Citizens Prevail over Venture Capitalists and Carbon Capture - Mike Eisenfeld

In this climate fight will Big Fossil Fuel, it is hard and rare to have a clear-cut victory. The last time we did a podcast episode with Mike on 7/12/22, his group was fighting to prevent a closing coal-based power plant in Farmington, New Mexico from reinventing itself to keep open using the questionable technology of Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). This was described a June 29, 2022 High Country News article. A company named Enchant led this effort with the backing of financial groups to force this unproven technology through to keep the highly polluting plant open. Once they could not raise enough money privately, they were trying to get federal money to keep the plant going. However, this did not work out and the activists like Mike kept pushing to stop it. Last month, Enchant abandoned its efforts. We wanted to have Mike back on the program to explain what led to the closing of this plant for good and to explore and celebrate the loss of one less coal power plant.

Mike points out that this project was billed as a “demonstration project”, intended to show the potential of carbon capture and sequestration as an approach to combatting climate change. Back in December of 2021, the General Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report titled, “Carbon Capture and Storage: Actions Needed to Improve DOE Management of Demonstration Projects” which showed essentially no success among demonstration projects. Of eight projects, for which we, as taxpayers, paid $684 million, only one achieved operational status. That one plant operated for only three years, closing due to economic infeasibility.

Eisenfeld questioned when DOE and companies promoting these projects will be held accountable for this poor track record. Within the aforementioned report, DOE was described as addressing this by creating a dedicated Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. After waiting nearly a year, the Biden administration appointed David Crane, the CEO of NRG, the company in charge of Petra Nova, one of the failed carbon capture projects described in the GAO report.

Climate Money Watchdog will be following up on this and other appointments relevant to environmental spending.

Transcript

Gregory A. Williams: 0:10

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 are a nonprofit, private, 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 to consider making a donation. My name is Greg Williams, and I learned to investigate 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 spare parts, like the infamous $435 hammers, and expensive military weapon systems that didn't work as advertised. I was taught by my colleague, 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, while at Pogo, as an independent journalist, as an author, and as a professional investigator. Dina, would you like to say a few more words?

Dina Rasor: 1:34

Yeah, we're gonna go back we're gonna go through. We've got Mike Eisen Feld on today, and he's come has come back from the when he did a podcast with us in July with some, you know, as good as nerdy as you get when you're trying to take on big fossil fuel. But one of the reasons I wanted to have him back on is that he, he works with the San Juan environmental group. And up in Farmington, New Mexico, and they were trying to, there was a coal based power plant. And it was supposed to be retired out. And some people with money came in and made his company name and chant. And they kept saying, Oh, we can keep it open. They told the logos, we can keep it open. Because we're going to use carbon capture and sequestration. Anybody who listens to our podcast regularly knows that we are having a hard time finding anything, anything good that really works about carbon capture. And it even though it's being pushed, and it is taking up probably almost about half of the money that's going to to you know, quote, clean energy. But what happened is this company and tried to get financial groups and everybody was doing, do it. And then they talking about getting federal money, state money that didn't work. And they finally surprisingly, suddenly, in the middle of December, said, Okay, we're gone. And we're going to in the plant is going to close. And I'm just I'm giving the nickel sketch. But why the reasons I wanted to talk to Mike today and have him back on is to talk about what led to the plant closing for good and exporting to celebrate landless coal power plant, but there's always ask starts to that. And we'll also talk about what's next. So that's, I'm being I'm being giving the short talk on it. So but just for those people who may not have heard our podcast, with Mike Gregg, maybe you want to introduce him in his background.

Gregory A. Williams: 3:50

Sure. I also want to just recognize that we're recording this episode on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And I like to see the work that Mike has done as being an example of how grassroots organizing can still do really important things. And it's a it's simply my way of honoring the idea that activism can help communities seek justice. So Mike, sorry, I thought I had my notes in front of me. So, my guys and Phil, as some of you may remember, is San Juan Citizens Alliance, Energy and Climate program manager. Mike joined us JCA in 2006, following 10 years as an environmental consultant in the Four Corners region of New Mexico. Mike works on energy issues including coal, oil and gas, air quality and public lands. He specializes in the the National Environmental Policy Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and Endangered Species Act Campbell. Lyons. Mike is a Bachelor of Arts from Bates College and a Master of Arts and environmental policy and management from the University of Denver. Okay,

Dina Rasor: 5:11

well welcome, Mike. And is there anything that we've talked about you'd like to clarify or expand on before I start act acts asking the questions.

