Powering the Future: AI, Data Centers, and Kentucky’s Grid

As demand for electricity surges—from AI and data centers to EVs and new manufacturing—lawmakers at the local and state level are weighing how to keep the lights on without driving energy costs out of reach.

 In this episode of The Blue Dot Podcast, hosts Natalie MacDonald and Brian Koehl sit down with energy expert Jenny Bulach, a power plant industry veteran with 25 years of experience, to unpack how energy policy, regulation, and legislation directly impact reliability, land use, and your electric bill.

Jenny also breaks down zoning fights over solar and wind, grid reliability mandates, and what transparency communities should demand before approving large energy projects.

 Whether you're curious about the legislation moving through the Kentucky General Assembly or just wondering why energy costs are on the rise, this episode provides a high-level masterclass in the systems that power our lives.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Blue Dot, Northern Kentucky's premier political podcast, brought to you by the Kenton County Democratic Executive Committee. Welcome to the Blue Dot Podcast. Today we're discussing one of the most pressing and yet misunderstood issues facing our communities right now. That's energy. And that includes everything from the electrical grid to energy shortages, alternative energy, and what rapid growth from AI to data centers means for energy costs to our families. And we're going to dive into all of that. Thanks for joining. I'm Natalie McDonald.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

And I'm Brian Cale. As our listeners know, when we cover complex topics that we don't fully understand, Natalie and I go find the experts. And joining us today is one of those experts, Jenny Bulach, a self-proclaimed power plant geek with 25 years of experience in the power and utility industry. She's worked everywhere from inside power plants to advising utilities nationwide on digital energy solutions. And she is here to explain how all this actually works, why demand is exploding, and what we need to do to ensure that we have enough energy to meet our demands and protect our land. Jenny, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks so much for joining, Jenny. And we've seen a lot of legislation here locally in Kentucky, and we're seeing it nationally as well, centered around the fact that we are facing an energy crisis. Data centers aren't going anywhere, and the fact is we need them. So I thought it'd be great to have you on to gain a little understanding of how all this works so that when we do hear about laws and legislation or solutions that are being proposed, we have a little better understanding of how all this works. And as Brian mentioned, you are an expert in this area. Do you mind telling us a little bit about you and your background?

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Sure. Uh so as you said, my name's Jenny Mulak, and I have a lot of years in the power and utility industry. I have a Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue. I worked in manufacturing for a few years. My husband and I got married. We have two kids in their early 20s. Um, we live in southeast Indiana, across the road from y'all in Darwin County. And, you know, I started working at the local utility power plant early in my career. So I started out as a power plant performance engineer. That's somebody who monitors all the vibration and performance of all the equipment, turbines, pumps, pollution controls, equipment, all those things. And then I eventually worked my way up to coal plant manager of the power plant in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. May have heard of it, East Bend Station. Oh, yeah. And while I was plant manager of that, I got promoted and was also plant manager of Gallagher Station in New Albany across from Louisville. Um and then also had responsibility for Markland Dam. Since then, I have been in the digital space where I help utilities become more efficient with their data, help their business processes, anything to do with energy and using the data to make it better, faster, cheaper.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Well, with all of the growing demand we have for uh power, that consulting business must be pretty dynamic, I would say, right now. It's probably moving at a pretty accelerated pace. But let's start with the basics for people who don't work in energy, like most of us, and you know, all of this can be a little mysterious. Uh for instance, you live in Dearborn County, Indiana, as you mentioned, but you and your neighbors utilize the same PJM power grid as as we here in Kentucky. Uh, can you explain at a high level somewhat how electricity gets, you know, from the power plant to our homes? And especially as it is produced in real time, which I just, you know, I think I knew that, but when I read it just recently as I was doing a little research, that really hit me. It's like as soon as it's being generated, it's being used, and that's the planning that goes behind that. Can you explain a little bit of the mystery behind all of that?

