Ryan Foelske a Carbon Free Electricity Program manager at RMI (previously the Rocky Mountain Institute) decided to put his money where his mouth is by buying a home in Babcock Ranch, a community designed to both reduce human contribution to climate change and to be more resilient to the effects of climate change, especially hurricanes. He tells us about his experience weathering hurricane Ian.
Prior to joining RMI, Ryan worked at Deutsche Bank and Brookfield Asset Management as a buy-side equity analyst specializing in global regulated utilities and other publicly listed infrastructure companies. He built financial models, understood and quantified risks, and sought benchmark-beating returns for investors. In addition to his company coverage duties, Ryan helped develop the modeling framework, standardized and aggregated data outputs, and worked on index construction and inclusion.
As we discuss in the episode, resilience is an area of extensive funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Babcock Ranch has not received any funding under these pieces of federal legislation. Nevertheless we think its resilience measures are worth considering as background for other projects that may receive such funding in the future.
For more information...
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
Ryan Foelske a Carbon Free Electricity Program manager at RMI (previously the Rocky Mountain Institute) decided to put his money where his mouth is by buying a home in Babcock Ranch, a community designed to both reduce human contribution to climate change and to be more resilient to the effects of climate change, especially hurricanes. He tells us about his experience weathering hurricane Ian.
Prior to joining RMI, Ryan worked at Deutsche Bank and Brookfield Asset Management as a buy-side equity analyst specializing in global regulated utilities and other publicly listed infrastructure companies. He built financial models, understood and quantified risks, and sought benchmark-beating returns for investors. In addition to his company coverage duties, Ryan helped develop the modeling framework, standardized and aggregated data outputs, and worked on index construction and inclusion.
As we discuss in the episode, resilience is an area of extensive funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Babcock Ranch has not received any funding under these pieces of federal legislation. Nevertheless we think its resilience measures are worth considering as background for other projects that may receive such funding in the future.
For more information...
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
Thanks for joining us for another episode of climate money watchdog where we investigate and report on how federal dollars are being spent on mitigating climate change and protecting the environment. We're a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that does not accept advertisers or sponsors. So we can only do this work with your support. Please visit us at climate money watchdog.org To learn more about us and consider making a donation. My name is Greg Williams and I learned to investigate and report on waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending. While working at the project on government oversight, or Pogo 30 years ago, I learned to do independent research as well as to work with confidential informants, or whistleblowers to uncover things like overpriced spare parts, like the famous $435 hammers, and weapon systems that didn't work as advertised. I was taught by my co host Dena razor, who founded Pogo in 1981, and founded climate money watchdog with me last year, Dina has spent 40 years investigating and sometimes recovering millions of dollars wasted by the Defense Department and other branches of government, both Pogo and as an independent journalist, author and professional investigator. Dina, would you'd like to say a few words before we introduce our guests.
Dina Rasor:Just a few. It's a Yeah, I'm the old stirrer here 40 years who makes them feel old? It's, it's over 40 years. But well, I found that federal government, the people that try to do this, to cheat the federal government with federal money, they usually have the same kind of patterns. And so the climate money, we started this organization, because we were so concerned that climate and environmental work has not gotten the level of this kind of funding, funding some of the it's not quite Pentagon on size, but it doesn't fit like the Pentagon. But it I can, we can see that there's not a lot of history of oversight, especially in the environmental community. So they're not oh, we're all environmentalists, we're all gonna get along. And but the problem is, of course, there's always the sharks lurking, to figure out a way to get in on the game and not be fair about so we're starting this and I'm really happy to have Ryan and the other thing is that I'm familiar with this area because my grandparents lived in Port Charlotte, which is probably what 10 miles from you 15 miles. So yeah, that's in Florida, Port Charlotte, Florida. So I have a nostalgic interest in and was very sorry to see how much of it got wiped out with the hurricane.
Greg Williams:So our guest tonight is Ryan fall ski, a manager for the carbon free electricity program at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Prior to joining Rmi, Ryan worked at Deutsche Bank and Brookfield asset management as a biocide equity analyst specializing in global regulated utilities and other publicly listed infrastructure companies. He built financial models, understood and quantified risks, and sought benchmark beating returns for investors. In addition to his company coverage duties, Ryan helped develop the modeling framework, standardized and aggregated data outputs and worked on index construction and inclusion. Deena, why don't you tell our listeners why we're excited to have Ryan with us tonight?
Dina Rasor:Okay, well, because we are interested in exploring innovative climate solutions and the money behind them, because they're all you know, there's an awful lot of people say I've got ideas, and I've got this idea and that idea, and we're looking, we're sort of been talking about fraud, the first part of the last 23 things, but we are now starting to talk about because the money is starting to get spent innovation, what works, what doesn't work, the pitfalls of it, and whether you can do it in the private sector, or you can do it with the federal and state money, or a combination of both. And so the Rocky Mountain Institute Rmi, I guess they call themselves now really has we've had two other people on from there and we're very impressed with your your, your the fairness and the even handedness of your work. So, okay, so start out the first the first question I have is, you wrote a very interesting blog piece for Rmi. That caught my attention, partly because it was near where I used to visit my grandparents but the idea that there was a town that was planned in Florida that was sort of right, in the in the gut target of en en, yet you and your family never lost electricity. And that caught my eye. And so to start the ad out, I would love for you to tell the experience of what that was like. And whether you thought you would evacuate the area? Or did you have confidence in your town? Or was it just because you thought it was going to Tampa? So start with that. What tell us tell us the story about when it went through and what it was like and what you what you expected? And what happened?