Mike Eisenfeld: 5:21

Yeah. Well, thank you very much. And thank you for having me. I'm honored to be associated with people who have devoted their life to oversight of projects and wasteful situations with taxpayers and I certainly know Pogo very well and but anyway, thanks to climate money watchdog for having me. Last time I was on I talked about the San Juan Generating Station, which is one of the two very large coal fired power plants just west of Farmington, New Mexico, San Juan generating station was built in 1972, came online in 1973. So basically a 50 year old coal fired power plant at the nine owners decided to retire to the plant in 2022. And and that was in 2017. So our group, the San Juan Citizens Alliance, said, Hey, you know, we have got a five year window for planning when it comes to energy transition, just transition environmental justice, transition to renewables. But in 2019, the city of Farmington which is a 5%, owner is Mr. Generating Station said, Oh, we have partnered with a hedge fund called Acme equities, a two person closet office, New York hedge fund with no money to try to do carbon capture carbon sequestration and keep San Juan Generating Station open. And that was greeted in our community by Oh, wow, that's fantastic news. You know, we knew that someone would save San Juan generating station. But our organization, you know, then that became sort of a challenge to us to sort of evaluate and inventory all the aspects of how this would happen. First and foremost, there was an alarm or red flag that, you know, Acme equities really had no money. And our over our oversight of documents, including the operating permit led us to believe that the city of Farmington is a 5% owner would have to take over the other 95% ownership of the San Juan generating station. So anyway, we inventory like all the permits are going to be required all the aspects of transfer all the aspects, especially with power purchase agreements, the plant as a 50 year old plants falling apart, so they would have to be like a major major investment. And so we sort of held on to that inventory for a couple years. And internally, you know, had to listen to all the rhetoric about how, you know there was a plan to move forward on this facility. And so, over the past three or four years, Acme equities after we paraded them for being like wily Coyote. They changed energy. And then, you know, we started doing things like Freedom of Information Act requests to see how they were reporting. They received two federal grants, one for a front end engineering design study, to see if, if they could even do this on do if they get it put the carbon capture technology on the facility, this old and then they also got a grant for the carbon Safe Program, which is the carbon assurance storage facility enterprise, which is basically finding a place to store six to 7 million tons per year of carbon dioxide. And so both of these both of these grants, they seem like a lot of money, but then you start bringing in all the subcontractors and a lot of the subcontractors like Mitsubishi and I think slumber J and Halliburton and a bunch of consultants a lot of a lot of different entities feeding at the trough. And in in that money, I believe, went pretty quickly. But the front end engineering design study was delayed. The carbon safe project never found a place for carbon capture carbon sequestered. Sequestration to occur and of the $1.6 billion that was believed to be solely going. The only reported investment that we can find for enchant energy was$100,000. And so on. December 20. We were fairly surprised but the city of Farmington was the first one out saying that Did they were giving up on the project. And this had to do with, they were trying to take legal action against the other owners to either other owners who want to decommission and demolish and reclaim the site. And I think that they saw the writing on the wall that they were going to incur on tons of legal fees, and they were going to lose. And then the next day and chant energy said, oh, yeah, we've given up on this project, too. But we're still going to pursue carbon capture projects, and we have a whole bunch in the works. And then we asked them, well, what are the prices? Oh, that's confidential. So, um, I guess, you know, for us, it's just sort of perpetuates the failure of all these carbon capture carbon sequestration projects, it coal fired power plants, that are considered demonstration projects by the government. And I think it's time to, to fully and completely say that the demonstration projects have failed.

Gregory A. Williams: 10:56

So I just wanted to ask, how far into the process can you get without applying for permits and doing all of the things that create a public record? In other words, how far could these how far along? Could these projects really be if they are completely confidential?

Mike Eisenfeld: 11:16

Well, I mean, for us, you know, like back in 2019, you know, these two to two guys, Jason self. And Lauren's Heller showed up and said, you know, we're energy experts, and we're, we're the hedge fund or owners, so we're gonna make this happened. And we kind of were like, who are you? And what and what, okay, right, you know, sure. 2019 to 2022, or 2023, with a project kickoff, a five year process, you better start getting your permits right away. So, as is 2019 turned into 2020 2021. We were we're we're watching real carefully, because I mean, there's a lot of permits that will require public involvement in scoping. And that's one of the that's one of the foundations of the small group that I work for send one citizens alliances that we expect there to be robust public involvement. And then, you know, a project like this has so many moving parts, and so many, so many design criteria that need so much design criteria that needs to be coordinated into the permits. And so you're also multi jurisdictional here, because a lot of the project would have crossed tribal land, it would have crossed federal land, state land, private land, I mean, there's a lot of jurisdictional issues. And so, you know, when these folks kind of came into town, is Acme equities and said, Hey, we're, you know, we're energy experts like, oh, Surely not. Like, like coming 22 We were convinced basically, that, you know, there's no way that they could get in into permits and they, they readily identified, capture carbon sequestration equipment would not be on the sale and generation until 2027. So the sale and generating station closed in September 2022. And all the other owners were ready for it to be done when they want it off their books. They want it decommissioned. And there's a real value in that to the utilities that have decided to abandon this facility. And they abandon it because it was an economic loser, that they can no longer produce coal in economic fashion for the utilities that include California, historically, Arizona, Utah, you know, it's the classic energy export and the utilities that we kind of we intervened and a bunch of abandonment processes particularly Republic service company in New Mexico and we secured renewable energy replacement so that's where we're going in the San Juan Basin.

Dina Rasor: 14:08

Okay, and my understanding that with their arbitration going on because the owner the most of the owners wanted to liquidate the plant and its equipment and all that and and then what they did you know, which would be a hard thing to piece back together. If for some reason this sort of pipe dream of carbon capture came back and then that was one of the reasons that enchant decided to blow because and go somewhere else possibly. Probably also didn't like being watched. Like, there but also it's interesting to me that enchant is still going to keep their headquarters in Farmington, what's that all about? Because they don't have it? Are they are they planning some kind of other local thing that you don't know about?

