for a much larger footprint so we have a multiple of reactors coming into the market or attempting to light water and then non-light water about 3 or 4 different classes, um, ours were happy we we think this is going to be the future. We're just about the only one that's gonna use transuranic fuels and also the microreactors gonna make a huge difference. So energy security is huge. Russia, we're still dependent on Russia for over 20% of our um enriched fuel. That's why Bill Gates had to push his reactor deployment by 2 years because the only source of the fuel he needs, Halo, is from Russia right now. We're scrambling in the US to do this, but we're working with the Department of Energy and Congress too to remind them, wait a minute. We have enough fuel in our so-called waste that through one of our facilities we can provide 40% of the US annual uranium requirement, and that's not even including the transuranic fuels that we will be able to fuel up to 40 reactors. So it, it's a no brainer that we have to maximize our resources. We should take in all of the above for not only for energy sources, but all of the above for maximizing what we have. God given here in this country that's sitting around these pads and unused. Well, yeah, I appreciate you doing that because it's confusing, um. And I appreciate you talking about the, the meltdown because that's the problem with old nuclear is meltdown, that's old enough to remember Chernobyl, and they're, they're scared, but these units, the, the, the type that you have chosen cannot, cannot melt down. They will not cornel this our reactor is a, it's already in liquid state and so as salt, the chemistry of salt, once it goes down about 400 °F, it freezes up like a giant block. And we've already demonstrated in reactors that it could freeze up and you can reheat it and not have a reparable damage for the reactor. So Uh, I got one more, uh, the, the, the, the, the question in my mind is the economics, OK? Uh, I mean, I know it's doable. Argon Labs, uh, Idaho labs and worked on this and done it. Uh, so, How, how are you handling the economics? I mean, does your company see this as an economical, you know, ROI, uh, or is it more R&D? No, absolutely, it, it is a huge economic opportunity. The US nuclear market is about $150 billion market. We see with closing the fuel cycle, recycling, and then having the fuel coming from that which can be much less expensive and secure supply. It, it could be a $1 trillion market are just our facility. I didn't mention this. recycling facility we project every year 4 to $6 billion in revenue, just one isotope pulled out of that we're gonna pull out um carries over a billion dollars a year in sales just for one isotope, you have strontium 90 seasons 137, you have some non radioactive elements that are generated that are the most precious metals in the world, so it's a combined economic business approach that we do, sir, where it's not just deploying the react. We're gonna get the economics because we're gonna provide our own fuel. We're gonna generate billions from the recycling like a mining operation, our facility will have, we're gonna have, it's gonna be a tech corridor, we'll have medical isotope manufacturers will have, um, industrial, we'll have probably defense, space space, all co-located to harvest and get those isotopes. So that all feeds in, in our view to the reactor deployment as well. So if the, for example, if the if. The uranium market crashes. It's going to be a pinprick to our nuclear recycling facility because we, we have 9 other isotopes that are carrying some of them as much as a billion dollars a year. So we have what what we've done is de-rest, but if we're not careful, Argon and others have looked at the pricing, but they've looked at it through the rearview mirror and they based it on this PureX process that's state owned. It's like trying to compare SpaceX, um, to NASA but not including the reusable rocket aspect. These are. Apples and oranges and we're next gen and we're very confident about the economic model that we have. So is it true, uh, when I was in Canada, we talked about this and I think they might generate some of these isotopes up there with their, uh, what they call it Ken Ayre. They certainly do. and others too yeah, some of these isotopes, uh, isn't it true that this is the only way you can get them. They're they're not found in, you can't mind them, you can only generate them through this process. Exactly. That's why this used nuclear fuel, so-called waste is so valuable and it's so heartbreaking that we've never availed ourselves of it you have isotopes that can only be gotten. Through the fission process, even plutonium, plutonium is man-made. It comes from uranium on the ground and rich in the fission process it generates as a byproduct, auto product plutonium, one of the most, uh, you know, impactful energy sources you can have density and weight, but you have other isotopes that are generated at quantities, um, unlike anywhere else in the sitting in our so-called ways. So it's time to start mining those materials, the isotopes are, are sorely needed, uh, strontium 904 or krypton 85 is used to detect leaks and, and reactor pressure vessels. Pretty important. The only supplier in the world, Russia. Why? Coming from the recycling plant in Mayak. And some of those are used in the medical. Absolutely. They're used for medical imaging. Well, thank you for your answer. Thank you for being here pleasure. Representative Portner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for your presentation. Uh, my question is, do you have a working prototype. We are gonna have our first working prototype lab scale demonstration in about 12 months. We've been doing it for 2 years. It's a 3-year lab scale demonstration. And we're gonna demonstrate by the end of next year with actual used nuclear fuel from Byron nuclear power plant, which is already been shipped in that Idaho National Lab, Idaho National Lab is one of our lead labs and we also have Pacific Northwest National Oak Ridge and Santia. And so in the next year we will have our first demonstration about a year later, we're gonna scale up to a, a pilot scale where we're gonna separate at the kilogram level in about 2 years later in 2029. We're gonna have um our first full commercial module you saw the picture of the, uh, tri-vessel we're gonna have one entire 400 meg um metric ton by 2029. So you're catching us as we're in the launch phase if you will, but actually that's the time to be it's again like talking to SpaceX and the, and the 2000s, um, the time I think to engage with a company like ours and partner is now that way like we're working with um energy. Northwest, um, just partnered with Amazon, uh, with X Energy. We have a public facing agreement. In fact, I'm talking to the CEO in just a few minutes after this, um, they've asked us to look at the feasibility of recycling their material, selling back their fuel, and then recycling potentially even the advanced reactors. So, um, we know how to do it, um, it, it. We have the pathway and we're in the scale up right now and we, we plan to do our scale ups, um, short of the full commercial on federal land at at a national lab in partnership with, which is what we're doing. 