Citizens Challenging Venture Capitalists and Carbon Capture - Mike Eisenfeld

Mike Eisenfeld is San Juan Citizens Alliance Energy and Climate Program Manager

Mike joined SJCA in 2006 following ten years as an environmental consultant in the Four Corners region. Mike works on energy issues including coal, oil/gas, air quality and public lands. He specializes in the National Environmental Policy Act, Federal Land Policy & Management Act, and Endangered Species Act compliance. Mike has a B.A. from Bates College and a M.A. in Environmental Policy and Management from the University of Denver.

Mike's current work and this episode focus on a venture capital backed effort to extend the life of the San Juan Generating Station - a 1.7 gigawatt coal-fired power generation station once scheduled for decommissioning in 2022. As described in a June 29, 2022 High Country News article, this project proposes to implement carbon capture at a scale never before implemented, and to store it underground in areas of questionable geological quality.

Transcript

Dina Rasor: 0:10

My name is Dina razor. This is another session for the our podcast from climate money watchdog. And today we have Mike Eisen Feld from the San Juan Citizens Alliance Energy and Climate who's the climate Program Manager for them. And we're going to be talking about his work locally, very complex story of a coal plant that should have been closed but the city and politicians and hedge funds are trying to keep it open. So first of all, he he joined the San Juan Citizens Alliance in 2006. And what following 10 years as an environmental consultant and the Four Corners area, which I'm sure most people know he is in Durango, Colorado, right?

Mike Eisenfeld: 1:09

Yeah, we haven't Well, I'm actually in Farmington, New Mexico. But oh, you are informed, informed.

Dina Rasor: 1:15

And drank okay. The plant is in Farmington, Mexico. And he works on energy issues including oil, gas, coal, air quality and public lands and specializes in the environment National Environmental Policy Act, federal land and Policy Management Act and Endangered Species Act. He has a BA from Bates College and an MA environmental quality from the University of Denver. So the I wanted to one of the reasons we wanted to have him is that he has got this incredibly fascinating but frustrating story of trying to get this coal plant closed and all the machinations of everybody to keep it open, including wanting to build one of the largest carbon capture facilities in the world and it's an unproven and basically, unproven, it's never been built at that level. But I first wanted to bring out is to say is many climate endeavors in the past such as Solyndra have been wait massive waste of money because the government when they give the insulin brah when the company Solyndra gave the DOE a plan, this was back in the Obama administration. They wanted to get the jobs out the door, they want to get the money out the door. And as a result, they rushed everything and the OE the department Treasury when they investigated it later found out that it was in fact, they had not done their due diligence on this company and simply done the due diligence on their business plan. And this reminded me a lot of what the project that Mike is investigating is going to steal Rube Goldberg quality with the mission of the plan and moving target and dubious expositions, expectations were what will really work. So we're going to be talking to talking to him about the plan and the ups and downs and local activists have been trying to stop this uncertain plan that may be more injurious to the climate and the environment.

Greg Williams: 3:31

Thank you very much for joining us. I met Dina when I was a college student and I was looking for an internship and went on to do two internships with the what was then called the project on military procurement, which later became the project on government oversight as it exists today. I worked for there, worked there for three years. And most of the time since then, I've since then, I've actually been in IT management but more recently steered my career back in the direction of public interest work where I served for a couple of years as the executive director of the Hudson River sloop Clearwater.

Dina Rasor: 4:13

Okay, I think now that we've all introduced ourselves, I'll ask the first question. And the first question is, this is a really complicated story with a lot of twists and turns. And it's, please explain to the listeners on how this aging coal power plant the San Juan generating station was the shutdown in 2022. Which, you know, getting rid of any old coal plants greatly helps them carbon reduction and improved air quality. But instead, a secure hedge fund is working to keep the plant open by proposing various schemes and assumptions and risky and large carbon capture and sequence S and plan and rely on energy credits and money government and fusion. So I I will let you have quite the floor for quite a while because you really need to explain it before we can talk about it. So go ahead, Mike, and thank you for being on.