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, of course. And thanks for having me on. I'm excited to share my story about living through Hurricane Ian. Gosh, was it two months ago already? So the I heard about the storm from a friend who watches these things. And he sent me a text message and said, you know, there's this area of concern you should watch and keep an eye on it might hit you. And you know, I'm from Chicago where we don't really have hurricanes. We have blizzards, you don't really have to do anything for a blizzard. So that was kind of new to me. And when I began seeing it form and get stronger and become, you know, a tropical storm and then a hurricane, it was, like you said expected to go to Tampa. So we said Whoo, we missed that hurricane. All is good here. And you know, the pathway kept getting further south and further south and further south until it basically was right over us in Fort Myers in Port Charlotte. But, you know, the strength of it kept changing because Tampa had been evacuated, like where are we really going to go if we chose to leave. And given our location and kind of the backdrop of Babcock Ranch, which we can talk about a little bit. We were not overly concerned about staying, if you will. And so we, as you said, and we chose not to leave and we chose to stay. As the storm approached, we put up our hurricane shutters, which is a whole new experience. Every window opening and doorway has these big metal panels that you put up, it makes you feel like you're living in a tin can. And but it's the idea is to black projectiles from breaking your windows and keep your family safe. So that was a surreal experience to put those up, be living in the dark, you can really hear the wind as the panel's rattle a little bit. And it's just kind of scary and daunting. And it adds to the ambiance of what's going on outside which you kind of don't know. And the we did all these preparations to get ready for the hurricane as it was Pat's passing over us but before before beforehand to so we had you know, loads of water and canned foods that we were going to eat in the coming days. As the hurricane got closer, we filled up a bathtub with water so we could flush the toilet. As it continued to sit above us, we turned off certain lights hoping that would help the power from going out. Meanwhile, my kids are watching Disney plus they don't know the difference. Life is just a day off of school for them. And they had zero fear. I kept getting cabin fever. So I peeked outside, I taped down the panel on the front door just kind of as much as I was safe just to feel part of the world. But then there was a time where it was just time to shutter in and wait and the winds were measured over 100 miles an hour sustained at our little weather station nearby. And as night came eight hours of these crazy winds. We all just collapsed from exhaustion but we never lost power through the whole thing. We had internet and Disney plus we never lost our water. So filling up our bathtubs was unnecessary in the end, thankfully. And you know we woke up the next day and it was like waking up after a blizzard for those of your listeners who live in that area of the world. But you go out after a blizzard and you're like, are you okay? Are you okay? And he's kind of see your neighbors for the first time and everything is kind of new and fresh. And that's when we really felt and saw the damage that had been done to trees to pool cages. But that was the extent of it in our neighborhood at Babcock ranch. But literally a mile down the road there were there were fallen powerlines there were homes who lost ropes. The river that is four miles down the road had flooded and caused tons of water damage, no waist high and some homes that were closer to the river. And of course the actual damage along the coastline of Florida. And so just kind of being in such a surreal situation where our little development had power had internet had very modest damage. Nothing notable was surreal. That's like the best way to describe it.
Dina Rasor:Okay, then. So everyone's sitting there going why we saw you aren't that far from Fort Myers Beach area contract gorta support Charlotte where they showed all this disaster. But what was it? Why don't you explain that you live in this special community Babcock Ranch, which was the plan the it's a planned community when and why it was able to withstand this when everything else was shredded?
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, so never lose power. Yeah, masterplan communities have certain powers that other developments in cities historically haven't had, in order to, you know, efficiently design and build a city. So they plan you know, the locations of shops and homes and parks and all that stuff, the roads and the infrastructure that goes in Babcock Ranch, up until 2006, was a working ranch. And that's when our developer came in and purchased the land sold a big majority of it back to the state of Florida to be preserved forever. And then kept a certain portion to be developed. His plan was to create this, this town, this sustainable town. So not only is a master plan community, it is a sustainable version of the master planned community. And so the idea is that we can live in harmony with the environment. And so there's environmental factors that have been implemented into the design, including retaining wetlands, for natural drainage of water instead of like having to use pumps and single single pipes that other maybe smaller local developments might have. But also, we've adhered to the strictest version of Florida, green building codes and hurricane safety rules. So all the homes built here can withstand wind gusts up to 160 miles an hour. Homes have Gable hip roofs, which means all four sides are tilted inwards. So it stops some of the wind shear that might hurt homes of other designs. They're all cinderblock homes, which again, is stronger than wood homes. The the design of of other aspects such as the infrastructure, the wires, the pipes, the way we get a water, internet, they're all underground. And so we don't have fallen power lines, because there are no power lines, they're underground. And it was it was done from the start that way. So it was a lot cheaper to do than having to go and take existing power lines and bury them which if you've seen certain utilities around the country tried to do it cost astronomical amounts of money. But to do it from the start, when there's no buildings and no homes, it's a lot more cost effective, especially in Florida, where you might have to restrict those power lines someday when another hurricane comes through. So you know, the combination of all those things, I think really contributed to helping our town survive and not lose power, not lose internet, and really not have meaningful damage to homes and buildings.