Mike Eisenfeld: 14:56

Um, well, that I mean, they could be they could be I'm knowing kind of the people who've taken over it and chant. They're like Utah utility people who took over for the hedge funders who are nowhere to be found. So there were the two hedge funders, Heller, and sell two were then joined by a guy named Peter Mandelstam, and they've all left town, I think they grabbed them money that they couldn't get out of here. And now, there's a lady named Cindy crane used to be Rocky Mountain Power. And I'd be believed Pacific Corp. And I don't think that she's really paying attention to like the details, because in my opinion, I think that they would probably say something like, well, we have a field study for San Juan generating station. So let's like move that over to four corners power plant across the San Juan River. But it doesn't really work that way. And then I think that they have sort of hid under this idea that a lot of their projects are confidential. And I, I think until they come clean, and kind of say, hey, here are the real projects. What our organization does is we get engaged as soon as the project is announced. And then we started looking into all the permitting mechanisms, all the design criteria, all the potential power purchase agreements, utility, utility world can be real wonkish. But we track that pretty, pretty, pretty readily. They may have another project that they've concocted, but I would say it's probably on a 10 year, seven to 10 year permitting timeline. And I think that, you know, that's not the issue here in San Juan Basin. The issue in the San Juan Basin is what comes now.

Dina Rasor: 16:41

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's one of the things I wanted to ask you. What was the reaction to the local officials and you know, some of the citizens in your area who worried about the jobs, what was their reaction that this plant was really was closing? Did they suddenly have this jolt of oh, these hedge fund people aren't going to come back in and save us? And is anybody asking what's next? Who was for the plant but has now realized that they have to try to make up the economy in another way?

Mike Eisenfeld: 17:15

No, I you know, this. The mayor, and the city manager sort of came up with some, you know, justification, that you know, they gave it their best shot and the energy transition act and public service company in New Mexico are one of the reasons that enchant couldn't have their great project and then they quickly kind of came in and said, Well, you know, we'll replace it with a with natural gas. And again, you know, the city of Farmington has ownership and sandwich generation is very minor 43 megawatts. So what's interesting is that they're willing to like pay for the most expensive natural gas facility that that they want next, and totally overlooking renewable energy and the cost effectiveness. So um, but to me, like the community already knew, you know, that this that this enchant project was going nowhere in public meetings have been to their were had to do with carbon dioxide emission standards at San Juan generating station that state of New Mexico had, there was no opposition to the idea that seminar generalization was closing, I think the community has come to grips with the fact that it's done.

Dina Rasor: 18:29

I've always been surprised about the fact it's a new term for me is that your area and the Permian Basin and other places in New Mexico are considered sacrifice zones. And they call them that because they just say, Well, you know, the environment, the people and everything are gonna have to be sacrificed. Because we have to have this oil and gas. And when I talked to Kaylee shoop, who's an activist down in the Permian Basin, in New Mexico, and they have a down near Carlsbad, they have a giant thing and when we talked to her and her podcast was the week last week before this one aired, and she was saying that it is so it's still easy to get oil and gas out of the Permian Basin, it's still very economical to do it. And so therefore, that makes it very hard for her and but you've gotten a situation where it's getting less and less and less and it reminds me of the Cook Inlet, Alaska oil gas leases, where President Biden had a big big auction for and nobody came. And then the big the big oil companies didn't come the one small oil company with the you know, because you said that they're bomb gold in your community to date. They just did one little small part. And it really was sort of the attitude, I think it would have been a combination of. It's very, it's getting very hard and expensive and Alaska to go up there and try to get things done. There's also a pushback from the community and environmentalists, and it just wasn't economic. And so you're sort of, I think, sort of in between Alaska and the Permian Basin, you probably still have some income from that. But then you're starting starting to talk about transitioning. And do you think that you're as far as you being able to convince the people or the the officials around you in the population around you that you need to have a trans transition to clean energy? That that'd be easier for you to do then for Kaylee? Shoop, in the Permian Basin?