Mike Eisenfeld: 5:10

Yeah, so I'm living in the four corners, we have the coal mines and coal plants. So we refer to these, these facilities as called complexes. And so the San Juan generating station was built in 1972. When, with nine owners at the time, including California, Tucson, Los Alamos County, Utah, and the primary owner is public service company in New Mexico. So a lot of kind of politics about building the plant in first place. The plant was supposed to have a life of about 50 years bringing it to right about where it is now. And a lot of the issues associated with with the plant is, is that there's another there's another power plant right across the San Juan River. It's just west of Farmington called the Four Corners power plant. And these two facilities are basically known at one point is the largest single point source of pollution in the United States, vast emissions. And so about circa 2014 2015. The Clean Air Act requires best available retrofit technology and the regional haze program. And so it's kind of created a frenzy to try to figure out what was going to be done in terms of pollution controls. And a bunch of deals were brokered to do state implementation plans federal implementation plans that resulted in in two units of the for at San Juan Generating Station shutting down, and three of the five units shutting down at four corners power plant, and everybody said, okay, you know, done deal. PNN said, we're going to run San Juan generating stations for 2053. Well, about to 2017. They, they, they they changed your mind. And they said, this is becoming like way too expensive. Cole is done and we need to retire and get this out of our portfolio. They came to our community on a whistlestop tour and said, Hey, what do y'all think, you know, instead of 2053, put about 2021 and so are 2022. Sorry. So most of the people in the audience were coal miners, you know, dragging their families there. And I'd like to empathy for the coal miners and I know some of the PNM people kind of saddled up to him and said, you know, you already have made up your mind. I don't know why you're framing this, as you know, you want our input, you want to close in 2022. So this sort of started this whole thing in our community where all of a sudden our community was faced with a facility that was going to close 31 years early. And our organization, we're like, watchdogs, we're like looking at all the permits, we can get all that public health implications looking at these utilities they want to get out of here. So Tucson electric power also announced they want to get out of here. And this is an area that's a culture of abandonment, you know, sacrifice area, deal with the externalities, we're creating all this cheap electricity with coal, but not really. And so we started talking about just transition and about the same time in 2018. In our legislative session, there was talk about the energy transition act energy transition act for you know, reducing, reducing carbon dioxide emissions, dealing with climate issues, getting getting these coal plants retired and the utilities in turn wanted securitization. They wanted the financial tools to recover the money that that they would have made over the whatever their previous lifetime was. So in 2019, the energy transition Act passed. And where we advocated for it, we were down at the legislative session in Santa Fe, working through the language on it and and then about about that time, this fly by night company called Acme equities sort of entered our world and said, oh, golly, we can do carbon capture carbon sequestration, we can work with the city of Farmington that owns 43 megawatts or 5% of sandwich generation, we can take over the other 95% and we can do carbon capture carbon sequestration, and it's going to be a win win for everybody. And, and so we were like No, it's going to be a lose lose because you're carbon capture carbon sequestration technology has never, no, no, none of the projects that ever succeeded Kemper, future Gen, Petra Nova foundry dam, none of them have done what they're supposed to do. And so we started in pretty hard and kind of like our technical analysis and our inventories. And we started kind of showing up whenever in the Acme guys became enchant, because they got tired of us making fun of them with wily Coyote. But these guys were like, you know, hedge fund guys, like two guys who had globbed on to some idea from some lawyer to do this. And yeah, they basically had like, some little office and some building in New York, there been no money, no, you know, just kind of like, not very good track records. So we started looking into him, and we do our due diligence. And the enchant guys sort of got with the city of Farmington and started going on this campaign in 2019, of kind of saying, you know, that, that this could be, you know, very successful thing. And about that time, they also secured to two grants. One was$9.4 million for front end engineering, study through department of energy that, you know, can this be engineered. And then they also, because they have to do carbon sequestration, they got a grant for $90 million in the carbon SAFE program, that's a carbon storage insurance facility enterprise. And then they had a whole series of like, subcontractors, and these grants were cost share. So when they first started out, they had these elaborate on schedules, you know, like, process design, block flow diagram, you know, carbon capture systems, all these things that they were going to do and, and, you know, basically, this schedule went from September of 2019, and ended in April of 2021, they were all going to be done. And so there's three of us at San Juan citizens wanting to work on this, myself, our executive director, and, and another energy and climate person who happens to be a graduate of Lewis and Clark Law School. So she and I sort of like, over the past year and a half. In particular, she and I have sort of been putting our heads together looking at every single technical aspect, every single permit. And so, about 2019, we put together our inventory of all the permits that we're going to need all the things that would be required for them to design to construct to implement all the moving pieces, do they have transmission? Do they have water do they have, you know, it's going to be a parasitic project are going to need 30% more coal. And the whole reason that this facility is closing is because you know, nobody wants to invest it in a more, you know, they don't have permits for the coal mining, the coal mine is in decline. The coal fired power plants are literally falling apart. And the two big owners can am in Tucson or out. And so we're looking at this and there was a provision with the existing owners all along that one of the owners could take over for $1 at San Juan generating station, but none of the ancillary power lines that get substation none of that went with it. And so, in our minds, were kind of these enchant guys were portraying that they were going to get all these investors. And they were going to, you know, be constructing the carbon capture carbon sequestration equipment by now. And they don't have any investors really they they are now seeking over $900 million in loans that they haven't even applied for yet from the federal government. The grants that they received, I believe they're in default. Although Doa won't admit it, and then all of the carbon capture carbon sequestration projects are delayed. And the track record continues to be poor. We look at this. Also that they're trying to secure what are known as 45 Q tax credits. Where do they get a certain amount of money? per tonne of carbon dioxide that they deal with either with enhanced oil recovery or sequestration. There's lots of segmented pieces to this. There's power, power line issues, there's carbon dioxide, pipeline issues, there's water issues. It just has been, I think, very disappointing that these folks start to gain traction in the first place.