Dina Rasor:Okay, and what what technologies and innovations where we talked a little bit about that, but I understand you I understand you have this is 100% Solar community and you have this giant solar field. And then of course, you also have these mega batteries. And so was it that technology that you think that and burying the power lines, which I wish I could do in California because of earthquake proof bringing them down. But were you able to did you think that was innovation of being able to have a giant solar panel field of your own your own electricity, and basically like a micro grid and in your own battery? Was that a big part of it?
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, so we have a solar farm on the outskirts of town or part of the town that can provide power for about 30,000 homes. Today, we only have 2000 homes. And there's like you said a big battery that could provide power for I think it's about eight hours at the current population level. And so given the proximity that we have to that solar farm, which by the way did not lose any panels in the store, which is they have some 700,000 panels and they lost zero during the storm which is fine, but you know mind blowing statistic to me, but yeah, so being so close to a generation source that can like you said be a micro grid. Especially when we consider that can be a micro grid for fractions of seconds that it takes for the power to go out like if when the power lines around us fell. We didn't we could balance load with the batteries. And then the undergrounding meant that our load with stable in the town and didn't cause things to happen that caused power to go out. So basically when Load spikes or changes or a power line goes down and it changes. How much power is flowing. That's kind of what accentuates power outages. And we didn't experience that. And I understand that. Yeah, go ahead. Good. I was just gonna say because of having underground pipe wires, and being so close to generation source, kind of those two things. Yep. Helped us.
Dina Rasor:Okay, sorry, I talked over you. i One thing that I found intriguing about the column that the blog you wrote was that you guys were the only people that were really functioning in that big area and the supermarkets and everything. And so you had sort of a, probably a lot of people who, coming from communities that had no food, no water, no toilet, no plumbing, no, anything. What was it like afterwards? Did you know you were almost like a refugee camp for supermarkets and stuff,
Ryan Foelske:we were our, you know, like I said, we've got about 2000 homes built here. And we've got a little local grocery store, or it's a Publix, but our town's grocery store, no one else from outside, the town usually goes to it. But the Saturday after the hurricane, it was completely full, full of cars that I've never seen before, people from outside whose grocery stores did not have power to not have water, therefore could not be open. And so in that sense, we serve to those people to get them the food that they needed. We have a hurricane shelter in town that was certified the day of the storm, and has people from other areas that were more impaired. I'm
Greg Williams:curious, when it became clear that your local grocery store had power and many of the surrounding ones didn't? Did any of the other stores try to move their inventory to your store so that they would avoid spoiling?
Ryan Foelske:I think so, the shelves were constantly being restocked. And you know, given that some of the Roads and Transport was hard to get more broadly, I think that's exactly what happened is stores within 20 Miles came in and gave us their inventory to serve those people. Which is really cool to see the sharing and how it played out.
Dina Rasor:Okay, so after the hurricane and now you've you say it's been a couple of months? Where could the town actually improve even more scrutiny against hurricanes and other national natural disasters? Do you or do you think you can't think of anything that they could have done better?
Ryan Foelske:So the thing that we were lucky with this storm in our area was we didn't have a bunch of water, I think we had under four inches of rain and the whole experience. And even though our lakes and ponds and drainage systems are designed to take up to 20 something inches of water, I think that has not yet been tested. And in a and in a future storm that could be different. But to the credit of our developer, they have already started working to get ready for that. So we've seen changes happening already they're out looking to expand the storm sewer drains, they are already changing the way the lakes are interconnected to improve the way water flows around the property. And being able to show again that in the next storm, we'll be ready to survive again, even if it's different.
Greg Williams:I perhaps should have made this introduction or earlier in the episode but I I believe everything that we're talking about falls into the general heading of resilience and it's a really important part of the infrastructure law and and other funding you know, we we try to reduce the amount of co2 we're putting into the atmosphere so that we can slow or ideally even halt climate change but in the meantime it pays to undertake efforts to to experience less damage or inconvenience or suffering and that all falls under the heading of of resilience which is what you're describing here so I want our listeners to consider that this is this episode at some level is meant to be a positive example of how resilience funds can be spent as we look forward to the expenditures that have already been authorized and and new legislation that hopefully will fund even more resilience work. I do yeah and I
Dina Rasor:yeah, I don't also I was gonna say because this isn't the last day hurricane I went to things that I noticed have noticed since I you know been been checking Port Charlotte since 1964. All you guys were born when my grandparents moved down there and the storms were not as big and heavy. and whatever. But I remember even back then that the Gulf of Mexico was very warm to swim in. But now it's come become sort of superheated. And once once those once those hurricanes go around the edge of Cuba and hit that water, this was this one and Charlie were both the same kind of hurricanes. They were like, holy cow, this thing is just suddenly it's like a bomb going off. And so this idea of resiliency and whatever, it this is not this was not 100 year storm, there's going to be more and more of these kinds of things. So it's interesting that there's a community that's actually actually thinking ahead, which is a good idea.