2032 That's our target for one or more of our commercial full facilities, state of the art, that will be cited in one or more states so hence the engagement with you all, hence the engagement with some of the other states, the number of employees in the economic impact will make it a regional, a regional impact in my view. In my view, um, the, when you're talking about 34 1000 jobs and that's not even downstream and then the economic. supply chain impact, it's going to have a multi-state positive impact regardless of where that facility is built. Follow up Quick one. Uh, as you're testing in the labs and. I call small scale have you uh have you concluded the safety? Are you? Checking all safety aspects as you go. Absolutely, and remember this is recycling is very different from the safety challenges of the current um reactors that are reactor um light water reactors, even though those are very safely run today, um, so absolutely safety and security are in minimizing, minimizing, um, substantially in the environmental impact. In fact, we're going to be environmentally net positive, um, because. We're going to dramatically reduce that amount of material. If we site a facility in a state like Arkansas, we definitely will prioritize recycling the material that's sitting on the pads in that state's react reactor, absolutely. Alright, next up at center Stubblefield. Mr. Chairman and thank you for being here today. This, this is always intrigued me, the subject we've been talking about small nuclear fission reactors for 10 years or more. I, I mean, it's, it's been a slow, slow process, uh, and I wonder just how much, uh, how many regulatory, uh, hurdles, are we still having to cross the slowing down this process because doesn't China already have one of these hooked up to the grid SMR. Yes, they do. Um, they have a small modular reactor Winston Churchill once said about the US um after making the wrong decision many, many times they finally come to the right decision. And so for nuclear with small modular reactors we tried over and over and we've done it and frankly, sometimes in a very unwise way we're finally getting through some of the woods, um, even though newscale is having challenges we already have our nation's first small modular reactor, light water reactor, um, that has a. license now from the nuclear regulatory commission took about 4 years, too long, too expensive, but at least we got it. We have our, um our first research reactor, um, at Abilene Christian University where they've got the construction permit in 2 years and it's partnered with industry, so small modular reactors, um, they've come a long way, um, it's taken too long. Um, I was part of that running and uh acting assistant secretary for nuclear energy for a number of years, but we're learning and we're we're. hitting the learning curve, but China absolutely they, they have that uh molten salt reactor near the Gobi Desert. They also have another small modular but still that's all re-engineered tech that's tech that they got from us in the French, um, so I'm confident one thing is we definitely um can lap them in innovation. We've just got to figure out how to to take the tech to market and do it in a smart way and I think smart way is having industry come and innovatively in partnership with state, local, and federal. So we do, we do get money from the DOE. Absolutely. I actually have my company in just 3 years, 2.5 years, we already have 6 different, uh, various grants, the one that we're most proud of is the Department of Energy's RRPE, which is really focused on partnering with promising companies, tech the market. They're funding the 80% of that large scale demonstration I mentioned. So, um, we're fully partnered with the federal government. You need that in the nuclear business. And I think frankly the optimal partnership is federal, state, and industry locked in, bring in in universities, bringing in um local stakeholders. It's got to be a fully integrated maximized model in my view. Just one moment, Mr. Chairman. Sure, go ahead. These are these 1000 megawatt facilities you're talking about. The small modular reactors um are up to 300 megawatt electric and then they can be combined. Ours is 250 megawatt, but we can do a 2 pack, single 2 pack or 4. So we have a um a a balance of a plant that can add that that's very important because with the upfront capital we know some ogle and other nuclear projects oftentimes that's the. Having to put billions of dollars upfront. Um, while you're not generating any money off of, off of that equity and then you're crossing your fingers, you're gonna get to the get that built and generating revenue before you run out of money, so modularity is important because you don't have to commit as much advance um resources so for example, a 250 megawatt if I'm going in a market where I think it's going to be at least 1 to 2 gigawatts. Maybe it's 5 gigawatts like Amazon needs, um, let's say it's. 2 gigawatts, but we're not sure if there's going to be upon operation of the plan if we spend billions to have a 2 megawatt plant of like 8, let's say, small modular reactors, what if the market is not there and then you're hemorrhaging money. So modularity allows you to have a plant that has, um, a growth capacity, but you build one modular. And then you wait for the market to catch up if the market is not there. Then you add another market grows. Had another. These are all de-rising aspects, so I'm very. Optimistic about small modular reactors, but listen, this the the the private sector is for. I think it's a a really good thing. It's a Darwinian, you know, environment where it forces the, it forces out the tech and the business plans that are not the best, so I'm, I don't believe you're gonna see all the companies that you see now, um, around in the next 20-30 years, but you're gonna see the ones that make it and we intend fully to be one of those, um, we're gonna be tried and tested and pressure tested economically, not, not shielded by federal government. Status. So, um, I'm, I'm optimistic about small modular reactors. We'll probably need large reactors, but the small modulars can be large. and then they can be small. Well. You know, with the demand, with these crypto mines and the demand of energy gonna increase over and over and over we're gonna have to do something to meet the, the energy demand and keep and keep our energy affordable and reliable. So when you have these data centers and AI centers needing as much as 4 to 5 gigawatts, and if they do an agreement with existing utilities, it's, it's academic. I mean they're going to probably end up driving the price of. electricity and make it more scarce, so we need new capacity to meet the growing need and make sure that the average um residents in states don't see an escalation in their price because these giant data centers are are locking in behind the fence, a lot of the electricity. All right, uh, Representative Watson. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McGinnis, for being here with your knowledge. On nuclear. Out of curiosity in this state of Arkansas, are there a couple of, uh, nuclear reactors being built right now. Are you aware of it? I'm not aware of anybody actively citing and building in Arkansas. Of course you have Arkansas nuclear one gives you a lot of great legacy and infrastructure, um, but Arkansas would be my view, um, So it, it, it, you cannot separate the two and you can't say the federal government's going to take care of it because they've Uh, or, or just then. What about you mentioned also earlier about the uh nitric acid waste, uh. In my terminology, can you, can you talk to me just for a second about the, the nitric acid waste. Yes, so what I meant is that the process being used today. For recycling. Around the world, they're all state owned. They use nitric acid to dissolve. The nuclear fuel that's come out of a reactor to extract, so they commingle that and then suddenly you have more waste than you started from Hanford tanks and Washington state, largest nuclear cleanup project in the US where, where's that liquid mostly from in those tanks, reprocessing, pureex using nitric acid. We eliminated that. That's what we're working with the 3 the 4 national labs and we're so excited about it. It's a dry process and we can thermally separate out isotopes. Harvest it and then we do electrolysis without ever adding any aqueous process that generates all this waste. One more question, Mr. Chair. Go ahead. The time period, uh, construction of a old traditional, if there's an old traditional full-blown nuclear. Reactor compared to, we've been talking about the modular now. Can you give me a little bit as far as, uh, time period as far as construction, half the time or just can you elaborate on that just a minute? Yeah, well, unfortunately we have been woefully inadequate in the US and being able to build in a reasonable time. We've lost our, our, our really our workforce know-how on building these large scale nuclear reactors. We want so many years, so. You're looking right now. Ideally, you should see a reactor built in about 4 years, but even the large ones, but that didn't happen in um in uh Vogel, it took quite a bit longer. You're talking maybe 678 years, but we're learning it's a painful process, even a large reactors, I believe if someone ordered an AP 1000 tomorrow, they're gonna have it at, I believe less cost a lot of um learning curve and less time but for the advanced. actors, that's a whole different ball game, um, it depends on the size, but small modular reactors we should be able to build them at least in 4 years. We should be able to do that, but part of it has to do with regulatory, um, reconstituting our supply chain. That's why it's so important to to have a state that has a lot of that capability there and that will go a long way and also policies are very, very important because if your policies and re regulations that are working against the, the Project trying to go through and making it harder instead of working as a partnership, um, that hits the timeline, that hits the cost, so that's why it's so important when we engage in the state it's not just the technical issue. It's not just the economics. It's, it's the, it's the policies of that state. Um, if they're ready for business and they're ready to work with us from the governor of the state legislature and down to the local communities county that makes all the difference in the world to a company like mine. Thank you, Mr. McGinnis. Thank you, Chair. Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, uh, Mr. McGinnis, thank you for your presentation. I've recently read an article about A waste site near Saint Louis and it goes back to the Manhattan Project, they actually were, uh, uh, enriching or extracting uranium, uh, for the first atomic bombs there, uh suburb of Saint Louis. It was out in the country, of course, in those days, but the city has grown, uh, and it's a lot of problems related to the waste that. Is there and of course at that time they were trying to win the war and defeat Hitler and so therefore, uh, a lot of the safety we would have to have now that they didn't have, but the residents are in the community is having to deal with this. Is this a kind of reactor that could be sighted at a place like this and do the recycling that you described, or would it require, uh, shipping that could they and again, I, I know there's, you don't just dig this stuff up and throw it in the back of a dump truck and haul it somewhere, but, uh, would it be something that could be safely relocated and recycled, uh, it seems that your technology might allow us to kind of kill two birds with one stone, all about. to birds in one stone. However, um, There are sadly these contaminated sites from legacy projects including what I mentioned in Washington state and some tragically where it's, it's still to this day, like you said outside of Kansas City where they there needs to be just robust vigorous remediation, um, I, we have not focused on that as far as the potential to recycle, we're focused first and foremost on the lowest hanging fruit that can have a generational impact, and that is. commercial use nuclear fuel that's sitting on over 80 different paths next to reactors. Some of these reactors are shut down long gone and a fence around that used nuclear fuel because the federal government failed to pick it up, so we're we're here to offer that answer at least starting with the commercial used nuclear fuel which we can have all of our nation's 90s something metric tons um of material recycled and as much as 30 years and um end up having. about 4% left then you can potentially put it in boreholes, 9 10,000 ft in the ground, 12 inch standard industry diameter below any type of aquifer or any um deposits so we know how to do this in an environmentally sensitive way. The remediation, um, those other challenges are, are, um, hugely important, but that's a different pathway that's not low hanging fruit as you described with that metaphor. assume our, our, and I know that, uh, Mr. Bethel's here if I need to look around and ask him, but I presume that the storage that's at Arkansas Nuclear One near Russellville would fall into the category that you described as something that would be immediately available for the recycling we have an agreement with Energy Northwest Colombia Nuclear Generation Station they have almost 2000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. It's about what you have right now at your site 2000 metric tons in every year you're adding more. It's safely and securely stored, but right now the federal government is nowhere to be seen, nowhere even close to being fulfilling its legal statutory obligations to pick it up and, oh by the way, though, they already charge Arkansas ratepayers and you have a, a nuclear waste fund that's almost $50 billion that material should be put towards finding solutions for the states that. That uh made that fund possible. In my humble opinion, well, I tend to agree with you and I, it just, as you said, a no-brainer. I think it will be, but uh, I'm glad that we're at least looking at getting off the dime. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I could just say one other thing respectfully, in my humble opinion, this is a unique moment for states to really um rightfully take leadership and benefit. The federal government doesn't have a solution right now. The best they have is in their storage which is not a solution and you'll have the not in my backyard. um, coming up all over, but if a state can come up with a plan with the private sector. A a real legitimate plan to have a comprehensive approach for nuclear, accessing nuclear while not generating all this waste for generations to come with a closed fuel cycle of thoughtful like this. That's In my view, A plan That the federal government would need yesterday and they need a solution. So if a state comes in with a plan and I can tell you some other states I've spoken to the governors and they are looking at this. They want to go to Washington, they want to say how we're gonna access the waste fund whether it's a billion dollars a year for the state for every year that that plants operating rightful access and really come in with a plan that the federal government doesn't tell you to be force fed and take. Come up with your plan. Get in front, then you, in my view, you get the best for the um the residents of your state when you do that. Thank you, sir. Uh, I'm gonna go to Representative Lynch next. You may have already answered this question. I had to step out for just a moment, but the site requirements for a facility that you that you described how close could you put that to Little Rock or one of these, uh, cities, our nuclear recycling or our advanced reactor or hope reactor. The reactor. Oh, the advanced reactor, we can site it. Um, close to population very much so the um new scale reactor for example demonstrated that it had a passive safety systems. It received a license. And then TVA submitted a um a site for an SMR that was. Essentially walk away safe. These are the next generation um compared to the current light water reactors. They're designed automatically safely shut down in an accident. What has that allowed us to do? It's allowed these companies and states to go to the NRC and say, We don't need a 10 mile evacuation emergency management or evacuation zone because we don't have this inherently unsafe reactor or um safety issues, um, associated with other reactors. We have a walk away safe, so we've already seen one license issued, um, that said to the fence line. That's it. You don't need a 10 mile because that reactor um is in is inherently safe. Our reactor is that type of reactor, so suddenly if you have a reactor that's inherently safe, you don't need a 10 mile um emergency planning zone suddenly you can have a much more distributed generation network and not have to just cite them in remote areas. OK. Quick one. Yes, on the recycling. Could you give me the same uh description of where, um, and our recycling there's no pressurized systems or anything. It's not a reactor. It's a, it's a recycling um facility. It's a, a mining business. It's chemistry and it's gonna be ultra safe, um, but, um, so for the license what we're doing is there's two agencies, entities in the federal government that has authority to license nuclear operating facilities, not just the nuclear regulatory commission, but the US Department of Energy, that's why we're able to do our lab scale demonstration using the authorities of the Department of Energy in partnership with them. So we are going to, we plan um to do our scale of facilities using DUE license authority and facilities hopefully when when uh for them and us and our final full commercial or more than one. We will have to go certainly through the nuclear regulatory pathway we're hoping that doesn't take more than 4 years, so we have time if we're looking at 2032, but we want to get as much of the data um from our scale up at the US Department of Energy as possible before we launch and go to the NRC formally. Thank you. Uh, next up we're back with uh Representative Ladyman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, a couple of things, uh, Senator Johnson talked, or I think he was the one mentioned the $50 billion or you mentioned it, um. I made 2 trips to DC. I met with all of our congressional delegation and also members of the, uh, Senate Energy Committee. Uh, Mr. Grape went with me from our DOE and, uh, Is that $50 billion available. I've, I've been told and I've looked online that a bunch of this money set aside for legal fees because the federal government did not meet their commitment of getting rid of the waste by specified time. So is that money available and is it really 50 billion or is it reduced like 20 billion. It is IOU status. That's the, that's the reality. The money has been spent, but the um US government, the federal government is obligated to Find that money when it's decided to um be allocated. So in other words, they have the scoring process, the controversial scoring process, so every time we access even a dollar in my office where we had the Yucca Mountain program and, and the nuclear waste program, um, it actually counted against our budget. Why? Because they have to come up with the money they're appropriate because they essentially already spent it, so it's an IU IOU status. It doesn't mean the money isn't there. It means that it's Harder to get that money because it's gonna score against the budget and, and the tragic part is that the the since the Department of Energy, trust me, I have tire tracks on my back running the program since the Department of Energy failed to start picking up the used nuclear fuel. In 1997. Even though we had already been collecting rate pay fees, um, at the tune of billions of dollars before and continued until Obama actually and then the courts said enough's enough. The utilities sued the federal government. It took almost 10 years, and the court sided with the utilities, saying, um, you need the federal government stop collecting taxing the ratepayers because you failed to deliver the service. number one, and number 2, you're going to pay compensatory damage to the utilities for the cost of maintaining, including um Arkansas nuclear ones, um, pads for that spent fuel so right now the federal government is spending in court assessed fines called the judgment fund, almost a billion dollars a year in addition to the nuclear waste fund, right? So the taxpayer has been double hit. It's not even coming, they're not even paying it out. of the nuclear waste fund. It's coming from the general treasury. And it's the largest payout of any kind going to nuclear within the judgment fund, so that's another reason why this is a problem the federal government has. And frankly, I think the only, the only entities that's going to be able to offer that solution is state with industry partnership because the federal government has just unfortunately. Demonstrated it's, it has not solved it and it's not positioned to solve it any time soon. So who controls that fund? Is it DOD or DOE? The um energy and water appropriations Committee on the House and Senate, Chuck Fleischman, great chairman from Tennessee, um, he's very familiar with our company. He's a supporter of recycling, um, for the Senate, uh, I mean for the House side they are the appropriation subcommittee responsible for appropriating the um nuclear waste funds. of that committee, the House Energy and Water Development Committee and then you have the counterpart Senate Energy and Water Development Committee. The, the responsible party for paying out um for the the court assessed. defines the um judgment fund is the Department of Justice and Treasury. With the Department of Energy. So it, it really is something that it, it hurts the taxpayer and we know how