Greg Williams: 15:34

So I wanted to pause just to ask a couple of questions that hopefully will give the listeners a better sense of the scale. First of all, this is, you know, maybe what a 1.81 point, almost two gigawatt facility, which puts it in the same class as modest sized nuclear power plants. So it's a pretty big power generation station. If I have the figures correctly,

Mike Eisenfeld: 16:01

it's 847 megawatts.

Greg Williams: 16:05

Now, that's what the two units decommission, right? Yeah, it was pull up with all four units. So it was almost two power generation station. Yeah. Not some rural. You know, sparse state, power plant. This is a big power plant. And then I was wondering if you could give us a sense of what the employment at the plant was, or perhaps is, and how that compares with local employment in, in coal mining, you mentioned that reducing your eliminated the coal mining was going to be a big employment hit to your community. But I imagine the plant itself would be as well can you give us a sense of, you know, how many hundreds 1000s 10s of 1000s of people are involved in the plant itself and ancillary industries like the mining? Yeah,

Mike Eisenfeld: 17:01

it's been estimated at about 1600, including the end. So ancillary, kind of, you know, subcontractors and all that, but at the plant itself, it's about down to about 150 to 200. And the coal mine is the 60. These are facilities that are in decline. They've got real problems with the coal mine in terms of the quality. It's an underground coal mine. Now, they don't have permits that are active, they don't have contracts that have been negotiated. And then the coal plant the rhetoric about preserving all the jobs, we've been advocating for transition that would provide severance to those workers for a couple of years, job retraining. And we also secured in replacement resources and the energy transition act, our groups and a bunch of Navajo groups who are responsible for intervening and securing that solar projects that replace the coal plants here, would be sited in our local school district and would also save the property taxes. So we've we really feel like that we're down to about 300 jobs by attrition. It's coal mine and San Juan generating stations to San Juan mind is a mind mouth, coal mine that feeds the San Juan Generating Station. And there's just not that many, many more jobs there. And I there's a lot of, there's a lot of serious health issues that a lot of the coal companies are reneging on, particularly like Peabody Coal, and, you know, their obligations and some of the other facilities around here, like black Mason painting mines. They're not they're not doing what they were supposed to do, in terms of caring for their workers. That's another thing, you know, that that a lot of the folks who work out there, they have a lot of health issues. And so it's really important that that that the co workers and are provided for, and that's something that's part of our mix.

Dina Rasor: 19:15

Yeah, one of the things that I found amazing is that the, the, the way you're going to do the co2 Capture is not going to get rid of the other polluting parts of the coal mine, it's just going to you know, supposedly get the carbon but it's going to leave on Mercury and, and so sulfur and you know, and things like this, that are you know, already polluting and still will be polluting. And so my question is, why did the city of Farmington, New Mexico try so hard to keep this polluting plant open can fit the citizens of town? Why didn't they seek out transition money or develop new industries? And what's the politics there? Well, I mean, it just seems so her own own self interest with his hedge fund company.