Mike Eisenfeld: 20:52

Yeah, no, Kelly's wonderful, I admire, you know, the work, but the Permian Basin in that that's just a, that's boom, boom town. You know, the Four Corners area was designated the National Energy sacrifice zone in 1972, by President Nixon's project independence. And at that point, you know, that was when the San Juan generating station just been built in the four corners power plant had been built in 1962. And those two facilities are probably responsible for places like Phoenix, Southern California, the energy export associated with quote, quote, clean energy from coal fired power plants where, you know, nobody really thought too much about it. But in the Four Corners area where we're getting all the externalities, and according to project independence, this area was devoid of culture. And also, because we get less than 10 inches of precipitation per year, the National Academy of Sciences said, Yeah, you know, might as well just sacrifice it. And so I think that over the past, you know, 15 years, I've worked for satellite systems science for 16 years. And we've learned from fighting new proposed coal fired power plants, like desert rock out here, which was really funded by the Blackstone Group. to existing coal fired power plants to now what comes next. And there's this huge economic opportunity here on remediation, Reclamation and renewables. And actually, when our group and others bunch of Navajo groups that we work with, we all intervened at public Regulation Commission for the state of New Mexico and the abandonment, the similar generating station, and there was a big controversy over what was going to replace the 847 megawatts. It's in one generalization. And there's a lot of advocacy for natural gas facilities, but the PRC chose what we advocated for which is full replacement, with solar. So we should have our first solar project being constructed in March of 2023, couple months from now. And that's, that's our 300 megawatt project is going to be just north east of San Juan generating station on basically brownfield reclamation, land on area, kind of sits on top of the Old San Juan mine, and then it's gonna utilize stranded assets of the powerlines and, and the electrical, electrical substations. And that was the sort of stuff that, you know, with the enchant folks were we kept saying to him, like, well, you don't have any transmission lines, where are you going to build your transmission lines, and these people looked at us, like, we're idiots, you know, and we're like, you don't have any transmission? They probably didn't have any water. I mean, it's always projects around here, you always got to kind of look at and comprehensively kind of go, okay, where, you know, where, where are you getting your, the natural resources from? What are you going to do with them? Where's it going? And we're still a real remote area. So, for the San Juan Basin, I think our issues are distinct from the Permian Basin. And, you know, like I said, I think, you know, Kaylee's doing a wonderful job trying to, you know, work within that community and, and I feel like, the, the impacts are really becoming prevalent down there. And that area really is out of attainment on ozone. And those are the sorts of things that I'm here in the San Juan Basin, for the first time ever, I mean, we're seeing you know, clear, clear skies, taking this San Juan generating station, offline and then four corners power plant is going to go to seasonal operations next year, and so it'll close down in October. I'm not sure the community He realizes that, but in essence, Farmington, New Mexico will be coal free for the first time in 60 years.

Dina Rasor: 25:09

Wow. That's That's amazing accomplishment. Yeah.

Gregory A. Williams: 25:13

But to what extent did the solar projects have battery storage incorporated in them? Or are they simply designed to provide power during the day?

Mike Eisenfeld: 25:22

Yeah. So the main project that I'm talking about is the San Juan solar project, which is a replacement power PPA for San Juan Generating Station closure. And that project is 300 megawatts of solar panels and 100 megawatts of storage. And it's a first, it's a first part of a 1400 megawatt project, it will double the amount of power that was coming at a San Juan generating station at about a third a third of the cost of coal.

Dina Rasor: 25:56

That's great. And how, what, what, how many home? Can you translate that into something for an average person? How many homes does that mean that you can supply electricity to? And? Or how is it going to help replace what the power plant was doing?

Mike Eisenfeld: 26:15

Yeah, we're, we think that it's about 100,000 homes. But I think that one of the things is there were advocating for its use of that power here in the four corners, they will be kind of accessing the transmission to go into kind of the western grid. But, you know, for many, many years, the four corners, the Four Corners area was provided under provide power to far off places. And I think that's been part of the problem of why we were considered a national energy sacrifice down. And then, you know, the acknowledgement in the year 2023. That that's not okay, anymore. That, you know, I mean, I think that our next battle is probably going to be over environmental justice and energy justice, and even like the enchant people, were trying to kind of convey that, you know, the real environmental justice issue was that the coal workers didn't have, you know, jobs anymore. And, and in many ways, I mean, I think that we went to, to great lengths to make sure that any replacement power up here would create jobs would replace property taxes, and provide money for local school districts, and we insisted that PNM have some of their replacement projects up here in San Juan County. And now, that was a lot more than any of our so called political leaders up here advocated for all they were saying is we've been victimized and our coal fired power plants need to be allowed to continue to run. And I mean, in terms of climate change, the power plants here have been a disaster. Number one single point source of pollution. The United States at one point was a combined four corners power plant in San Juan Generating Station pollution.

Dina Rasor: 28:06

Wow, well, I guess it may, you know, it was certainly would make sense to the average person, you know, you've got local people that are resistant to having things change. And, and, you know, and especially when you're in, you know, in a low income area, people don't have the luxury of saying, Okay, I'll, you know, I'll transition, you know, in six months and do something else or whatever. But when I think about when I think about what they're, you're looking at here, you got to dig up the coal, you know, power of the plant, and you know, and all the pollution and everything, but a place that only gets 10 inches of rain a year, I would think that would be a real goldmine for solar. Because, you know, a lot of like, right now in California, we're not making much solar because we will next week because we've had since mid December, almost monsoonal conditions, but in a place like that you I would think that would be a real good place to do solar. I don't know about wind. I don't know about the wind roses in your area, but do solar because and get people to understand, look, we're all about the sun. The sun's always almost always shining here. So is the the is Do you see the community starting to look through that? And are you guys thinking about encouraging the local government to apply for environmental justice plants because the DOE Department of Energy just is and the and the EPA are just desperate to throw out environmental justice money and have it go to a place that actually can transition so they can say see, we need to do this?