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yeah, I will, Brian. I'm first off, remember, I'm a mechanical engineer, so I'm gonna do the best I can on the electrical side of the house. But but you know, the grid was designed for power plants to generate the power. Those power plants stepped up the voltage so it could travel long distances with the least amount of losses. So what you see with the big towers and the high lines that run across rivers, those are transmission lines. Then those are stepped down into the distribution side. So the transmission and distribution, they complement each other, but think of transmission as your major interstates and distribution as your county roads. And that that distribution is then broken up into your subdivisions, your residences, your businesses. But the grid was designed for the flow to be one way, and now there's all these introductions of energy sources, maybe from your home, maybe from a whole house generator, maybe windmills and areas that the grid wasn't designed to have those in. So there's a lot of complex issues with the grid changes in today's world compared to when it was designed a hundred years ago. So that's my simple take on how the grid works. The real time is is a serious concern because you know, people think, well, I got gas in my tank, I can go whenever I want. But the grid is managed in the now. So, you know, batteries aren't they're coming around, but there's not a tremendous amount of out there that can carry the whole day-to-day load. So what is generated now has to be used now. So the balancing of that takes a lot of math, science, and smart people switching things around when a power plant comes offline or a steel mill turns on their generating to produce steel. So it's a very complex system.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So you literally have to know what's going to come online at a time, like you said, a steel mill. So all of that planning goes into how people are going to be turning on their lights, at what time of day, things like that. Is it that intricate?

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yes, it is. And it's managed in three and five-minute integrals. So you talked about PJM, it is an independent system operator for our area. It sits adjacent to MISO. And these independent system operators are for my era, I'll say new. They've been around since the late 1990s. Initially, utilities managed their own interconnected grid. They had the power, they had the utility aspect, they shared transmission lines, they managed their own distribution. Well, over time, that kind of isolated each utility, and the reliability of the grid as we grew as a country became more risky, let's say. So it's decided to get an independent system operator that kind of managed the talking points or what they call them nodes between the utilities. And that's where PJM came about, and MISO is the Midwest one. Texas has their own. They're, you know, they're all different regions of the country. And that really is what drove those independent system operators were reliability issues.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

And you mentioned Texas, they had all kinds of problems when it gets cold, right? Is it is it because they're sit they're they're just they just weren't built for that, or they just didn't do a good job managing it with all the science and math, as you said.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

So Texas had a different strategy. They wanted to be on their own, kind of like the utilities of the days of old were there, everybody did their own thing. Um, and they had very little interconnect to the other ISOs, which was working great for them, right? You know, they're kind of their own island of electric, they can manage it themselves. You know, they got a lot of heavy industry along the coast and big cities. But what happened was all their power plants were not designed for below freezing temperatures. And a few years back, they had a big freeze and they really lost so many power plants on the freeze, they couldn't even get the grid started back up because the lack of interconnections. So, you know, once people are out for seven or eight days, and you know, I mean, you're talking about lost lives in those scenarios, they started to change their strategy and work on their interconnects since then. So it it it created a lot of questions of where are we with the grid in this country? And wow, is it really 40 and 50 years old everywhere? It it was well designed when it was implemented and it was over-designed so that it could handle the growth. But now that we've grown and grown, you know, we were to the point where it's at capacity. And and now for the first time in 30, 40 years, we actually have a growing demand, which is data centers, electrification, electric vehicles, all the things that are using larger amounts of power than we've used the past 30, 40 years.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, the uh obviously the demand is growing, and we'll talk a little bit about the data centers, of course, which is you know, now everybody knows what a data center is or they think they know it is what it is, because you know, because of AI uh specifically, everybody's talking about them. But you talked about the capacity and the planning, how the capacity's gone up. I had read that in the last 20 years the demand's gone up fivefold increase, mostly driven by data centers, I guess. Um but I can remember a time when they were taking plants offline. So was there a period, you know, you said we're at capacity now, kind of all of a sudden, and it may not be quite that sudden, but was there a time when we were kind of complacent or felt like capacity was running at a at a level that everybody felt like, hey, we're in good shape, and then all of a sudden this massive demand came out of nowhere?

SPEAKER_02 8:57

I think it was a combination of things. You know, there was a big movement to get less reliant on fossil fuels. So a lot of the coal plants retired within a short time frame. You know, I think 15 years ago, 40% of our generation was from coal power generation in our country, and now it's 17%. So you almost halved it in less than two decades. It's just that decrease at the same time that we are adding electric vehicles. Now we're trying to bring manufacturing back to our country. We're trying to get these data centers, which you know, their large energy sucks. Um, you know, that they each require pretty much their own power plant in some instances. And, you know, that's just something we hadn't been seeing or doing in this country. Manufacturing went overseas, you know. So as all these things were happening in balance, all of a sudden the retirements and and the gross you caught up to us all at once, pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

So when we talk about the supply and demand, obviously when you have greater demand, things are gonna cost more. So I was curious how how they price out the energy that we get. If you could talk a little bit about that, I know in Kentucky, I think we pay about 13 to 14 cents per kilowatt per hour, and that's gone up about 7%. So, how do they is it just based on supply and demand, or how do they decide how much they're gonna charge us? I think everybody wants to know why am I paying so much? And uh, what goes into that?