Mike Eisenfeld: 20:03

Yeah, so the politics of the four corners is that, you know, in the 70s, we were considered like an energy sacrifice zone by by President Nixon's project independence. And so it that sort of mentality remains today we have the trifecta, uranium, oil and gas, coal, and just about everything sort of revolves around this idea of retaining that. And so, in my opinion, there was a sort of perfect turn of events where these Acme enchant guys sort of showed up with some help for one of the lawyers who was engaged in, in, in city of Farmington discussions on what to do about the retirement of the San Juan generating station, and I believe that he he proposed trying to get, you know, money for grants, loans, investors 45 Q tax credits, kind of the whole, like, things that are available some subsidies, I don't know, you know, like, if people understand how the fossil fuel industry is subsidized here, um, but to try to perpetuate, you know, what they had, and I think they bought into it really hard, where they were sort of like, wow, we, you know, we have a great plan. And this is exciting and, and San Juan Citizens Alliance, and a bunch of our partners were, we were there during the whole thing going, this is not exciting at all, this is, you know, this is, this is going to fail. And I remember telling the chant, guys, we're gonna crush you, because I was, I was a little angry that, that, you know, they they walked in our community, go, Well, you know, we're not from here, but you know, we're, we're energy experts. It's like, No, dude, you're not an energy expert. You don't know, Jack. And so, I mean, I think that part of our thing is that, you know, we've been working on the coal situation since 2006. Or actually, for 2003, when desert rock was first proposed in desert rock would have been the third coal fired power plant here. And that was Blackstone Group, pretty swell. Giuliani was a law firm and safe global notice guys had money, and we knocked him off. And they argued with us about all the pollutants and said that, you know, carbon dioxide wasn't regulated, and then had the indignity of pursuing government money for carbon capture carbon sequestration towards the end was sort of pathetic. And at that point, the studies here about carbon sequestration were that it would be unsuccessful, because of the geological situation here. And this is an area we have like 40,000, oil and gas wells, that that can cushion our landscape. And we we have like 66% of surface water in New Mexico flows to Farmington. And I mean, it's really time for us to start thinking about ways to do things differently. And so we got involved because, you know, we, that's what we do, and showed up in every meeting that they had, and every opportunity to intervene, and we don't have any permit. So they have probably about 30 permits that they would need. And we sat on all that from 2019 until wait until 2021. And then we've just decided to sort of start writing the Department of Energy, the Department of Interior, the Council on Environmental Quality, started asking them, Hey, when are you going to start your environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act like we're really looking forward to public involvement, we're really want to understand what this project is because nobody really wants to explain it. And these snake oil salesmen, I mean, unbelievable, three hedge fund guys who have all come and gone. And now they got somebody who's like, was the high paid director of utility in Utah, trying to you know, kind of pushed this thing through and you know, the carbon sequestration stuff is fascinating, because there's porosity issues as a liability issues, or spacing issues. There's a lot of things that are going to come up in our next year's legislative session. And now in chance, even claiming that, you know, they can do carbon sequestration associated with hydrogen. And that's sort of the new glossy, shiny object that are throwing in front of our community. It's all shiny, you know, glossy objects. Nobody wants to get into the details. And that's what we do. It's and one Citizens Alliance, maybe obsessively, some people kind of go oh, you know, why you guys so negative? This is such a great opportunity. And it's like it we don't, we don't have you know, 20 more years to mess around with the climate here in the Four Corners area. Drought has become the norm. Wildfire starting early on in the spring, it's been really bad. And on top of that, this is just not, this is just not the sort of thing that the federal government should be permitting. I mean, in terms of waste and grift. And this, this project will not succeed.

Dina Rasor: 25:31

Well, they explained a little bit about just to get an idea to make is, you know, how big the, my understanding is, they're trying to make one of the biggest carbon capture things in the world, which, you know, has not been proven. And and what are the where's the state of New Mexico stand on this? Were you able to get state in fischels? And legislature? Or is big fossil fuel? Pretty much got their, their boot on everybody's neck? And then the government out there?

Mike Eisenfeld: 26:01

Yeah. So I mean, this, this project was modeled on the petro Nova project in in Texas, which is a 240 megawatt power plant and San Juan generating stations 847 megawatt, it would be first of its kind of equipment, with all the problems traditionally associated with like builds would be parasitic. They'd have to burn 30% more coal, it'd be removing the carbon dioxide with a mean, then they'd have to sequester it. They'd have to send it probably 30 miles to sequester. If they do enhanced oil recovery, monitor the lifecycle issues associated with the oil, what are the main, there's just so many sort of issues associated with designing this, and the enchant guys said, well, we'll get early access to the site to build our carbon islands. And it was a $1.5 billion project. Couple years ago, I would, I would suggest, it's probably doubled by now. And they readily say, you know, we don't have any investors. So if they get loans, that's another federal Nexus that allows us to start foiling them and start, you know, looking into who's talking to who and we could go off after the office of the Office of carbon management. And, you know, so a lot of this carbon capture stuff came up during the Obama administration with future Gen. And then we were also dealing with like, think tanks, like Stanford and Princeton gave some presentations that were just garbage. And so now, you know, like, I do things like Freedom of Information Act requests to Department of Energy's fossil energy and carbon management. I want to see their quarterly reports. And like I said, I think during the fall, because it's a cost share, and to Mitsubishi was like trying to get $5 million to design this. And I mean, at what point do these big companies kind of like go, oh, this is a debacle. And I think it's, I think it's like that the carbon capture carbon sequestration project, the fact that they're caught still calling it demonstration projects is absurd. And you know, this, this, this whole program should be shelved. They should be putting this into sustainable renewable energy. They should be putting the money into things like making the four corners and energy storage center. Or Global's. If there's one thing we have, we have tons of brownfield opportunities with stranded assets. The big thing in New Mexico for years is that there wasn't an there wasn't enough transmission. And so we're like, Well, you know, if San Juan Generating Station retires, all that transmission opens up, and that's what we got with our involvement in the energy transition Act was 100% replacement with renewables. Now, the state of New Mexico has this energy transition act, but we also the money flow is from oil and gas and fossil fuel folks. Lots of lobbyists, lots of sort of, you know, wining and dining, I don't think we're invited to water that stuff, or I don't think we'd want to be involved in that sort of stuff. You know, the wining and dining just, it's not really our thing. I'm, I'm a little more like, you know, what, what, what kind of world are we like, leaving for our kids, right? I mean, it's just these enchant guys come in and kind of go, you know, well, this is this is the answer. And it's like, it's not the answer, just the way for them lining their pockets.