Mike Eisenfeld: 29:49

Yeah, we're we're looking at some possible partnerships with some County County entities and possible some of the Navajo chapters The Navajo government broken into, I think 110 chapters and some of the chapters over here have expressed interest in pursuing federal money. And you know, the energy. justice issues are pretty pretty loaded, but we have not seen any indication of real applications for for money associated with the inflation Reduction Act and other resources here. That was one of the most dangerous things about the enchant project was the city of Farmington, we asked him to do an audit of enchant and they refused. And so, I think the fact that the city of Farmington was like, everything's going great, everything's going great and kind of lulled people into this idea that there was no problem. And this is a community that's you know, is we, we don't want abrupt closures. We want transition time. And so our next thing is going to be for Congress power plants probably going to retire sooner and 2031. So let's consider it an eight year process and let's get to work on you know what comes next. But I think once some of these solar projects get built and create job opportunities and create significant economic development opportunities, the city of Farmington thinks that they have this. This this slogan called Joe, your journey to bring in like recreation, retirees investment and community and we keep asking them, don't you think that if like you were able to like convince, like outdoor companies to come? What would be the first thing they would ask for if they were going to have a warehouse in Farmington, do you think it would be renewable energy? So they need to incentivize this connection between like quality of life diversity, diversification of the economy, Reclamation clean up. I mean, there's a lot of things that we could be doing particularly on the Brownfields side of things. But it's going to take political leadership that is something different than what we've had. I think the city of Farmington political leadership has been very weak at best. And I think you know, them claiming that they were victimized by the energy transition act and PNM to signify that they are in a very, very poor position and couldn't really leverage anything once they committed to the enchant project, which was looked bad in 2019. And looks even worse in 2023.

Dina Rasor: 32:43

Okay, well, I do know from looking around, in fact, I'll, for anyone who's listening this as a local activist, will also have this on our website. But they're the EPA is looking to fund nonprofit groups who are working on environmental environm environmental justice and transition. So they're actually understanding, you know, like, what some areas are like Appalachia and stuff, they're actually understanding that there's the sort of the ingrained power that powers that be, and the money and the politicians and Big Oil, whatever, but that there are local activists, and they're talking about giving them money to help get make sure that the I think that what I get from reading this is, especially with the Biden administration, that they want the environmental justice thing to work, because it's become it's a political, football, and they'd love to see some success in it, because there's going to be pressure to get rid of that with the House of Representatives. And so I will put that on our website. So anybody who's looking to say, in a smaller group, oh, yeah, we need some money to really do public education on what's out there, and what the federal government and state governments can do and what we know what needs to be done to have a successful transition. And it sounds like you you guys, as you go, right now are sort of starting starting the out the gate on the new frontier of renewable energy, and it's what percentage of your population you think is really going to go for it?

Mike Eisenfeld: 34:31

So, um, you know, so So basically, there have been two full time people working for San Juan Citizens Alliance and disenchant project and all this transition work for the past five years, six years. And so part of the challenge for us is building capacity to like be advocating for the types of projects that we want, rather than just being in sort of defense mode to fight back ACC, you know, these really, really bad projects. And that's why it's great that on December 20, and 21st, the city of Farmington and chant, threw in the towel on their project, you know, they they finally realized that enormous legal problem for them and the city of Farmington kept saying and chants taking over, and enchant, you know, was incompetent, had no had done virtually nothing in terms of permitting, couldn't really show much of an investment and really didn't make a dent in their problem with eight of nine utilities wanting to decommission and demolish San Juan generating station. So we'll we'll, we'll kind of have to deal with San Juan generating station being gone, and hopefully the renewable energy projects kick in, and hopefully our community will at some point be like, alright, you know, we were part of a transition. I think that places like you know, Farmington, New Mexico are some of the hardest places in the country for change. And, you know, I'm not saying that, you know, we have all the answers. But I think that we recognized that the speculative kind of snake oil projects that are only sort of pushed out there as the next solution. There's more to them. And so now we're gonna have another round of hydrogen is a big issue, particularly blue hydrogen derived from natural gas. And we're going to continue to see carbon capture carbon sequestration, particularly the sequestration side, I think that from the two studies that we're aware of, in the San Juan Basin, they were both unsuccessful in being able to sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide. So that's another thing and it, you know, you hear it a lot, you know, where people are like, oh, yeah, well sequester. And it's I think it's more complicated. And so our community, I think they should be asking questions about the city of Farmington and why the city of Farmington failed so miserably in terms of in terms of reporting on what was going on within Chan. I mean, I went to meeting after meeting and said, I think enchant is underperforming. I don't think they know what you're doing. And I think you should start thinking about a plan B, and they just blew us off.

Dina Rasor: 37:31

Well, it sounds good. It sounds like you're right. Go ahead. Great.

Gregory A. Williams: 37:35

Yeah. So in that vein, we discussed before the recording the idea that there's there's a lot of evidence on the side, the the the sequestration projects are very problematic and often don't work out. Well. We were talking about the GAO report that came out and I think 2021 That showed a series of projects that most of which never got off the ground and the few that did only operate for a short period of time and dramatically underperform their targets. And then the do E's response to this was well, we'll create a whole new agency to to oversee technology demonstration programs. They've yet to appoint and, and confirm a permanent director of that Bureau and that Bureau's website hasn't changed in almost a year. And so I'm wondering what thoughts you have about accountability and and how the federal government needs to do a better job of you know, not leading communities like yours down the garden path?