to solve this. We know how to recycle an environmentally sustainable way, economic, we know how to do it. We just need to to take the initiative and our company is doing that, but we won't be able to do, I think, without having a strong partnership um with um with with the right state or states and local communities which are our priority, the communities will own this as much as anybody and. they have to have the strongest voice. You have a facility there for 60 years we need to engage with them early and often and have them be a part of it in my humble opinion, Mr. Chairman, one more follow up, I'm, I'm done, I swear make it quick because we're running. I'll try. Um The, uh, you mentioned that China has one of these, maybe two, and they have a plan to build multiple ones of these quickly. And this is a horse race to get this new technology out and we're way behind, I believe, and I think we need to speed that up, but when I was in Canada at the Darlington site, they're building, they broke ground. I saw it where they're building one, and they're going to build Ford. You talked to, uh, Senator Stubblefield about this a while ago, where you can build them one at a time, the market catches up. And, and that's the Darlingtonites plan is to build 4 as the need arises. So, So we've got, uh, China has some, I believe Russia has some Canada now is working on one, and I believe TVBA has had meetings and talked about. Starting on one of the small mon reactors, is that true? And is Japan, are they doing anything? I've been on a lot of news, a number of news networks on this and Russia and China is eating our lunch in nuclear. They're dominating the global market with mostly our technology and um but we can outcompete them, our company, we can outcompete them, but right now it's a geostrategic play and nuclear is a key part of it being weaponized, so I would say you've got 3 key political. drivers to get nuclear back in a sustainable footing that a state can come with a company and solve it and offer that solution. One is the geostrategic threat from Russia and China. The implications of dominating nuclear even to our nuke navy and others, if we lose our supply chain and infrastructure to Russia, China, it's going to be devastating long term. Secondly, is energy security. Um, what in the world are we doing still depending on um foreign suppliers of our our nuclear fuel. Almost 20% of our electricity is from nuclear, virtually 100% of the uranium comes from foreign suppliers. Yes, some of them are are are partners, but that's not sad. um, we need to have our domestic supply. We have uranium mines, we have used fuel, um, so energy security is another big, big issue, um, in economic, economic, that is so important, so having a long term tech, how many facilities and how many techno um. s can say that there are 3000 person facility. The majority of them are gonna be trades based, highly trained, 80 to $125,000 a year. That's giving back to the community in my view. Thank you. Well, thank you. I, I have one more request, and if you could, I, I'm, I'm interested in the, the revenue streams and the break the breakdown of the revenue stream. I don't need it now, but if it's possible, if you could share that with the uh with Miss Nelson here, and, and she's distributed out to the committee to get, to give the community a good idea because I do believe that that's a uh a a very Interesting point, uh, because it, it is usually the dollars and cents that that hold up the recycling cause it's cheaper to dig the stuff up out of the ground than it is to recycle it. We'd be happy to do so, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. Thank you and thank you for coming to committee. It was very informative. Thank you for your hospitality. OK, next. Um, we're gonna have um an update on ISP 2023 and uh. Its representative in it and her, you got some other guests. If you guys will come up and introduce yourselves and we're. Ready to listen to your update. Good afternoon Joint Energy Committee. How are you doing? I was told by Representative Beck that I had 10 minutes, so I'm gonna stay true to that time, um, I'm state representative Denise Sennett. I represent District 80 here downtown Little Rock Rock, sorry, in parts of Pla County. The transition to an advanced energy system with renewable energy used to generate electricity is happening right now here in Arkansas as of late. The University of Arkansas had now has announced that they're doing a major solar, uh, project to power its campuses and um in addition to that Arkansas is expected to receive a $93 million grant for developing solar energy programs that will help low income Arkansans and as of today. Grant County has announced a 100 milliwatt 1000 acre solar project. So all these things are happening now. The bill that I sponsored is an economic development bill. This bill seeks to create a task force. To, um, study how the state can help private businesses in this transition. And to my right I have my constituent and neighbor Mr. Wise, um, he asked me to do this ISP so I'm excited to have him here for a couple of remarks and to his right, I have Mr. Glenn Hooks with the Audubon and I'm a give the mic to them. Thank you. Thank you, Denise, but for the for the audio we need you to reintroduce yourself so I can pick up your voice. I'm George Wise and I'm a lawyer in the daytime, but I'm also chair of the Central Arkansas Group of the Sierra Club, and I'm co-chair of the Environmental caucus, of, uh, the public policy panel. And Glen Hooks. Hi folks, I'm Glenn Hooks. I'm the policy manager for Audubon Delta, uh, which is a regional arm of the National Audubon Society covering Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. And we're here asking for your help, I've followed politics for a long time, Marcus Holbrook, some of you may remember him, he was my uncle, and I would come up here and, uh, follow him around and there's a saying an interim study is where bills go to die, but we're here asking for your help because I won't feedback, uh, good or bad, uh, so this idea of advancing Arkansas to uh an advanced energy uh. Production system doesn't die. We're not here to talk about whether there is, uh, should be a transition to uh an advanced energy system in Uh, generating electricity that is happening as Denise just mentioned, uh, it's happening every day. Glenn's gonna talk about the amount of projects that are in the grid to hook up to the grid right now, uh, this transition is happening because generating electricity from renewable resources is cheaper than using coal and gas. The free market is what is driving this transition. It's not. Uh, environmental, environmentalists out there lobbying for it, the free market is moving us to an advanced energy system and the question is how can we help private businesses, how can we help the free market, achieve this goal, and how can we as, as representative layman was talking about how can we accelerate it because we are behind. This is an economic development task force. We believe this bill is actually about creating jobs. And moving the transition to, uh. Renewable resources, whether it's Uh, sour. Whether it's when or as you just heard this dovetails into the presentation you just heard, whether it is uh small nuclear reactors, uh, I'm