Greg Williams: 29:55

I wanted to point out that this is sort of what venture capitalists do. without without complaining about the nature of venture capital, I think it's important to understand that they come in and their purpose is to attract other people's money, attracted as fast and as great quantities as possible, move the project along far enough that they can then exit and get their own money out of the project and move on to the next one. And, you know, while arguably that's created lots of opportunities and lots of progress in the United States and elsewhere, it does mean fundamentally that these people have less of a stake in the long term success of a project like this then the people who live there do and so I'm I want to celebrate the fact that you've been there to point that out and to be the the local long term interest that raises questions when they show up with all their PowerPoint slides and and do their best to, to attract investment. It without a counterbalance, like the one that you provide. We're at the risk of devoting all the nation's resources to the flashiest venture capitalist who shows up in town.

Dina Rasor: 31:18

Yeah, and I wanted to also ask you about that. When you hear hear this, you know, and you wonder why the government, federal, state local, why they go along with this, because we will have the article that one of the articles that has been written on this on our blog when we put out the podcast, and I highly recommend everybody read it first. Because, quite frankly, I've seen a lot of grift. But this is, this is amazing. And so who who is supporting them why they're supporting their efforts, but you know, other national groups, will the carbon capture people in a nationally but is there anybody getting monetary benefits from this project that you've been able to pinpoint outside of enchant? Because usually there is somebody if I were to dig in this deep with this much money, somebody's got to be, you know, for the lawyers.

Mike Eisenfeld: 32:13

There's a bunch of law firms like Thompson Hine that have been driving a lot. City of Farmington has put up we believe almost $3 million for the legal fees on behalf of enchant that's the agreement that they can recover that when the project is successful, and we keep telling them the projects that could be successful you're never going to recover it our politicians here are a lot of them are from the fossil fuel industry. So a lot of them are or you know, they're they're lobbying and advocating for this project. But we we have a lot of we probably have about 20 organizations that we work with that have all really been watching this you know, very carefully includes organism organizations or entities like the Institute for Energy economics and financial analysis Aoife we work a lot with Dinesh citizens against ruining our environment. Tone Nizhoni ni, which is Black Mesa group that you know, Peabody stole their water and big problems over their National Parks Conservation Association Western Environmental Law Center represents us. This guys are you guys and gals are incredible, while their guardians Coalition for Clean and affordable energy 350, New Mexico and then beyond coal campaign, insincere club and Center for Biological Diversity. And that's just the start of it. Those are the groups that you know have signed on the gliders. It's no one citizen science is written to Department of Interior and Department of Energy, and to see Council of Environmental Quality saying, all right, you know, like if the project is viable, it's viable. If it isn't, it isn't. But y'all got to do permitting, you know, like Petra Nova did an environmental impact statement. And it took them about seven years. So if the enchant guys want to engage with the community, have public involvement, public hearings, on explain what the project is, they can do an environmental impact statement and will will participate. But this idea that you know, the good hoodwink everybody and just going to shirk their responsibilities on something this massive, this expensive, and this controversial. One of the aspects of National Environmental Policy Act is is the project controversial? Yeah, it is. So our thing is that there are environmental groups who believe that carbon capture carbon sequestration has a place in our society, like the Clean Air Task Force, I believe, but we we as An organization don't think that the track record of carbon capture carbon sequestration on coal plants has any promise whatsoever. We think sandwich generation is a very poor place to do carbon capture carbon sequestration, if they want to do carbon capture carbon sequestration, they should consider other industrial sites around here, like natural gas processing facilities.

Greg Williams: 35:25

I wonder if you want to elaborate on that. I understood from your earlier comments that to begin with, you're gonna have to pipe this pipe this sequestered carbon 30 miles that that means you've got to have pipeline and all the problems associated with or I should say all the risks associated with the pipeline. But then even then, you're talking about the ground being excessively porous. I think one thing a lot of people don't understand is that carbon dioxide is not something that you put in canisters, the way you do with radioactive waste, or, you know, other liquid or solid waste, you basically pump a gas into the ground, and hope that it doesn't percolate back up to the surface. And that's pretty risky proposition under the best of circumstances. But I understand what you're saying is that this is not a particularly good area to try to do that. You want to say more about that?