Mike Eisenfeld: 38:43

Yeah, yeah. So. So carbon capture and storage when it comes to coal fired power plants, has across the board failed. And so the Department of Energy has been managing what they've been calling demonstration projects. And g Gao found that they invested $1.1 billion and carbon capture and storage. were eight of the projects of 684,000,001 operational facility was the result. And then they also talked about kind of carbon capture sequestration for other industrial projects, which I would assume around here would be for natural gas. But you know, the fact of the matter is that and chant is another failure along the lines of Petro Nova future Gen camper. At what point does the Department of Energy sort of acknowledged that these carbon capture carbon sequestration projects had failed across the board because in chat for a while, was touting that they were you know, similar to Petra Nova and touting Petra Nova is their model and then Petra Nova closed and then they didn't talk about it anymore. But I think that uh, There's this idea that, you know, we continue to, to burn coal, and somehow there's some panacea that we're going to, you know, utilize that carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery, or sequester it. And I mean, we started saying with the enchant project, Oh, you guys, you guys just want to burn coal. So you can bury it in the ground and get 45 Key tax credits, how evil you people are pathetic, you know, and I mean, this is sort of way I would be talking to him. When I would run into him in meetings, I'd be like, what do you guys doing? You know, and they're like, Well, I mean, I think there's a class of human beings out there. Now. They're called venture capitalists. They don't care. Right? They come into your community, leech as much as they can. And then when they go, they're just like, oh, well, we gave it our best shot, and they move on to their next victims. So, um, you know, I mean, I'm, I don't know if I should be judging, you know, the hedge funder guys and judging doe, but at some point enough, is enough. And I mean, it's disingenuous to tell a community like Farmington that this is going to work. I mean, the whole thing was fraught with problems from day one.

Dina Rasor: 41:13

Like gives you an idea of why the what what the word sacrifice means and sacrifice zones, they just come in to see it's a place for them, they probably come and say, Look at this old dusty area, and nobody answers sit in and blah, blah, blah. And you know, they've been doing it for hear yours, they're already polluted. So let's, let's try to get the carbon tax credits, which I'm something I'm do want to do a podcast on one point, because I think that's gonna be a giant disaster. So based on this victory that, you know, that you guys have earned even though you you know, you say there were economic things happening, something happening. But your the one of the things that probably helped a lot is they knew that if they were going to go in there, you pesky activists are going to just keep watching them and pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. And so that, you know, it's easier for them to go down to some other place that's much has much less activism and just keep not getting the bad PR. So based on this victory, you have what what advice would you have for other local community groups are trying to shut down local climate damaging industries and planning for transition? I know it's hard. But what what kind of advice would you give them? Because you've probably gotten farther than a lot of them?

Mike Eisenfeld: 42:32

Yeah, yeah. So So in my 16 years, with San Juan systems Alliance, and the 10 years earlier, I learned a lot in the 10 years earlier opinion, environmental consultant around here, because there are a lot of people who kind of, you know, they wanted their project yesterday, or they didn't want to give you the project details, or they thought that they could, you know, just get away with doing things illegally. So in a lot of ways, a lot of our work is in one systems Alliance, the same model, you know, one, you know, you just gotta dig in, and be persistent. And look at what the project components are, what's the plan? Who's involved? What are the opportunities available to us? I mean, can is it gonna be like a federal nexuses, where you could do a Freedom of Information Act requests, you can ask for scoping where you can ask for public involvement where you can prepare comments, is it going to require environmental impact statements is in choir air permits, a complete inventory, and just that persistence, and then when they start having public meetings, where they start, like, you know, appearing at the legislature, sure, or, you know, trying to convince the community about how great their projects show up at every event, and you know, kind of like, make sure like, like the enchant guys, like they knew we were at every event, they would kind of look at us like, well, you know, what are you thinking of which sometimes we, you know, would respond. But we also had a bunch of experience with the desert rock energy project, which I mentioned before, which was actually funded by the Blackstone Group, Stephen Schwarzman, from New York City in the great philanthropist, his, his private equity firm, and it was Basil, basil Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani's law firm, and it was a credible company, safe global. And at that point, you know, when we first started on that project, I started going to some of their meetings. And one of their principals got up and said, there's no environmental opposition. in Farmington, this is great. And I was like, okay, and kind of took that as a challenge. And then the other thing is that, you know, we because of our partnerships with some other groups, kind of through the region and then our partnerships with some other environmental organizations, you know, we I think we're pretty formidable. And then we also have, we had secured legal representation through the Western Environmental Law Center. Basically, we're the ones who are standing here. And they're the ones who agreed to represent us. So that was something that happened about 10 years ago, where we really worked hard to make that partnership work. But having kind of the ability to sort of be like, Hey, we're going to write comments. And then you know, we're going to appeal. And if we don't appeal, we're going to consider litigation. I mean, all those sorts of things become viable if you really want to challenge a project. So you have to have those relationships in place. But I mean, again, you know, the enchant project, I mean, you know, it was so poorly conceived, so poorly executed. And the fact that they abandon it at the end of December just allows us to work on other things, which is great.

Dina Rasor: 45:56

Do you do you think it actually helped that you didn't have to take on one of the major oil companies like in the Permian basis, you know, there's Chevron and Exxon, and everybody's down there, because of the big PR, money, lawyers, everything that they can throw at you. And instead, you had something that was a smaller entity that didn't have unlimited resources? Do you think that helped to?