Greg Williams:Yeah. And, again, a little bit more context for our listeners, fundamentally, hurricanes derive their energy from warm water. And so the warmer the water is, the more energy that hurricane absorbs, and then the hurricane may exhibit that energy in form of storm surge, precipitation or wind. And, and so I think it's interesting that you point out that you weren't really tested on the, in terms of precipitation or flooding, because that is something that we look forward to with future hurricanes. You know, historically, I think the primary impact of hurricanes has been wind damage, which is why the the hurricane categorization system is based fundamentally on sustained and in peak wind speeds. But as we saw in Houston and Galveston a couple of years ago, really, tremendous amounts of damage can be caused by a sort of new kind of hurricane that just finds a spot that it likes and sits there and pours rain on it for days and days on end.
Dina Rasor:Yeah, okay, that's so how did you end up deciding to move to how long have you been there and Babcock ranch? And you said that it was it was built started being built in 2006. And what what drew you there are the houses? Was it hurricane situation? Or was it just because it was a plant community and you work in you work in renewable energy, and that kind of appealed to you? Are or what other reason that drew you to buy a house there?
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, so like I said, I'm from Chicago, and had been there my whole life. I left my job as a bi side stock analyst to have an RV adventure. And the first place we went in our RV adventure was to Florida, we spent a winter in Florida, and thought it was a cheat code to life, you know, you don't have to put on these winter coats, you don't have to shovel. You can be outside every day in the sun. And it's super comfortable. And by the time we ended our adventure, went back to Chicago for a couple years, we kept every winter saying, man, what if we do that again? Or what if we, you know, decide not to do winter anymore. And during that time, we spent about three years researching where to move in Florida, we're attracted to the west coast for a bunch of reasons that tend to be where Midwesterners settle is part of that. And you know, seeing a sunset is kind of cooler to us than seeing the sunrise over the over the ocean. So I think we looked from Tampa all the way to Naples, if you're familiar with the west coast of Florida, looked at existing towns and new developments, and couldn't quite put our finger on on home. But when we learned about Babcock Ranch, which had the solar farm, it had the sustainable focus. You know, I'd been increasingly getting involved in renewable energy and at the time was about to start my my career at RMI focusing on renewable energy, I thought man wouldn't be cool if the all of my life kind of blended together and rhymed. And made sense. And so, you know, Babcock ranch fit a lot of those things of being a way for life to work and all the pieces, you know, I could live in a sustainable place work in sustainability. And kind of, you know, live the thing that I'm trying to pursue broadly.
Dina Rasor:Well, that's really interesting. I can, I can understand that. And then I also though, I saw that they were there. They're planning to build another 19,000 houses. Exactly. Yeah. So it's gonna, it's gonna go from 2000 Do you think the solar farm is going to have to be expanded to do that and where they're going to put the houses and do you see, I'm sure you watch now the how they developed to make sure they stay true to the fact that they are making it, you know, eco friendly
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, so the solar farm, when it was built was actually sized for the full scale development. So it's large enough to power 30,000 homes, our development is only going to be 19 20,000. So there's excess solar power being produced from the existing solar farm. If and when they expand it, you know, in the future that can only help they, the town, the developer puts out maps of where the new neighborhoods are gonna go kind of where the new schools are gonna go, you can watch as it as the plan unfold in real time.
Greg Williams:So you can have plenty of solar power, but if you only have eight hours of battery life for 3000 homes, are what forgotten what the number was. But if you dramatically increase the number of homes, you're essentially going to be dividing that battery capacity by by that expansion fasters factor rather, so are there plans to expand the battery farm if not the solar farm?
Ryan Foelske:That's one of the misconceptions about Babcock Ranch, even from residents is that all of our power comes from solar all of the time. But as we all know, that sometimes there's this balancing effect. So we are connected to the broader Florida grid. And we we draw power from the grid at times, mostly at night. And so as we grow, we won't need to rely on the batteries alone, because we do draw power from the grid. So yes, yes, is the answer your question, they, I hope they do expand the batteries. But also, if they don't, we will still have power. And as Florida Power and Light is one of the leaders in pursuing a netzero utility of the future. Hopefully, our power becomes increasingly clean from the grid at large as well.
Dina Rasor:And just to get an idea, because everyone, I saw something today that said, Only billionaires are going to survive climate change, because they've got the money to move and build and you know, build a fortress and everything that you would need, but what? So we sort of feel like, well, you know, an average per average homeowner can, what's the range of prices in the houses there?
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, great question. The you can, you can get a two bedroom, two bath condo for right around 300,000. Right now. Single family homes can be built for 350 to 400,000. And up. And if you are one of those higher end people, you can build a home for one to $2 million, as well. And so I think it's that's one of the things that drew me here as well is that there is a pretty broad affordability factor. There are people who work in all sorts of jobs that live here, actually, it's a lot of remote workers, but there are a lot of tradesmen. And that makes fair really, for what it is it's a diverse place to live.