SPEAKER_02 10:20

So it's not as simple as I use this power and I pay for this power. The utilities really don't make money off of selling power, they get covered for those costs. So when you see an energy price increase on your electric bill, it's because the utility has invested in infrastructure. Utilities are legal monopolies, they get a guaranteed eight to eleven percent return on the capital investments they make. So if we sat in this country with some power plants being built, but really we were riding off the coattails of nuclear and coal built in the 70s and early 80s, didn't have to invest in a lot of power plants, so our electric rates were pretty stable. The grid was the grid, it had capacity in it, again, stable, right? So now we're at this point where utilities are heavily invested in the infrastructure. They need more power plants, they need more upgraded transmission lines. Now there's all these tie-ins for new areas of the grid that didn't accept that. I mean, even just to put solar on your house, utility has to put some equipment out there so that the grid can accept power back to the grid. All these things cost money, and the utility gets about 10% return on whatever they invest. So that what happens after they make these investments, they go to the state regulatory commission and they say, hey, we we need to raise the rates because we've invested this, and we see this coming and this coming, and they the state will make sure that they have all their paperwork and facts in order before they just get a guaranteed rate increase. But it's a it's a long legal process, but at the end of the day, they're not gonna let utilities go bankrupt. So they get the return on investment, and then that's how your actual rate on your bill increases.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah, that's uh that's interesting how that works. That's a great question, Natalie, because I was wondering about that with you know the demand, more data centers, you know, again, people hearing about that, they're gonna see power plants being built, substations, transmission lines, etc. being upgraded, all this cost, and then they'll be wondering how does, you know, how does that affect what I'm paying? I'm using the same amount of energy, so why all of a sudden am I paying more for energy? And it would be because of the capital investments that have to be made, and that's what the utility companies are being paid on, then is the capital outlay that they've made.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

I will say this there is a fuel adjustment component to that. So let's say you know the price of a megawatt is fifty dollars, and you know, a couple power plants come offline unexpectedly, and that price goes to$300 a megawatt hour. In those instances, utility can recoup that money that they had to spend to get more power into where they need it as a fuel adjustment. So there is a small portion of the supply and demand cost, but it it's it's not the big is the rates, right? What you pay on your cents per kilowatt hour.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

So it does go up, let's say when it's cold. It it it I'm still using more, but it depends on the uh the amount that I pay per kilowatt is based on basically their what they're getting back in in their investment.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Yeah, and when you look at your bill, it depends on who your provider is, uh whether you get that fuel adjustment clause line item or not. I have a rural co-op where I live, it's all lumped together as transmission or or distributed energy cost or something like that, which brings up another topic. You know, there's different kinds of utilities out there. There's investor-owned, which is like um the big ones that are stock-based. There are your co-ops, which are typically nonprofit. Those were developed over time so that rural areas had an opportunity to get power where bigger companies wouldn't necessarily invest in it. And then there's independent power producers. And, you know, when you get into independent power producers, they're all about playing the markets. So they see the capacity price in the future being a certain aspect that it justifies them to build a power plant and then get a long-term agreement with somebody. So that's that's one way we could get power to data centers without being subjected to the cost ourselves as ratepayers, right? If independent power producers were forced to supply the power or data centers had to come up with their own power, then that infrastructure would not be half would not have to be invested by the utility, which would save us as ratepayers.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yeah, so I've seen some conversation around that. Um even, you know, legislators are saying, hey, yeah, now I'm all for data centers, but they have to build their own power generation, their own their own power source. They have to be responsible for that. So I mean, that is a thing. But when I when I see that, I'm thinking, well, you have to tie into the power grid somewhere. There have to be standards that you meet. I mean, there has to be all kinds of oversight of the utility and and collaboration to make that happen. So I mean, it sounds a super complex and b, like it takes a really long time. So what is is that more efficient than you know, if if the utility is doing it itself? I mean, how to, you know, prioritize or or can you rank those or tell us, you know, what's most feasible and what's most efficient? I don't know what my question is. There's a lot there. Go, Jenny.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Uh so I'll I'll try to just make some comments to your statements. Oh, please do for a second.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Excuse me.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