interested in learning more about the salt reactors, not, not the others, but, uh, that, that, that sound uh exciting for a renewable resource, uh. The reason this is an economic development bill and some of you talked about this. If Arkansas is the be competitive in attracting new industry. Uh, building a modern grid system that's really what I wanna talk about more than anything is building a modern grid system so that the cost of electricity stays competitive. If we don't update our grid system. Uh, we hope that uh we can get energy and Swepco behind this bill because they're gonna need to sell more electricity. Um, they are, and right now the grid system that we have, uh, does not meet the demands, uh, for those that would like to put a project in. And, uh, economic development means uh. Creating jobs, the job, the project down in Grant County that um representative and it just uh mentioned it was in the uh Pine Bluff commercial then now that it'll create 200 jobs. Ah, so. This task force, we hope that it would include a stakeholder from the nuclear. Energy. We hope that it would include stakeholders, uh, Um, from the solar, uh, development industry. We hope that it would include stakeholders from energy and Swepco. That is our plan so that we can study how to make Arkansas competitive in the cost of electricity. Why task force? Well, you've just. Had a presentation that was created by a task force about the environment and about energy when we started thinking about how to make Arkansas, uh, develop an advanced energy system we've looked at some other states and, and we realized that the only way to do this is to bring all the stakeholder together right now there's different groups working on nuclear different groups working on workforce development. We think That a task force that would bring them all together. Would, uh, Mike Ark put Arkansas among the leaders in the nation in making this transition to renewable energy and keeping the cost of electricity cheap enough to attract new jobs and new industry, and I'm gonna let Glenn make some comments. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I'm Glenn Hooks again, uh, policy manager for Audubon, Arkansas working in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi. I'm based here in Little Rock. Uh, the Audubon Society, in case you don't know, is the nation's oldest and largest bird conservation organization. We're working to advance policies that protect birds and the habitat that they need. Advanced energy is a big part of that effort, which is why I'm here today to support the creation of the advanced Energy Jobs Task Force. It's very clear to me, and I hope it's clear to members of the committee that we can have a healthy environment and a healthy economy at the same time. And if we do advanced energy right, it will continue to be a huge creator of good jobs right here in Arkansas along with leading to lower electric rates and a more resilient electric grid. The proposed task force is aimed at making sure we do it right. They're an awful lot of moving parts and possibilities when it comes to smart energy policy, and we should be thorough in exploring how to develop those parts and do it in a holistic way that maximizes job growth and environmental benefits. This proposed task force would be charged with that. You've probably heard the saying that when it's everybody's job it's nobody's job. I'd like to see, uh, us make this task force specifically tasked with. How do we get, how do we maximize job growth and environmental benefits when it comes to Arkansas's energy market. There already are several entities that are dealing with one or two parts of this thing. But no group tasks solely with how to create a package of policies and actions. To maximize job growth in the clean energy industry. His proposed task force will closely study possibilities, see what other states are doing, see what's worked well and what has not worked well and make recommendations to the General Assembly. I think to make it local and meaningful for today, I want to highlight a couple, a few current realities that really need some significant attention right away. As you undoubtedly know in this group, 3 of our state's largest power plants will be retiring in the relatively near future. You have these white bluff plant in Redfield would be retiring by the end of 2028. Energy's independence plant will be retiring by the end of 2030. Swepco has mentioned that their Flint Creek plant will likely go into retirement by 2038, which is just 114 years from now, which is not a lot of time when it comes to energy and transmission planning. Both these utilities are currently in the middle of their integrated resource planning processes, uh. In that process, entity is specifically noted that there will soon be a large gap in Arkansas between power generation in our state and power needs in our state, but there's not currently a strong plan place strong plan in place to fill that gap. Uh, and it's IRP SWECO has noted its plan to keep the Flint Creek plant operational until 2038. As you may know, Northwest Arkansas is home to a pretty sticky issue called a load pocket issue as a transmission issue basically that makes it difficult to import enough electricity from outside of the region to meet the region's needs. Solving that load pocket issue with additional advanced energy resources and or additional transmission should be a giant priority for the region. And as of right now there's no plan in place even though Flint Creek is likely to come offline relatively soon. As George mentioned, Building out our transmission grid is imperative that we have to do this in Arkansas and it's. Without a doubt, a huge job creator. The right thing to do for our future, but it also has the benefit of creating tons of jobs. Frankly, I think this advanced energy jobs task force or something like it should have already been in place a long time ago. But I think we can get behind it now and support the kind of smart planning that we need for the very near future. I'm a big believer in the power of getting a bunch of smart people together in the same room and about solving problems. It's also worth noting as George alluded to that Arkansas currently has more than 38 gigawatts of clean energy projects waiting to be interconnected to the transmission grid. They're, they're ready to go. If they're, the money's there, they just can't get in because there's not enough transmission capacity. 