Dina Rasor:Okay. And I wanted to ask you also what kind of land was the solar field built on? Because there's always this, you know, thing of, like in California, where we've been building, we have brownfields, you know, fields that aren't they're not Superfund sites, but they're things that you'd have to do an enormous amount of abatement if you ever wanted to use them. And we've been putting solar panels on those because then you only have to worry about the work the workmen, and the people who maintain it have to be careful not to stir up dust and whatever. But it's not someplace you want to go rent your dog have your kids play. So what kind of land was the one that I saw a picture of the solar farm? It's quite impressive. And did they end up cutting down any forests, or wetlands or anything to be able to put that so because that's a that's a big question now is solar energy.
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, the the solar farm is, you know, this area was a big ranch. And so I think there was a mix of heavily forested areas in addition to kind of more cleared spaces for for the ranch activities to take place. The if you drive by the solar farm now, which you can do, it doesn't appear to be overly cleared. I'm sure they cleared some amount of trees. To be fair, there have been trees cleared for the development of the neighborhoods in this town as well. But I think it's something like two thirds of the land, even under the development section is going to be retained for green spaces for forests for preserve and park so it's not. And again, I think this is not as bad as some developments, but it's also not perfect. And there's a balance to be found as communities like this come up and being better than average as being a leader. Okay,
Dina Rasor:another issue that comes up is Florida's one of the flattest places I've ever seen in my life. I remember as a little kid, and my grandmother loved riding her bike around there because there were no hills, because she'd come from an hilly area. Just one little bridge, you know, she called it the big hill. So you you're not very far above sea level, you're inland a little bit more than places like Port Charlotte. But what's going to happen? Do you have any Did they have any plans on the the problem with the with rising water levels due to climate change, of course, that would be rising water levels from the ocean. So that would be bringing also being bringing in more briny saltwater, is there is head to town address that at all.
Ryan Foelske:That was part of the reason that they chose to develop in this location versus somewhere else is that we are 30 feet above sea level, which doesn't sound like a lot. But for Florida, that's a really high place to be. We're also you know, 15 to 20 miles from the coast. And so as sea levels rise as things like that happen, we're far enough inland and high enough that this town will be okay. Yeah, the more coastal areas won't. And related to this is a really interesting point about because how well we fared during the hurricane, the end the insurance market that has happened, and maybe we could talk, talk about this later. But we're looking to create our own insurance zone because of how well we fared. And the robustness. And, you know, given where we are, instead of being lumped in with all of this area, where it kind of a special area, if you will,
Dina Rasor:you will Yeah, I mean, insurance companies are pulling out Florida, you know, because there's like, you know, we're done. There's too many hurricanes too many times, you know, kind of thing goes, that's, that's a big problem. I think I'm beginning to think that as climate change advances, we may end up having things like federal government took over flood insurance, because nobody wanted to do it. So of course, then you have all these very big expensive houses on the long East Coast that keep getting pulverized by storms, and the federal government pays to have it rebuilt in the bottom and then they rebuild them right on top of the thing. And that's just normal, you know, sand erosion, but as the, as the water begins to rise, interestingly enough, in places like the Outer Banks of North Carolina and some of these barrier islands, they they are now starting to buy into the workers towns that are further inland, the rich people are moving there, and then the the workers and people that maintain the place are ending up more towards the coast, which makes it probably a problematic because then they don't they, you know, they would have more time doing that. So is that a is Are any of the other towns around there like Punta Gorda and, and Port Charlotte, those places which have a lot of, you know, recreational canals your houses are on that was a big thing in the 60s they put a lot of canals in, and those houses are just not you're introducing a little rivers of water everywhere around these houses. And is that going to be a problem? Problem with the insurance companies or anybody being able to, to rebuild those towns that have been so slaughtered?
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, I think it would have to be. And if you you know that this issue is first brought to me when I was on my RV trip, and I went to Biloxi after one of the hurricanes had hit that area. And I was like, Wow, what a cool property. This is right across from the beach. Why isn't there like a house rebuilt? And, you know, you look into it, and it's oh, well, the insurance costs for this house, no matter what you build, there's like $8,000 a year, even for, you know, a very modest home, not, you know, large home and like, well, that's why it's not going to be rebuilt. And so the insurance market has to adjust to you not serve that area, it'd be interesting to see how it plays out.
Dina Rasor:So it's sort of like having a very expensive car. The more expensive your car is the wired people say, oh, you know, I'd love to have a car like that. I wouldn't want to pay the insurance on that car. Because you know, the more expensive or the bigger the engine, the more the insurance goes up. And this is sort of the same thing, as I'm just wondering how they're gonna how they're gonna rebuild. Okay. Can you think bulk? Babcock ranch can be duplicated in areas that don't have the same amount of sunlight is from Florida. And are there pieces of the Bob babcox invasions that would work in other communities like, Could you be Bad Cop as community in Chicago,
Ryan Foelske:I think you can incorporate a lot of the ideas and it would make a big difference. One of the really fascinating things about Babcock Ranch is that it automates sustainability resiliency without people even knowing or feeling it. For example, a lot of people ride golf carts around town, because you can get to downtown, you can get to the school, get to the grocery store, all within a mile, mile and a half. And so because of that, we've reduced our miles driven. But it's also more fun, because if you ride on a golf cart, you're smiling the whole time. And so the way that the way that we design cities can change, and take lessons from this have things more, instead of the neighborhoods, miles away from the services, and the stores make everything smaller, more local. So as areas in Chicago are around there, develop and redevelop, I think incorporating those lessons making areas more walkable, or more bicycle liberal. It's tougher in Chicago because of weather. But I think those lessons do a lot of impact and have a lot of impact that we don't really think about, because it's not these big fancy solar farms that that catch headlines, but it also has a big impact.