What when we talk about, you know, who pays for what and how can we make electric affordable, right? If a certain percentage of people already can't afford their electric bill, we build a bunch of data centers and now there's 13 cents going to be 20 cents. Now we have even more people that can't afford their electric bill.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

So it becomes a balance of who pays for what, you know, how do we do it faster than we've done it? The utility industry has never been known to be speedy to implement, right? They have always been very cautious and conservative in that they want to protect the system and make sure your power stays on. But things need to change because we can't say that we're gonna build a power plant today and it comes online nine years later. And that's really the struggle legislatively and uh space for these things, right? Like there's a lot of uh not in my backyard, nimbies, right? Yep. And yeah, I look at that like, okay, we all have garbage and it needs to go to a landfill, but nobody wants the landfill, but nobody wants to deal with their own garbage, right? So it's very complex and when you're dealing with people and areas and property, and you know, and then and then the word imminent domains used, and that becomes a different debacle, right? So it's a very, very challenging situation. Um, I think there's some things that are legislatively going that way. Kentucky and Indiana aren't there yet, but Ohio has put that I believe 80% of demand means by data centers need to be funded by them. They've already got some of that in play. I see Kentucky and Indiana starting those conversations. Yeah, I just think it's it's going to be very interesting the next couple of years. And can we really do it faster than we're doing it now? Because it's long and it's cool and then it puts us at risk for not having the power when we need it.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Exactly. So we have these alternate sources, right? And there's complications to those as well. So they need land too. So solar needs land, wind needs land, and as you said, people don't want to give up their land. I don't know if you heard about the case in Maysville, Kentucky, where mother and daughter were offered like$27 million for their land, and they're like, Thank you. Right. So, you know, which is crazy. I well, I'd I'd give you my land for$27 million, but you know, going down to my house. Yeah. I don't have a lot of land. I got like an acre. So that being said, you know, what are the good alternatives? Are you talked a little bit about the personal power grids or the solar and how that ties back to the energy grid? Are those or do we just need a multifaceted approach? I guess is my question.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

I think it's going to take a multifaceted approach. Um, you know, if I'm an independent power producer and I want to build a power plant and I get permission to tie it into the grid from the utility, the independent system operator also has to model that. And those models are big and complex. And part of what the issue is they're doing these models and clusters to where they'll run them every so many months or years and say, okay, here's five things that need to go into the grid from five different utilities. What does that model look like? And they're trying to get to where they're just not doing cluster modeling, where if you want this here, here's what you can put in. And if you're first, and then somebody else wants to put something in that's gonna create a we call it congestion where there's too much power and not enough line, you know, then then that's gonna be their issue to work through because yeah. And then I think another thing that's going on is it takes so long to get approval through these ISOs of where you can put a data center. I have no evidence of this, but I feel like there's a sense that, you know, these the people that are building the data centers are looking across the United States and say, well, I need three, but I'm gonna apply for six, and hopefully I get three in the certain areas I want, which creates a different problem on the cluster when, you know, if they're doing looking at PJM to MISO to ERCOT, and then they say, Oh, well, ERCOT said yes to two, and now I don't need a MISO. You know, now they got this cluster study of something that's not coming at all, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:30