Mike Eisenfeld: 46:18

Yeah, I mean, you know, like the San Juan Basin, we had all the majors kind of go, BP, Williams, we had them all of them left. And now we have hilcorp. And hilcorp, doesn't want to put any money into this area, they just want to work off production. But we'll deal with them. If we had to, they they tried to come in and try to increase their space in here to get four more wells per square mile. And we'd be we we beat them on that. So, um, we've dealt with the big oil and gas companies, a lot of them, you know, the game is to get out of here before the reclamation and the remediation come into effect. And I think that that's what's going on. Now we have a lot of orphan wells, I believe we have a lot of companies that are trying to get out of here. That's that's, that's why San Juan generating station and San Juan mine, and four corners power plant, Navajo mine are in the situation they're in because all the coal companies and utilities are trying to leave before they had to account for the liabilities.

Dina Rasor: 47:29

But it sounds it sounds like the classic thing, they don't want to clean up their mess. Oh my gosh, the environmentalists are moving in, and we've got this mess, we might have to clean up, we get out of there, we don't have to have the liability.

Mike Eisenfeld: 47:41

That's the story of why the Four Corners area was deemed in the National Energy sacrifice zone 50 years ago and 1972 was is because it's like the uranium and all companies that left behind all the wastes and all the hardrock mining from the early 1900s. It's not a new scenario. I mean, it's like you get out and you leave your mess. And that's the sort of thing that's why like the big oil and gas companies left from appears because they recognized that they didn't want us to deal with it. And then they sell it to like the column on pause, but they're really not. My kill caller is not in mon paw hilcorp has an abhorrent record, particularly in Alaska. And I think, you know, we'll be watchdogging them up here in the San Juan Basin. But you know, the Permian Basin is sort of an area of growth. And I would say that the San Juan Basin, the transition is upon us. And part of that really is reclamation, remediation and replacement with renewables.

Dina Rasor: 48:51

And usually the federal government ends up having to clean do the cleanup. I know that was true with the defense contractors, plants and stuff when they left, they just leave a mess and it has to be cleaned up. But it's and that's why you know, you have Superfund sites and things like that because they don't hold these these corporations accountable once they leave.

Mike Eisenfeld: 49:15

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's kind of a sad, you know, historic reality that a lot, a lot of the particularly the uranium on Navajo Nation and other tribal lands was never cleaned up. And that's just a pretty horrendous legacy. But I think that you know, in terms of no watchdogs, and in terms of responsibility and accountability, the big deal is is going to be clean up, because a lot of these areas, you know, like four corners. The uranium tailings site and Shiprock for example, that should be cleaned up and noted similar one in Moab was and what's the difference? It's, you know, like, but the next generation, I believe of environmental activists, they're really gonna have a lot of work on their hands. And I think I think it's going to be an important work. I'm six years old, so I'm kind of like, alright, you know, I can work another 1015 years on this, and then you know, be done. I don't know. But it's really kind of, it's great to see like, you know, the enchant projects of the world go by the wayside. It's great to kind of verify that indeed, San Juan generating station is going to be decommissioned and demolished and replaced with renewables. And then also, you know, the reclamation economy that really needs to be focused on so in many ways, I feel like you know, it was a it was a good December and now that as we're moving into 2023, let's do it add you know, the opportunities bring

Dina Rasor: 50:58

so in a kind of wrapped up for other activists is it's being savvy, being smart, let them know you're there, let them know you're not a fly by night. You know, sometimes we're reporters come down peep the activists get frustrated because you get a one day wonder article, you know, everybody's mad and then they move on to the next thing that persistency and and being persistent and and saying, letting the, even the big companies know, we're not leaving, we're not moving. This is where we live, and then calling them their, their bluff on all the sleight of hand things they try to do. It sounds like that might be besides all the other stuff, you do that, that despite the fear that you're going to constantly have, you know, my guys and Phil show up in every meeting and say, the emperor has no clothes. They don't like that. And so they didn't expect that in a small town, I think I think they'd expected like, oh, yeah, these people are used to it, you know, these people use the pollution, they you know, they don't like your thing. So I'm really glad that that gotten to that point. And we are, we're pretty. I'm pretty dedicated to seeing, keep following up with you. And following up with Kaylee shoop, because she's got a, she sort of might, the more the beginning of that process, and follow you guys and find out when whenever something comes up, you come back on, and we talk about it, because it'd be great to have sort of a primmer of activity through our podcasts that you listen to four or five podcasts. And you can find out how Mike was able to in his groups or groups were able to keep marching away and keep changing, and whether or not that the federal government is serious about their environmental justice money.