Mike Eisenfeld: 36:26

Yeah, yeah. So basically, you know, the grant that was given for the carbon safe, sort of the ensuring safe sub surface storage of co2 and sea seine reservoirs. I mean, it requires like a comprehensive commercial scale site characterization. So even though it's like $22 million, what if it was handed off to New Mexico tack numix, Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, they've got all the money, or most of it to do the characterization. And so they've got to like pick the sights, they've got to drill test wells, they've got to take the data, to submit a class six permit for six to 7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. And then they've got a, they've got to then kind of go through the process of ensuring that that carbon dioxide won't leak for, I believe, 100 years. And so they haven't done any of that yet, in terms of like providing any information to the public, the sites that they've chosen are about 20 miles north of Farmington amongst hundreds of oil and gas wells, in geological formations that I don't think are appropriate. So yeah, I mean, a lot of this stuff, it's, you know, the carbon capture and storage, there's a lot of technical aspects to it. And there's a lot of checks and balances. And it's it all it appears that they've done is find some prospective sites, and maybe they've done some test squirrels, but they haven't provided anything that suggests to us that, that, you know, they are ready to do anything, when it comes to when it comes to actually having a site ready for sequestration. And like I said earlier on, you know, a lot of this stuff is pre decisional. So we can't even really engage is an organization. But in the past these class six permits in the carbon Safe Program, have acquired environmental impact statements on on their own. And so we are definitely of the opinion that it's like, okay, let's, what safety analysis is.

Dina Rasor: 38:56

So how confident are you you'll be able to stop and chance plans? Or will you have to continue to work to show that the CCS and other parts of the plan are failing? Yeah, you know, you're gonna have you think you're gonna be able to nip this thing before they actually get anywhere, based on you know, no environmental impact not doing the rules and regulations. Or do you think your that they're going to, they've grease the wheels enough that this stuff will get start going and they will continue to miss all their milestones?

Mike Eisenfeld: 39:28

I think they're gonna miss all their milestones. And I think, you know, unless they get a massive investment, I believe if they have to go the moon route, that this could be a 10 year permitting process. or So recently, they were claiming that they got an infusion of money from the Navajo transitional energy company, which is like an enterprise of the Navajo Nation. But when asked about it, nobody would say anything about how much money and then in tech said, well, it was a minimal amount, but we got a board seat. And so there could be something concocting with, you know, crystal ball associated with tribal sovereignty. I mean, that was the desert rock approach was to try to put a project on tribal lands and claim sovereignty. And that didn't work. I think the chant guys, that is long as there's oversight from organizations, and I think deters a lot more organizations that could come in on this and look at kind of the, you know, the money side, and the Department of Energy and the federal government and infrastructure money that's going to these sorts of projects, I don't think that any of these projects are going to be successful. I mean, the petro Nova project went offline, a year and a half ago, and it's not back online at some of the claims hidden channels making that they could capture, like 90% of the carbon dioxide or just not even close, it's probably more like 50 to 70%. So all they're considering doing is like burning coal to create more carbon dioxide, and then they can bury it and take advantage of a tax credit. That's, that's pretty evil, in my opinion. And the folks that I work with, we're not going to stand for it. I, you know, I'm getting a little older and kind of been at this for a while, but I'll hang in, and it's kind of fun to see their demise, hopefully.

Dina Rasor: 41:42

Well, good. I mean, I understand that, that I wanted to also say that, you know, I think that one of the other things that is is really not to their advantage is that they're going to be taking up so much of the water supply, when we're the entire West is in a massive drought. But I just wonder, when they come down, you're watching them to see if they're going to apply for the DOE loan program and those kinds of things, right.

Mike Eisenfeld: 42:14

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, you know, I've worked constant communication with the government agencies that or procuring those ones. And actually, you know, I'll check with them and say, hey, you know, what are the loan submitted, the one application submitted, and they're like, We don't have an application. And then we got a quarterly report, with associated documents through a Freedom of Information Act requests, that was enchant, lamenting that they haven't been able to get any investors because of the pandemic. And, you know, golly, they, you know, they did you know, the cost share, like, they can't come up with the money. And it's, it's sort of sad, you know, like, listen into that juxtapose with what they're telling people, publicly and kind of stringing people along with this idea that this project is somehow viable. And, you know, we, we've been through this before, and it's just kind of unfortunate because the opportunity costs, that money could be going to good things that could be creating better quality of life issues for people here, public health considerations, innovation, energy storage, Renewable Energy Center, we could be, we could really be doing some good things. Remember, this is all energy export, for the most part, with the exception of 5% for the city of Farmington, San Juan generating station, all other power went to California, Utah. Tucson, same thing with four corners power plant, that was what made Southern California and the Phoenix area what they are today. I mean, and are those areas like bastions of sustainability? No. But it's time for our society to recognize that you know, continued fossil fuel burden communities, we we need to be part of it just transition and we need infusion of money, whether it's, you know, the communities here applying for it, or entities, I guess, sort of advocating for it. There needs to be the identification that that's really important for humankind. So just quickly

Greg Williams: 44:41

what's going on with the with the coal plant. In the meantime, does it continue to burn coal while they work through these endless issues?