So wasted all that time and resources, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Well, and then you you mentioned placement, and I'm thinking not only placement within, you know, we have this amount of usage or this area, and this is how much we want to add, just like a general region. But then if you want to actually place it and buy land, isn't that also a big factor in terms of the conversation? Because the actual physical connecting of it and everything that goes into place, it could be much more expensive to put it in place A than place B. So the land availability and whatever all has to tie into you know the efficiency of being able to actually implement it in that geographical space.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Right. And I like solar companies, they don't necessarily want to own the property, they want to lease the property. Wind, I think, is similar. You know, there's you drive through northern Ohio and northern Indiana, there's tons of windmills coming off the lake winds, and you know, it's tying up land, but you can still do some agricultural activities still, right? Even though you're using up the property. So I it really becomes a balance of, you know, are you willing to lease your land? Um, if you're not interested, then maybe you're passing up$27 million, but maybe that's been in their families since they arrived on this continent, you know. So can't deal with people in the same way in every aspect because everybody has different ways they go about providing for their family.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Love the lease option. I didn't know, and I guess that makes sense because I did hear more about how the solar companies are saying, Let me lease your land. That sounds kind of like a win-win if you're willing to do that, right? You still own your land and you're making money off of it. And the energy that's produced is cheaper for the consumer. And that solar comes in quicker, right? Their solar plants are quicker to, I guess, produce. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Yes. So solar is the quickest to get megawatts on the grid. But there's advantages and disadvantages. For one, it's not energy dense, right? So for every thousand acres, you get about 150 megawatts versus you could put three full-size nuclear on a thousand megawatt or three thousand megawatt nuclears on a thousand acres, right? So you have three thousand megawatts on this thousand acres, and you have 150 on this with the solar. So it's not energy dense, takes more space. It only works when the sun's shining, right? So you typically need some batteries to support that 24 7 load, some battery storage, or you know, you have to start putting things in your utility rules where you change the rates by the time of day that you use the power, which is Common in a lot of states, not so much in the Midwest, but you know, some of the Western states where they've really been shorter on than we have been in the Midwest. If you want to use your power between 5 and 8 p.m. to do all your laundry, dishwasher, oven baking, etc., well, instead of 13 cents, you're gonna pay 35 cents. But you know, it it really and a lot can be done with that shading of the peaks by changing human behavior, right? So again, it's not just that's probably that's what we need to build. Right, right. But it's another tool that we can use to help mitigate some of these issues, right? We don't need to have enough power for everybody to have their AC at 65 degrees when it's 100 degrees out. We need to have enough power that people know that, well, it's a hundred degrees out, maybe I can keep it at 72, right? Because I don't want to pay that 50 cents a kilowatt hour. I want the 13 cents, right? So again, it it's not just one answer, it's so complex.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah, and so you you made a good point. I I've heard a lot about people and their personal power grids, and people want to put solar on their house, which fantastic, right? But when you when you say how energy dense it is, it's it'd be um it'd be almost impossible for let's say a community, my neighborhood. If everybody puts solar on their house, it's still not gonna be enough, right? Right, it's not gonna produce enough.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Well, I think you have to think about it like this to put solar on your home, that is your invest, your capital investment of your dollars. Average home needs I figured up like$12,000 to$22,000 worth of solar panels, um, possibly some battery backup. But the issue becomes do they accept power back into the grid when you're not using all the power from your roof? And some companies allow that, some co-ops don't even want to mess with it because now they got to put, let's simplify it, a check valve in so that when you need power can come in, and when you have too much, it can go back out. It's not designed for that. Well, who's going to pay for all those check valves on all the homes in your neighborhood? The ratepayers, we will, right? So that the grid can accept that. So while it seems like it can help mitigate some of the load issues and demand issues, it's not necessarily going to reduce your rates because the utility is making a capital investment and we will pay for that.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

And the end consumer pays for that uh um enabling that that two-way transmission capability, then, right? Because that's another capital investment. We're paying for every aspect of that uh alternative energy source, which is typically viewed as uh saving money. I mean, and it's saving the environment or, you know, uh helping to mitigate our environmental issues, which is great. I think that's a worthwhile uh that's a worthwhile reason right there. Uh sounds like there is no silver bullet for this energy thing.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

There's not really ever a silver bullet, right? No. I think I think it's gonna take more collaboration. You know, legislatively, there's things that we as ratepayers can ask for in the legislation. There's things that, you know, we can maybe say, okay, this property is not as good agricultural. This family's willing to lease to solar. You know, there's a lot of tricks. I shouldn't say tricks, there's a lot of tools in our toolbox, and it's not going to be one answer, you know. Like you said, there's not one silver bullet. And typical for most problems in our world, there never is. So what so what can we do? You know, we can always be in the mode of conserving power. You know, I don't get me wrong, I I don't want to be hot when it's hot outside. But if I can crank if I can deal with the evening of 76 in my house, and knowing that the grid's constrained and everybody's doing that, then maybe we don't need to build two power plants, right? I mean, yeah, all those little things that come into play from every aspect of who's flipping the switches when.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Right. Well, I one more thing I just wanted to mention on the potential cost savings. And I know this is not a this you're you're on our podcast on your uh from a personal standpoint, not a professional, but you are in um doing a little research on your background in like software solutions for energy companies, utilities, the ISOs to manage everything. It seems like that is a huge opportunity for cost savings, because I actually have an IT background, although I tried to forget most of it as soon as I retired. But you know, the kind of like the ERP systems where you're tying everything together and eliminating some of those nasty reports and merges and exports and imports of data and everything's talking to each other, all the different components, there's a huge cost savings, you know, potential there. And I I would say coming from it from the other side, that's probably when you look at it, that's where you see a lot of opportunity for saving costs becoming more efficient.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