Dina Rasor:So probably in a place like Chicago, I'm just using it because it's such a huge extreme from Florida, the mountain but the biggest problem, I think with Chicago, you get a lot of wind off the lakes and stuff at the is the power lines going down in but the heavy snow, I think that's you know, and then it becomes dangerous, really dangerous, because it's so cold, you know, when you don't have ability to to heat and you're fine things. So I was just thinking that, that probably each each community has to decide where are we the most vulnerable? Is there a technology we can do something with, for example, if you lived somewhere in Chicago, and you couldn't really change the sprawl, you could at least put the powerlines under underground.
Ryan Foelske:I just think related to that, you can do that yourself too. You can make your own. If you put solar panels on your roof, if you have an electric car, you can kind of be your own micro grid, you can add your own resiliency, no matter where you live, and incorporate some of the things of being more resilient, being more independent of whatever's going on outside of your home.
Greg Williams:So that said, I'm going to encourage our listeners to go to Google Maps and look at that Babcock ranch. You know, if ever there was an example of something that was big enough to be seen from space, that solar farm is certainly it. And so I can only imagine that that it's it's going to be difficult to implement exactly that model in places that are already relatively densely settled.
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, and that's something that is the challenge, right, of even the areas of Florida that will need to be rebuilt. Hopefully to take some of the lessons maybe as it's being rebuilt underground, the power lines underground, that utility services, put smaller stores along the way.
Dina Rasor:And we you know, we have plenty of sunlight here in California, but we also limited land. And one thing that we're saying is we do not want to cover the Central Valley where all the vegetables in the country are with solar panels. So there is a real push. California has always been sort of a cutting edge on that. And, you know, obviously, you know, I've had 40 years of experience when I was in college, Jerry Brown, the first time he was governor when he was the youngest governor versus the oldest governor. He did something that the the utilities this fought and fought and fought. And he said if you put you know, solar panels back in the late 1970s, were very effective, but they they not like they are today. But he said if you put solar panels on your roof, and you hitch it into the grid, pg&e the Pacific Gas and Electric how if you make more than you use, they have to buy it from you. In other words, the excess goes in back into the grid, and they have to buy it for you. And so that was a huge thing to come up and boy, they fought it and everything else. But here we are, you know, almost 45 years later. Still benefiting from that right now I am selling back in these very sunny areas. And I think the utilities have finally decided that it's cheaper to go ahead and buy that kind of electricity and then try to build another plant which would take years you know, whether it's nuclear or or natural gas, natural grass, gas or anything else. So So I'm just wondering if you can see what kind of economic and climate issues that would prevent replications of parts of Babcock Ranch, it was Bobcat Babcock ranch sounds like a little utopia, because you got to do it all at once on thing, but what is it that what's the economic? You know, you, especially since you're in the economics, what is the economic issues? That can that are going to be troublesome for for people to try to replicate the resilience that you have?
Ryan Foelske:Yeah. And I think you hit on one of the big issues, which is this available land. And there's, in order to build a solar farm, maybe further away from where people live requires then building the power lines to bring it there. That's its own big issue of nobody wants power lines in their backyard. And one of the solutions, as you said, is to make the power generated hyper locally. That's net metering is a big debate happening should what the situation you described where the utility pays you, should that occur, at what rate should you get reimbursed or paid for the power you produce? Florida actually, recently, I think, in 2022, had had a big bill get vetoed by the governor, that would have been net metering. And so it saved net metering for customers. So its customers can still now sell power at the full retail price back to the company. But the real issue of creating areas like this is, is this whole, there's not enough grid infrastructure is the real bottom line. We if we built enough solar somewhere to deliver this kind of power, if it was underground, that's great, but that's going to cost a lot of money. And utility bills are already one of the larger bills that people face. We have a calculator at RMI on. It's called energy burden how much people spend by income group on their electric bill. And it's really fascinating to explore how that is different around the country. And I think those are the limiting factors and figuring out how we are going to equitably pay for a transition to a low carbon future is a big challenge.