Mike Eisenfeld: 44:49

So actually, one of the units unit one closed at the end of June and the unit for etalons intercession was supposed to close in June but PNM brokered a deal to keep it open for three more months until the end of September. Because they were framing that they were gonna rolling blackouts, we can't forget that some of the utilities will orchestrate things to kind of like, you know, scare tactics. And you know, I've had people in Santa Fe and Albuquerque tell me you know, that off coal plants up here need to keep going so they can have their conditioning.

Dina Rasor: 45:26

Well, I wanted to also ask you about on the, on the loan program, do a loan program and stuff if you if you get a whiff of that they're doing that kind of stuff. Knowing that we we are already have looked into the cylinder problem in one of our past podcasts and see that it the due diligence, you know, the business plan and hold up due diligence and all that kind of stuff. Well, this business plan is absolutely the messiest thing I've ever seen. Because they've really not been able to succeed and everything, they've always got an excuse. So you should keep in touch with us because we would like to help help you investigate that. I wanted to ask you then, because one of the things that we're trying to get people to understand is all the problems you have when you're a local organization like you taking on all the different things. And so give us the big ideas about the problems of being a local advocates, and you have advice for other climate activists who are fighting to bring climate mitigation to their local areas. What what kind of tips since you've been doing this for so long would that would you know, that would help them?

Mike Eisenfeld: 46:43

Yeah, well, um, so just kind of in our staff alone at San Juan. Citizens Alliance, we have, you know, people with legal skills we have, like I'm, I'm an interdisciplinary guy, policy guy with sort of like economics and cultural resources, social permitting background, and I am an advocate for interdisciplinary and we're also the ones who often have standing and write declarations kind of say that we've been harmed. Then, sort of like figuring out who are the people who are hard workers and share your passion for, like, world changing type situation like, things aren't getting better in our world. And so people who are dedicated to putting the appropriate sort of like technical and strategic approaches together, and then I would also just say that I'm that. Also case based that I've lived here for 26 years, and to some, that's a short period of time, but I don't like folks who parachute in and I don't like environmental groups who parachute in. So there's probably about 20 of us individuals, and probably about five or six organizations that work on this constantly. Our executive director for San Juan Citizens Alliance has made this a priority, you know, you guys are going to crush and cheer. Get on it. What are you doing this week? Have you looked into, you know, where's the water, oh, gosh, they gave it away, you know, to, to another water project, and they're gonna get water somewhere else. Just totally indicative of their lack of experience, lack of understanding of water rights and water issues in the West. And then having legal representation that are going to stick with you and aren't going to bail on you and aren't going to settle on a settle on Yeah, that are there for the long run, share, same values. And then also, make sure that make sure that you have members donors and funding. So you can do this work. I mean, none of us are making a lot of money doing this, but it's very meaningful work. And it's kind of fun.

Dina Rasor: 49:23

What sounds like what your formula is that find, find talented people, lawyers, you know, advocates, but also the technical people like you and whatever, and then have a lot of perseverance. It sounds like the perseverance This is not these aren't things you're gonna kill off in a year. It sounds like this is the kind of thing that you it's kind of like crabgrass you know every time you think you've got it all pulled up, it'll sprout up somewhere else. You know, they'll come up with another new cockamamie thing because the money and everything else. Greg, do you have another question?

Greg Williams: 50:00

I'm just gonna point out that I think you've done a terrific job on your website of showing the structure of the organization and how deeply staffed you are and the different projects that you have going and we will certainly make that part of the the description of the podcast episode. I encourage our listeners to go visit their

Mike Eisenfeld: 50:21

yeah, thanks a lot. I mean, I appreciate it. I mean, you know, our staff staffing sort of fluctuates between six and eight. A lot of our works are regional, national, I mean, we also were involved in a lot of other things, you know, oil and gas, air quality, the the fiasco concerning oil and gas drilling around Chaco culture, National Historical Park, lots of other issues. And then I just wanted to just get back to something that you said, Greg, you know, it's like, we're, we're really interested in kind of like, the whole carbon dioxide sort of pipeline issues, and, you know, the public health and safety and, you know, the co2 pipeline rupture, and Mississippi, where, you know, communities like, you know, this, this is a big, it's a big deal in terms of what people are exposed, exposed to. And with the four corners, sort of always being considered a sacrifice area. It's an incredible place with with lots of great people who deserve better. And so anyway, this, the folks who sort of hit and run us and come in and, you know, grifted out, we'll, we'll continue to deal with them. And it's just that every time you turn around, there's something new something, you know, that is speculative or sounds good, or is shiny and glossy. And I hope that we can succeed and turning this place into a renewable energy center and retire the coal plants. They have created a lot of problems. And you know, maybe in the 1960s and 1970s era when they were built. Maybe we didn't know better, but there's no excuses now.