I think and I think we don't know what AI is going to bring to our world yet either, right? It's so new. We don't know, maybe some super electrical engineering nerd's gonna be able to embed a conductor that can uh conduct five times the power than what's in the existing one, and we don't have to and there there is talk of this, right? There are more efficient conductors, we can upgrade the grid, but we don't know what tomorrow brings, and we just gotta keep trucking through it to figure it out. It's it's complex, but it can be done. We we've been bringing power to this country for over a hundred years.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

So yeah, I mean, and just look what they've done with the battery technology over the last five to ten years, where batteries have gone to. You know, my neighbor has talked about putting solar on, but he's not gonna put solar on until he can have a battery to store it on so he can use all of his own power because he doesn't trust that the utility company will pay him back or pay him the protect, you know, the right credit, etc.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

If you want to put solar on and your utility allows it, you're paying 13 cents for the power coming in, but they'll give you like five cents to sell back to the grid, right? So it's not it it's not necessarily fair in the consumer's eyes of of how that works, but I mean there's a lot of overhead. I mean, I worked at power plants a long time, and it's expensive to maintain that equipment and have it there when we want it there, right?

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

We all cry and complain about the electric was off for two hours last night while we were supposed to be sleeping, right? But that's because there's a lineman out there in a storm climbing a pole to get it back on, or a power plant operator, you know, running around trying to fix things so that our power can stay on. So it it that real-time usage of the power, it really gets us because you know that we don't have big storage facilities.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Yeah, and I think we could say that about a lot of industries. People do get upset and like, well, gosh, but they're making this much money. But you're not seeing the research and the the development that goes into it, the RD, the overhead, and you know I get it, you know, when CEO is you're making$154 million a year, you're kind of like, well, maybe it could cut down a little bit on those bottages, right? But I wanted to ask you, I know that you're not a data center expert, but I I've gotten the question and I don't know how to explain it, but why do they take up so much energy? When I talk to people, it's like, oh, we got AI coming in data centers, it's gonna use this much energy. And I'm like, Well, why? Like, why does it use so much?

SPEAKER_02 29:03

What do you know? So it it's processing, and most people don't realize this. A power plant itself is its own biggest customer. When the equipment is running in a power plant, there's what we call gross and net load, right? So the the plant may gross at a thousand megawatts, but it's using 50 megawatts of its own to run the equipment, so it only has 950 available to put back on the grid. Well, data centers are in that fashion that their power suck because it takes a lot of heat and processing and energy to make those data centers do data crunching, right? It's you know, people say, oh, well, they use a lot of water. Well, I don't know. I don't know enough about data centers to say they use a lot of water. I do know that there's a lot of EPA regulations already in play that say it has to be a closed-loop system. So it can't just take water from a river, heat it up, and put hot water back in the river, right? So it it's a lot to be seen. You know, are they using chemicals like we do and radiators in our car to help cool these things? Can they use air-cooled devices instead of water-cooled devices? It's just really new, and I think we're just at the cusp of it. Just trying to figure it out. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it it to me it's like a steel mill, right? It needs a lot of heat to melt metal to make it into steel. A data center needs a lot of heat or energy to crunch data to spit out what we're using it for.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

That's why your computer gets hot on your lap, on your lap, yeah, and you're working out watching TV.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Why we have a fan on it, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Well, we know that you don't uh really look at this so much as through a political lens, even though this is a politics podcast. This is kind of uh one of those issues or topics that touches everyone regardless of your per uh political persuasion. But obviously, there's a lot of legislation talk going around this, and just within your industry, I'm sure there's lots of areas where how could we improve? Like you talked about the time it just takes to get something through review and online. So what uh I mean, what are some of the things that you know that are out there, whether in legislature or within your industry, that like if you had a wish list that you think would be the top priorities and the things we should be going after to really make these improvements as quickly as possible?