Gregory A. Williams: 52:49

So I was going to offer maybe as a summary that, while the long moral arc of the universe may have been towards justice, and only does if you show up, be informed, be organized and be persistent. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Eisenfeld: 53:03

And also, you know, it's like, I think a lot of times that, you know, these project proponents are used to sort of like bullying their projects through or, or, you know, it's a side deal. And kind of, you know, like, a lot of them don't really understand the permitting requirements here and the group like sovereign Citizens Alliance, I mean, we're definitely technical people. We're, we have a couple of lawyers on staff, we have policy people, we are practitioners of government, environmental regulatory structure. And so I mean, I think that I think that, um, you know, kind of given the results that our organization has, it would probably behoove folks to kind of like, at least consider the fact that we are here, and that our knowledge of the history, the locations, the situations, the facilities, comes into play. And so near the desert rock, guys, when they were like, there's no, you know, environmental opposition, I just think that they didn't really understand but given kind of our track record, on numerous coal fired power plants on oil and gas issues, that, you know, I think that we are a credible, participatory organization in the Four Corners area. And so you got to have that technical savvy, and you got to have the knowledge. And also I think that a lot of the big environment organizations they parachute people in and there's rapid turnover. But in an organization like ours, I mean, we we've had three or four staffers who are around for 15 years, and I don't want to work for like a big environmental organization, where people are telling me what to do. mean, I get to sort of craft the strategy on these projects. So the enchant project, it was like might get your project, you know, crashing. And so we would just say in our staff meetings, crashing chant,

Dina Rasor: 55:14

Oh, that's great. I also want to put this in as the climate money watchdog. When we started looking at stuff a year ago, the the funding wasn't even through. So we but we knew that there was going on any kind of funding goes through with that match your money, and especially in the area of environmental which is hasn't had that level of money, that there would be a problem. So that's where we started money, climate money watchdog. And so what we did first was kind of just say, have people on that said, you know, this is what's going to happen based on the fact you have a lot of federal money, it didn't have to be specifically on on climate. And then we've gotten a climate activists and scientists and other people on, but what we really are shooting for and, and I'll make the appeal to you, but everybody else that's out there is we, Greg and is one of my Our expertise is working with whistleblowers. And we've never had anyone caught and fired. And sometime if you think you're gonna go up against a big oil company, or you're, you know, your employer, you're an employee, or you're you know, or you know, somebody or this and that and you want to do something, it's usually much better if you do that with somebody who's already seen all the things, they try to do whistleblowers, and you know, you really mean you have that kind of whether you're completely anonymous, or whether you're, you're either in or out of the closet, as we call it, this whistleblower. So I would encourage you and everybody else that if you would like to get to be the situation where because we know that the media remedies, you know, the talking to government officials, remedies, and also the courts and all the different kinds of laws on federal waste, that they contact climate money watchdog.org, which is on our website, we have an info thing. And we would be happy to review people's cases and look at them, because in the long run, we're sort of in that time now where they're spending the money, but they're probably not spending it long enough for the fraud to prop up. They what happens is, after a while, they sort of have to start, like for example, the you know, the failure with the enchant, stuff like that, it starts to pop up. And if you've if you there are people who are ex employees, or you know, even local officials of somebody else who wants to be a whistleblower, or wants to get the information out without being caught, fired, I've never had anyone gotten fired, is to contact us. And we're going to also keep working with activist groups like yours and like, like Kaylee shoop, and other people, too, so that you guys, when you run up against this, can you you know, if you have a whistleblower or somebody comes to you, we can, we would be happy to partner with you to look at that, that stuff and check that whistleblower out and then tell you guys and the whistleblower what the remedies are. So we're, we're working towards oversight, but we're also working towards the thing that we think is probably the most successful, and that's somebody blowing the whistle, whether it's anonymously, or in publicly. And we'd like to encourage that because you can use, I always tell people, when they say you want to go after a big company, I always say, you know, being such good activism and good. Getting that getting an investigation and getting these people it's Oh, it's like a bank robbery. And so it's better if it's an inside job. somebody's telling you where the vault is, where's this or that? Because you you're letting the outside looking in. But if you have somebody anonymously telling you where to go and where to look, it also freaks out the companies because they don't know who's talking.

Mike Eisenfeld: 59:09

Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. I mean, for us, it's like we're a public interest, environmental organizations. So for example, and Chan said, you know, we're gonna have, we're gonna get $1.4 billion in investors for this project. And so then, you know, we would track their reporting, and we were to look at on SEC filings and be like, how much did they get? And in terms of investors, and so they get$100,000. And then they said, Well, we're gonna apply for that money in a grant. And we're like, well, where's your application? Where's your filed application? Oh, we haven't filed it yet. And we're like, Okay, sounds like you don't really have much of a project. And then if they don't have scoping, and they don't have environmental impact statements, and they don't go after permits, then we're pre decisional. We can't even go after him. Until I'll get to a juncture. So think about that in terms of like, you know, these companies that come to town and go, we partnered with the city of Farmington, everything's going hunky dory. And so they haven't done anything in five years. And so then, you know, for a place like Farmington are we going to see things that are for real? Or we're gonna see this, like, continuation of these kind of snake oil projects that are fraudulent, that are corrupt? And, you know, frequently we do hear things in the community. We're all we're all yours.

Dina Rasor: 1:00:37

Okay, well, we weren't gonna keep following you. And, and you, you let us know when you're going to next step. And we'll just keep emailing back and forth tips. And that's I want the public to know who listens to this and the activists and listen to this. This is what we're going to do. And we're now gearing up to work with whistle blowers.

Mike Eisenfeld: 1:00:57

Um, thank you so much. I'm Greg and Dina and really appreciate climate money watchdog and the opportunity to kind of tell our, our story about some of the projects around here, but um, I think we're hopefully headed to a real transition, and we'll keep working for that.

Gregory A. Williams: 1:01:16

All right. Well, thanks for being with us. And more importantly, thanks for doing the work that you do.