38 gigawatts to wrap your head around the number that's 38,000 megawatts, and a megawatt is 1000, 1000 watts. So it's a lot of energy waiting to be on, uh, on our grid, but we're just, we're held back by a lack of transmission capacity, something that simple. Uh, we live in a small but wonderful state, but we can make Arkansas an even better place if we engage in smart proactive planning for our future. Thank you for your attention today and for your support for creating the Advanced Energy Jobs Task Force. Thank you. And I'd love to hear some feedback from y'all about this bill or question. Representative Layman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I, I'll give you a little bit of feedback, my opinion, and, uh, thank you for bringing this. I think it's something that we need to be looking at and we need to be discussing, um, you know, I'm in all of the above person. As all sources of energy need to be represented and heard. Uh, because there's two types of energy, there's base load energy, and there's intermittent energy. Uh, I mean, I, I worked in Wynn for 8 years. Uh, you mentioned the Northwest problem that's a real problem. Uh, I believe that wind should be able to pick up part of that, but it has not. I'm not sure why it hasn't because, uh, wind should be available there because of the terrain, uh, you don't have to run new grid, you can hook into existing grid. But anyway, these are the things that we need to look at, but we, we need to be very careful that we have all players represented. No player should have, uh, extra, an extra vote. Right now, well, it's been a while since I looked at it, but, uh, I think Arkansas was like #2 in solar in the nation. And so, and we, we've got a lot of sunshine here and we need to use that. Um, and we need to continue to do that, but we cannot do it at the benefit of some other source. It needs to be a balance. So these are the kind of things that I would suggest that we look at if we form a group like this that we make sure that all of these different sources uh have their say and we listen to that and we evaluate those. Thank you Mr. Lane. Yes. Real quickly, I think if the the bill as written uh has. We spent a lot of time on making sure that the that all stakeholders are represented and to the point where there's quite a few folks on this thing and that we were worried that that might be the one thing that people are a little worried about, but, uh, to address exactly what you're talking about is making sure that everybody's views are represented and that we hear this out and we make the right decisions based on real, real data and real information. I think I support what you're saying. And may I add one thing representative lady and we had uh one of the our The members of our group that drafted this is, is a strong, uh, small modular reactor, uh. Advocate and I wish she could have been here, his wife is gravely ill and he could not be here to add his 2 cents, but uh we're open to that being in the mix, uh. would hope that it on this task force, there would be someone to come in and talk about the, the cost of a small modular reactor, the only concern I have about it is whether it would Um, bust the bank for uh ratepayers we wouldn't want it to create a situation where ratepayers take the hit instead of creating. Cheap electricity, but surely there ought to be a way to do that, uh, particularly if We rely on private enterprise rather than the Ratepayers to pay for it and it looks like there are different, uh, Organizations wanting to or groups wanting to come in and, and build those plants rather than pass it on to ratepayers. So I would love any more feedback because we do plan to ask, uh, Representative Bennett to run this bill in the next session, uh, any, anything negative, uh, I think about it. Sie de Clark has a question. The There we go. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, in your statement, Did I hear you say that renewables, uh, were costing less. than traditional. Uh, power I did say that and you can look at really at any number of entities around the state who have been saving lots and lots of money by installing renewals, uh, I think that's, that's a point that's been. I think there's a lot of evidence for that, sir, when you, well, everything I read says that renewables are costing more, uh, are you talking about they're saving money because of the money they're getting back from the federal government or because of the actual cost of producing electricity. school districts and municipality of Arkansas. I'm referring to mainly municipality, school districts, places like that that are saving uh significant amounts of money by installing solar themselves, that saving in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars and paying their teachers more and all that kind of stuff, so that's what I'm talking about. OK, so you're talking about the solar done individually, but, but that does that carry over to renewables being lower priced than. Traditional? Yes, it does, uh, mainly because you don't have to pay for the source of fuel necessarily the sun is free, the wind is free, uh, typically turbans aren't. Uh, nor disposing of them, uh, I'd love for it to be cheaper. It's just what you're stating as a fact is not what I have read to be a fact anywhere else. Uh, and Uh I'm confused. I'd be happy to after the hearing to send you some other things to read if you like, uh, that might have a different point of view if that's helpful to you. Yeah, we'll be glad to supply to the entire committee the data that shows that uh coal and natural gas are more expensive. And if you would, as opposed to sending it to individuals, we'll have them send it to the committee and, and we'll distribute it out. May I continue? Go ahead. Or the coal plants closing, not the cause of the need for more grid capacity. They're closing as a result of some Clean Air Act violations and a lawsuit a few years ago that uh has led to their agreement to close by 2028 and 2030. Flint Creek is Reaching the end of its useful life would be 6 would be about 60 years old by the time 2038 rolls around, so that was not my question. Is it not Or the, the fact that the coal plants are closing, is that not the reason for the need for more grid capacity. I would agree with that. OK, so we need the grid capacity even of the coal plants were were open because you're because everything I heard you say was about bringing electricity in, taking electricity out and if it seems like if it was produced here already. That that's contrary to that argument. I think one of the one of the points I tried to make real quickly, Mr. Chairman, is that we have a significant backlog of clean energy projects waiting to be connected to the grid, something in the neighborhood of 38 gigawatts in Arkansas, uh, but they can't be. Put online because we have a lack of transmission capacity, which is the main point I was trying to make. OK. Not just coal power. Mr. Chair, if I may, uh, was the Sierra Club not involved in the lawsuits that, uh, cause the uh coal plants to be closing. That is correct. Thank you, thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you. uh, Representative Ray. Thank you chair. um. I guess my question would be, is there any, is there anything that would prevent The topics that you want to study through this task force from just being studied through the regular joint Energy Committee. I'm just thinking there's 25 members that are put each. Biennium on the Joint Energy Committee, they can bring in. Anyone from these topic areas, is there any reason, uh, I'm just wondering if it's necessary to create an additional group. That she then have to pay per diem to members for, I see that's in there on page 5. I mean I'm just wondering if it, this couldn't be accomplished through the regular committee. Well, that's a good question. And could you do it quickly and efficiently as a task force. I don't know the answer to that. We, when we first started studying, uh, this idea, we talked to, uh, people in Washington state and North Carolina. And very experienced have been working through the Committee process, uh, what was not working and so they created task force so that they could bring all the stakeholders together. To study it, uh, at one time, I suppose you could bring in, uh, uh, the grid operators and have a, a hearing with them and then have another hand and bring in energy and sweptco and But the idea of this task force would be to bring them together. Motley, if that's what the committee chose to do so that Um, we can accelerate this process. We're behind the um. We're behind the ball in terms of advancing, uh, energy, whether it's gonna be the, the, uh, the small modular reactors or whether it's gonna be creating more solar. One of the interesting things about the, the, uh, Grant County projects is gonna include battery storage, so. Uh, we need to accelerate this. But I'll be happy Representative Roy, if that's uh right, I'm sorry. Well, you see, I've got these glasses I don't, I, I'm 71, my vision is uh Senator John what it used to be, but yeah, I mean that, that's an option if that's, uh, what the legislature would like to. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I echo Representative Boy sometimes since we're close friends uh. Uh, Mr. Wise, I did not know you were Marcus Holbrook's nephew, but, uh, he was a great Arkansan and I'm probably the only one in the room that knew him very well, but, uh, well, I would come up here in junior high high school every legislative session and spend a week just wandering the halls and when he told you that that uh interim studies where things go to die, that was absolutely true probably in those days but not quite so much now we take these things seriously and it gives us an opportunity to do some things when. We're not drinking from a fire hose as we are in a regular session, but I also think that we might seriously look at at what Representative Ray was speaking of is that This committee is comparatively new. Uh, it's been around a good while, but I don't know if it's around when Marcus was around, but the point is that, uh, this is absolutely in our uh wheelhouse and would probably be an appropriate place to take a look at this, um. And I, I understand that, uh, and I've read, uh, representative in its bill and, and she did a good job, but it is, it's quite broad and it might need to be, uh, bifurcated and uh that's a big word but basically split up into smaller bites, so to speak, in some cases, but, but I think your, your policy is good. I, I like, uh, Senator Clark, I'm a little concerned about, you know, when the organizations that, that basically are I think maybe putting our state in a threatening situation of closing the uh coal plants a little more prematurely before the, uh, other, uh, Alternatives are in place, uh, I, I wouldn't have said that before a winter storm Yuri, but, uh, uh, since then I think I've, I was a wake up call to a lot of us and while I don't think anybody died in Arkansas like they did in Texas during that mishap. I just, I, I, I, I think it's a cart before the horse situation. I'm glad you brought this forward I think before some of these things are, are that that cut off our baseline baseload generation is representative Layman was. referring to, we might seriously want to have these things in place, not just as theoretically and, and I agree with you that that the private sector has made great strides with this and continues to, and I'm grateful for that but I'm, uh, I think Mr. Chairman, we might be in a better situation to kind of keep this, uh, uh, and I will also tell you task forces a few years ago kind of got a bad name, uh, in this legislature, but uh uh what they do in the state and what we do here using the same name might not be the same thing so I don't want to pick on the idea of that, but, but certainly we welcome bringing all stakeholders to the table, uh, in a forum, but, uh, Mr. Chairman, I would suggest this falls under the Joint Committee on Energies Baileywick, I appreciate y'all coming. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator Johnson. I, I would like to make just, just. Some recommendations actually. I think Uh, I, I do think I do agree with the same so it's probably in the wheelhouse of this committee and maybe it's a subgroup out of this committee that would, would, would, would do that, uh. But at the same time I would encourage you maybe to do a little bit more studying. Uh And look at cause I, I do look there's, there's some If not crossovers some very close contacts between the public service commission and some of the things that they, they have to do in terms of transmission and making sure power and so on and so forth, you know, how, how they would fit, how this force, I understand this forces, as I read it would be more let's just recommending. Uh, but I, I think that's something to consider. You might put that in there and with that I'll turn over Senator Clark. Uh, Mr. Chair, this is a question for the chair. I, I would assume. Hopefully I can assume that our, uh, that energy and the co-ops. We are working on this, uh, if it's gonna if more grid capacity is gonna be required so that we have electricity with the coal plants gone, uh, is are they prepared to speak on this issue. Would that be proper? Are you referring to today or, or at some point whenever the chair thinks it's proper, I would love to hear from him and we could do that, uh, today we're running a little bit long on time, but, but we, we could have a meeting where we did bring them in and say, OK, what are your inputs the energy this is my personal opinion, energy is a, is a large thing and it has transmission it has generation has different types of generation as representative Ladyman said he talked about base load. versus some of the other laws. And, uh, you mentioned battery storage and all these are things that play into this, this mix and as well as the utilities and the co-ops, they, they, they play a major role in this, so I think. All of these combined it. This is a big box, right? It's got a lot of things in it, uh, and I think it will cross over between some different areas that, that probably not saying that we shouldn't do it. I'm just saying that we, we probably need to take a look and get some inputs from the utilities and, and see if it it is a subgroup out of this, that might be a better fit for that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. May I make one more comment. One of the things that that I was hoping with thismetic do is help us with the public service commission because we think that they need to loosen up their regulations in building transmission lines. Uh, I know that energy would love to build more transmission lines, but the process is cumbersome. I'd like to see less regulation on building new transmission lines. Thank you. I'm sorry? Did you address the committee? Go right ahead. I'd like to thank everybody again for um spending some time with us, um, talking about this very important issue, um, and I'm open to those suggestions and if you do create a subcommittee, I would like to be involved in that and some capacity, and so, um, I just want to thank you for your time. Thank you very much, seeing no other question. I believe we are adjourned. Are there any other business to come before the committee. No, we do not. All right, so no other business, we're adjourned.