SPEAKER_02 31:14

So it's a very good question, right? Trying to predict where legislation's going, I don't think anybody ever is very good at that. But I will say, you know, we as ratepayers can ask for large load utility mandates that we don't have to pay that 10% of the guaranteed rate of return on the infrastructure investments, right? So the cost recovery rules, we can ask for changes in that at your regulatory commission level. And those are state by state, you know, locally, right? For the people that don't want data centers, they need to be involved with their county government and figure out what are the zoning rules and what is the goal of my county. Does it want large development for tax revenue so they can lower, you know, the taxes in the county, or is it that they want to protect and keep a rural outlook? It it really varies based on where you live and what your local legislation is doing. I think if a data center comes in and your county approves it, I think the best thing you can do is demand transparency, right? Know the plan up front. Where's the water coming from? What what type of load is it gonna take? Is that gonna cause my lights to dim every time data crunching is happening, right? All those questions come in mind. Are there incentives or tax structures set up that make it more appealing for them to come in, but give them such a break that the onus is still on us, the ratepayers, right? So you know, then then you get into the ISO and the regulatory commission grid planning mandate. So all those areas of legislation take play, plus you have the environmental, the permitting, and all those other things that go in with it too. So as we're sitting here talking, like, well, we can do all that and still get it online nine years, that's pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Yeah, it's starting to sound like a pretty reasonable timeline.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

But but it no, I mean, but it really does when you put all those factors into it, does really make sense why it's taking so long.

unknown 33:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

So where can you streamline it? And I, you know, I think one way is a lot of industries have done this in the automotive and in the big manufacturing facilities, they have their own mini power plant on site, right? It's not a new concept. I know a lot of several facilities in Cincinnati that make their own power for their own use, just for those reasons. So I think it's a trend we gotta accept, and how we accept it is based on the legislation that allows it.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

And I think that brings up a really good point. Think all politics is local. Well, we might one in rural Kentucky, it might be different than maybe rural Indiana or downtown Cincinnati or whatever in the in Hambleton County. So it it's that's that's exactly why I I'm so grateful that you came on to kind of talk about how this all works. And we I don't it's not my core competency, so it's so great to learn about this because then I'm I'm still learning every day.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

You know, there's a new article that comes in, and I'm like, oh, what does this mean? Or how does that impact what's happening, you know, in this area? It's an exciting place to be. I know people think, oh, power plant's boring, but I've tried to encourage my family by being a power plant geek, explaining to them two things in the world. You need to know where your power comes from, and you need to know where your food comes from, right? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. If you understand those things from beginning to end, then maybe you'll think a little bit differently about how you use it and do things.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Yeah, very good point. Good point.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

I think we did, I think we solved, I think we solved it, guys.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Right. All right, energy crisis solved. See you later. Mic drop.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Well, um, we better retire now, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

But uh look at yeah, so we do we do appreciate you being here, but before we let me go, before we let you go, we usually do a fun little lightning round with all of our guests. So I don't know if if you've listened to a lot of the podcasts, but we usually do five fun questions for our our guests. But I'm gonna shake it up a little bit with you um because clinical research is near and dear to my heart because I do it for a living. But research is also important to you for a very different personal reason. Um, and you've been raising money for cystic fibrosis for many years. And I wanted to give you a platform to speak about this a little bit before you go. Um, if you want to tell us a little bit why you do this research, and then I will hit you with five fun questions.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

All right. So we do it because um of our two kids, our son is a carrier. Cystic fibrosis is a recessive genetic disorder. He's a carrier like my husband and I. He was born first. We didn't didn't know any of us were carriers, but when our daughter was born, um, she was diagnosed with CF at age 14 months. So we became involved in this world that we didn't have a spell or pronounce um and got heavily involved with the research for a cure. So we have a family and friends team that we raise money pretty much year-round, and we've been doing it since 2007. It's really important for our family.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Absolutely. So let me give you if we can make it fun, which is I guess it's not fun. I'll try to make it. No, no, no. Lightning questions. How's that? So, what is CF? What is cystic fibrosis?

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Uh recessive genetic disorder. It impacts the people mostly know that it impacts your lungs, but it's a full body problem. It attacks pancreas, sinuses, reproductive organs, liver. It's a whole body problem, but it stems from salt not transporting correctly across the cells.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

I didn't know that it attacks all of the body. I thought it was solidary.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

It's a it's a big one.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

And so what is F U C F?

SPEAKER_02 36:37

So as you mentioned, you like to make it fun. We like to make it a little subliminal in our fundraising. And one of our symbols is FUCF, and it is Friends Unite Against Cystic Fibrosis. But it makes for some very eye-catching uh gear when we're out and about fundraising. So people tend to get a kick of a double take of the FUCF. So that that's kind of our team logo.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

I love it. And where can people go to get more information on the um FUCF?