Dina Rasor: 52:26

Yeah, well, I kind of kind of look at it it is that, you know, besides the persistence, and everything is that you've just have to try to have a good one explanatory website. And I would say, I would suggest, and we'll put up the information on our podcast blog is to people go look at their website and how they've organized and you know, and, Mike, and if you have questions, would you mind if people would email you? With?

Mike Eisenfeld: 52:56

Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Um, Mike, it's and once citizens, that org, and our website is Semaan, citizens.org. And, you know, we're always sort of available. And we also, besides kind of the energy folks that are part of our team, we also have an outstanding communications person. And a lot of folks who have worked on this kind of over the years, it's, it's hard to organize it and tell the story. I mean, even trying to organize for today's podcast, where do you where do you start, and I, I studied history, in college. And so if some people accuse me of like, bringing too much historic stuff into it, but I think that that sort of shapes, you know where we are today.

Dina Rasor: 53:44

We also, as we say, in every one of these podcasts, and climate, you can't afford to waste the money. And we there's no do overs, because we're on we're on a we're on a very tight schedule. And we, you know, when I used to go after the Pentagon, and they'd waste enormous amounts of money, and it hurt national defense, theoretically. But, of course, we weren't fighting in Ukraine or something like that. But this with this, it's real, you know, the money that is wasted isn't just wasted resources, there is no time left. And, of course, if you do bad, do it badly. There'll be people who will use this as an excuse to shut down climate money. So yeah.

Mike Eisenfeld: 54:27

Another thing that sort of should be brought into the equation is sort of the energy and energy, justice and environmental justice issues that are prevalent in places like the four corners where there hasn't been a lot of money or services provided to people who live here. In fact, a lot of the people who live in proximity to the coal plants don't have electricity or running water. And so we've seen some pretty disturbing stuff from it. chant, trying to morph environmental justice to claim that it's really about jobs. And I think it's very self serving on their part to try to make that claim. So in the guest column that was in the Navajo times, April 15, a woman named Ethel branch is running for Navajo Nation president, she said, yet we as a nation have tried extracted development as a source of economic development for a century. And it has never brought us wealth. Instead, extractive development has poisoned our land, water animals and people in the face of COVID-19 minute interval, our loved ones have paid for this with their wives. And yeah, that's the sort of stuff that sort of heartbreaking, right? Because there's a theory that a lot of people here have compromised immune system and living in proximity to the coal plants, a coal plants have transformed this area into kind of a microclimate where a lot of things don't grow anymore. We're Mercury deposition, some of the other things that you mentioned, nitrogen oxide, emissions, creation of ozone, lots of issues. And so for the folks who are kind of coming to us and saying, you know, environmental justice, and energy justice is all about the jobs. There's more to it than that. And I am thankful for the other people that I get to work with kind of in our coalition and teams that can eloquently talk about this better than I can.

Greg Williams: 56:26

Thank you for joining us here today and ask if you had any closing thoughts, but I think the the thoughts that you just offered about how it's more, it's about a lot more than jobs, is a great note to end.

Mike Eisenfeld: 56:40

Yeah, yeah. And well, I, I would just say that, you know, I appreciate you know, like, coming, the way they that y'all come at it, I mean, you know, Pogo was pretty inspirational to me in terms of, you know, like, understanding that there's entities that do that sort of work. I mean, that's another important things. And, you know, we're kind of isolated here in the four corners. So I think it's gonna be really important for there to be kind of collective work done on this whole carbon capture carbon sequestration program, that the government keeps perpetuating, and then also just looking at, you know, ways to sort of actually reform Department of Energy and some of the other entities to transcend government administrations presidential administrations, sort of the same rotten deal where they're just given money that is going off. And, you know, it's kind of like, at what point does that change?

Dina Rasor: 57:47

They will next next, in your next big milestone, the next big victory you have, call us up, and we will have another podcast episode. So we can, you can talk about that. Because I think that all of us need to hear that. I think, the listeners this, we're making this up for climate activists and people to realize the gigantic job we have, and every victory we should explore and celebrate. So make sure you call us up when you haven't. You know, you've done something really big happened, and we will talk about it and do another podcast.

Mike Eisenfeld: 58:25

Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, we definitely will and, and, you know, thanks also to climate money watchdog, you know, you know, thanks. I mean, I think it's really important that, you know, the networking and all of us kind of know each other a little bit more, and I hope that I hope that your podcasts are successful and get a lot of listeners. But, gosh, I mean, what an important thing to be working on what you're doing.

Dina Rasor: 58:55

Okay, well, thanks again.