Dina Rasor:Another thing we do in California, and I'd be interested to see if you do this in Florida, and you live in Florida, and especially live in California, where there's not a lot of humidity. So sunlight is very intense. When you come out of a store and you get in your car. You finalist like you're going to be cremated. It is so hot. And you you want to have cloth seats, you know, leather seats, and and you can't barely touch the steering wheel. And, of course, California having been brought up in the 60s and 70s as being you know, very big car. Car. Friendly. Kia centered, yes. The local little community energy power that does ours came up with putting it solves two problems. Three actually three problems putting solar canopies over all the parking lots, and then putting a solar panels on those. So that one the car does not get that hot. So then of course you don't have to use all the electric or gasoline to cool it down. And to it's getting, you know, it's making a lot of energy. Because that's, you know, you think about a shopping mall and how much parking space there is that could be covered. And then the third thing is that the end of each one of these they put in charging stations, and they actually can some of these canopies are big enough that they can be charging stations from those solar panels. And so I'm just thinking that you have you seen that at all in Florida, because that's, I'm sort of disappointed that California Well, California isn't doing more, I think they're gonna start doing more because it's such a smart idea.
Ryan Foelske:It really is. We've all the commercial buildings in our town have solar panels on them, and there are charging stations spread throughout the town for electric vehicles. And then even you know, expanding the scope a little bit there are more and more covered areas with solar panels, but I would say it makes sense to do it more. We have solar trees in our town, which are kind of cool to see. It's just Yeah. But the coolest thing that I've seen is in California to cover that the aquadex with solar panels, which reduces the amount of water that's lost. It's kind of the virtuous circle.
Dina Rasor:And they're also finding that they there's crops that they can do in a central valley because you know, unfortunately the central valleys turning into, you know, 110 114 degree days. And so that's frying a lot of the fruits and vegetables stuff, we finally came up with the idea of let's put the solar panels, you know, keep the solar panels one tractor with heart and grow and they're growing crops under the solar panels and they grow bigger because and they use less water because they are not that some of these things are not native. And so they can't stand this kind of horrible dry season with no rain.
Greg Williams:So speaking of water, I'm curious to what extent Babcock Ranch is, is self contained or dependent on adjacent communities either in terms of the potable water coming in? And for lack of a better term, let's say the non potable water going out? Like do you have your own water purification and waste treatment facilities, that's all part of the community.
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, the community has its own water utility that manages and creates our potable water, they've got retention ponds, and all of all of the infrastructure required. And we are actually a net discharger of water. And there are certain requirements that Florida has in terms of discharging water, and we meet and exceed all of them by design. The other notable thing is that the we're very proud of not having algae blooms in our lakes, because of the way that we treat our plants and soil and don't have some of the nitrogen related effects that other areas have in their in their lakes. And we don't have bubblers. It's just by design again,
Dina Rasor:why that was so heartbreaking to me on that coast, when they they released to the inner state canals from Lake Okeechobee, they released all that water and it just turned the west coast into I remember, there was a natural red tide when I was a kid, we have to step over the piles of fish to get in. But what it's what the red tides are getting worse and worse, and Manatees are starving. And you know, all this kind of stuff because of these big algae blooms, which should should not be put in the ocean going is there is that one of the reasons that you guys did that. And so you wouldn't have any drainage to the ocean that would have algae.
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, we're just trying, again, like Babcock ranch in in a is a great example of what you can do to automate living a sustainable version of a modern life without kind of noticing. And by design, we don't discharge dirty water, enough water of the certain kind to cause those problems.
Greg Williams:I want to make sure I understand how you're using the term automate, I think usually when we think of automation, you know, we're thinking machinery and robots or, or computer logic, what it sounds like you're talking about is simply designing things so that they passively don't have the negative effects that that, you know, more typical forms of infrastructure do.
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, it's automation in at the grand scale at a design level scale, where, you know, again, if if you can walk to school in a faster amount of time than it takes to drive you're gonna walk. And so that's one design example of, of just automating the decision making it easier to not drive so to reduce your emissions that way. The way that the lakes are interconnected kind of automates the risk of flooding, without anyone having to actively do anything.
Greg Williams:And perhaps more importantly, with it without the input of electrical or other kinds of power.
Ryan Foelske:Exactly other other power. You can live here and not even know that you're living in a sustainable community. Because you know, your lights turn on when you flip the switch. You have internet like you don't your homes feel like like normal homes, but then when we're challenged by the storm by the hurricane, we perform differently than other places.
Greg Williams:Then I guess that the last kind of sustainability question that I wanted to ask you about is how our homes and other buildings heated. He
Dina Rasor:isn't air conditioned.
Greg Williams:air conditioned I sort of take for granted is going to involve electricity, but we've we've already sort of addressed that but are there no circumstances where you where you do buildings simply not have radiators? We do have some real hardcore Yankee question. The real thing
Ryan Foelske:that is heated though is pools. And pools do have heaters and for that I've got an electric heat pump. And so it keeps my pool well above ambient temperatures. And it's the same concept I think that you're asking about is there's an electric way to heat things, whether it's air or, or water.
Dina Rasor:Or most of your house is heated by electricity instead of natural gas or something, or else,
Ryan Foelske:all the homes are heated by electricity. Because you don't use it much that it's like the really old version of electric key. It's not that nice heat pump version of electric heat, but I've used it once in the 18 months I've lived here. But it really is not a thing. That I would say maybe a quarter of homes do have natural gas service. That was a concession made to get home builders and get people to live to move here because it's seen as a luxury good.
Greg Williams:But mostly for fireplaces and cooking, or
Ryan Foelske:it's mostly for cooking. Yes. There's a certain group of folks who think that electric cooktops aren't as fun to to cook with as guests cooktops. But if you've used the latest induction stoves, I think you'll be very impressed.
Dina Rasor:Well, I also think anybody with young children is crazy to have a gas stove anymore. I see all these people, you know, when these big houses that I know, they, they buy these unbelievably expensive electric gas stoves, and burners and everything, and it's constantly leaking stuff that can cause childhood asthma. And so you know, you've just got to finally decide, you know, this just isn't going to work. And I think the the induction stones really have to come down a little bit. So I'm just stunned. I'm hoping that California and the federal government and that kind of thing. That and that reminds me of a question I had not asked you. How has there was there any federal or state money grants, given went to build this community? Or and is there in the past the present? And do they have a future of interesting of bringing federal money, incentive money and state incentive money? Can California the state instead of money is big, but I don't think Florida is step wedded to it. But is there any kind of government money involved? Or is this all completely private?
Ryan Foelske:So the way that this area was put together, it was a huge, complicated real estate transaction where the developer bought all of the land and then sold 70% of it back to the state. So in that sense, there was some amount of state, not a, necessarily, they probably paid the market price, but state involvement in, in getting this parcel into what it is today. There was private money built the solar farm with with the the local utility. And there's some amount of innovative things. So we were looking in working on having these driverless electric, personal taxis of sorts where you on an app, you could call a driverless taxi to pick you up and take you to certain places. And that was done with a government, I believe, a doe loan of sorts, you know, in small, smaller amounts. There's a innovative series of homes, that is exploring using gray water being a little bit more robust in your off grid capabilities. And those are done in partnership with private capital. So it's with the national home builders, it's with, you know, utilities, again, in figuring out ways to explore home resiliency. But to my knowledge, there is not large scale federal money.
Dina Rasor:i One of the things I think that might happen is that obviously this was built before the heat pump situation really took off. And he bunts in the 60s, so expensive. But I can imagine that at some of these people who have even electric heat, like electric heat, and or, you know, to do that would want to take incentives from the government to switch over to the and maybe switch over to the more bang, but there are there solar panels on the houses at all.
Ryan Foelske:Some homes do, I would say it's, I don't know, a quarter give or take of homes have solar panels, which I think is somewhat normal for that area of the country, maybe even the country at large. Penetration is shockingly low in the state of Florida. I was at a recent utility investor conference and Florida is well below average in terms of solar rooftop penetration where
Dina Rasor:there's not really there's not a lot of state money, incentive. Right. So anything that occurred you there would be it has to be federal, because California almost tries to outdo the Feds every time that's sort of
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, and I think what we're seeing where the inflation reduction act plays through and X celebrate some of the rooftop solar benefits. There's huge programs, as I think, you know, at the DoD in getting some of these things done more effectively and cheaply for consumers and hopefully accelerates the transition to a net zero economy.
Dina Rasor:Okay, good. Well, is there anything else you would like to add? that we haven't covered?
Ryan Foelske:No, I just would love to say that. You know, Babcock Ranch is a unique place. And there are a lot of lessons to unpack. And I think the biggest one is that you can automate in a broad sense, as we've talked about living a sustainable version of a very modern life without even knowing that you're doing anything different than anybody else. And that is done at like a city level. And it's excited to see how this shakes. shakes out.
Dina Rasor:Okay, good. Well, I encourage people to go to when we put this up next week, this podcast, I'm encouraged people to go to our blog page, our main page, which has our blog in it, and we'll have all the connection, all the things that to your article, your article was really interesting to read, and kind of really caught my eye. And also, of course, I encourage people to go to rmi.org, if you want to see some really good reports, I learned so much every time I go to your you guys, websites, because you guys are, you're you're really on the cutting edge, but you're not crazy. I mean, you you're very realistic.
Ryan Foelske:Yeah, and I'll just make a plug for Rmi. We have a team of 60 people who cover us electric utilities and the the energy sector, in addition to a bunch of other programs that are in my hands that have, again, really incredible work being done. But as the utilities person, it's fascinating, all the areas that we cover, all the way from the consumer side of things to community groups, and regulators all the way through investors, which is where I spend my time trying to link our work to investors. And there's a lot of exciting stuff coming and going on. And if you just want to get overwhelmed with learning about the utilities industry, yeah, go to rmi.org.
Greg Williams:Absolutely. I mean, we we've had a number of our my guests on the show before, we've enjoyed having you and we look forward to having more in the future. So thank you very much. Oh, go ahead.
Dina Rasor:Let me let me encourage you to, if you come up with something new to or if you end up falling, finding a whistleblower, then we're whistleblower experts. So you find anybody that really knows there's a problem going on. And this is kind of not what you do send them to us. And and that's for the audience, too. Because our job is to, is to expose when things go wrong. And we've never got I've never had anybody caught and fired in 40 years. So I know, I know how to hide your identity. But I just encourage you that and I encourage you to contact us if you see there's some breakthrough that you'd like to come back on.
Ryan Foelske:Excellent. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I look forward. Thanks again.