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Okay, so we have our own personal page that we fundraise on, and that is fundraise.cf.org slash Cincinnati 2026, because we're on this year's walk slash team4jb. But any general information can be cf.org. They have done so many great things and made so many improvements because it's uh an invisible disease and it's a disease that not a lot of people have, right? So they're funding a lot of the research themselves and they've made great progress with their philanthropies. Something we feel very strong about supporting.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

And you don't have to answer this um if you don't want to, but how how much have you guys raised?

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Do you have a number or uh yes 07, uh$1 million and$90,000? Wow. Unbelievable. It's amazing. Give or take, but we're not stopping, right? We we set our short-term goal five or six years ago to get to a million to kind of get people excited about that. And then somebody said, Well, what are you what are you doing now? You raised a million. I'm like, Well, we got to raise the next million because it cost ten million dollars to get a drug to market. So we got a lot more work to do.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Absolutely. And lastly, are you doing the fundraiser at the winery this year? And if so, give us details because I've attended it and it was so fun.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

So we we across the river from you all in Whole Camp Winery in Devern County, we do a fundraiser. It's September 18th this year. We have live music. A local guy, Dan Goodappel's playing this year. It's from 6 30 to 10 p.m. on Friday, September 18th. Small entry fee, pizza, beer, wine, prizes, raffles, good times outside. Whole camps winery is a beautiful setting. They got a lake, the vineyards. They got a lot more indoor seating now. If you haven't been there in a while, it's it's a really nice setup. So if it's if it's not ideal weather, you're still in good shape.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Yeah, and if there's beer, wine, and pizza, I might be able to give Brian the crossover in the any in the Indiana with me.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

It's not as fun as you think.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

It's not a separate country.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

It is a beautiful. I don't know. I've been to Indiana once or twice, I guess.

unknown 39:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Well, I'm from Illinois originally, so I used to cross through Indiana all the time.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

But uh, and that sounds really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

I've never been yeah, I've never been to that winery. That sounds like uh just a fun trip in and of itself, but uh definitely jotted down the date for that fundraiser and uh we'll make sure all of our listeners and viewers know about it. Well, and again, Jenny, thank you so much for being here and sharing your knowledge and expertise. I think our uh listeners are gonna get a lot of uh good information out of it and probably generate some more questions. And as things uh as this continues to evolve, we may invite you back to kind of get updates, especially as you know, we get data centers around this area and we get more people up in arms and want more really good solid information about what's going on. You're a great resource for that, and we really appreciate the time.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

I appreciate the time. Uh as you know, I'm very passionate about this and uh spent my life work doing it. So next time you're on your next road trip, look for look for the power plant, see if you can figure out how many megawatts it is. That's my family's favorite fun game.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

I'm a little bit of a nerd geek kind of guy, and I'm always going by those big substations or stuff, you know, like out in the middle of nowhere and just going, man, what goes on there? You know, I mean, who maintains that, you know, and uh how's that work? So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

My kids roll their eyes, you know. The power plant of the day is what they called on when they were younger, and they're we were somewhere in Arizona and we hadn't seen the power plant of the day yet. And we were at the state park and there was a small hydro grist mill there, and and my son looks at it and he goes, Well, Mom, I guess that's the power plant of the day because we haven't seen any real ones.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

So, you know, it's take what you can get, huh?

SPEAKER_01 40:47

We you know, Jenny, you know that, and I don't even know what it is, but the the plants down there in Lawrenceburg, the the big I used to tell my nieces and nephews when we would, when they were little, when I would cross, I'd tell them that was the cloud factory, because you know, there's always billowing smoke. Natural damp. I mean, they believed that smoke, Natalie, it's steam. This when the steam would rise from it, I would tell them, and they believed that for a long time. My little nee, my little niece even said, She's like, remember when he used to tell us that was the cloud factory? They're like, We believed you.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

Wait till I tell you about Santa Claus. No, I mean, my my dad noticed that too, and it turns out that was the per plant I was a performance engineer at for a handful of years. Uh really. But yeah, it's just steam, it's not a nuclear plant. A lot of people associate those natural draft cooling towers with nuclear because most nuclears have them, but it's your regular fossil power plant. Um, making some clouds. There you go. For everybody to enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Thanks so much again.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

We so appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you all for joining. We hope this provided with you with some valuable insights about the demands we'll be facing with data centers right here in your own backyard. And don't forget, you can join the conversation on our Facebook and Instagram pages or at blue dot podcast.com. And of course, if you like listening to the pod, please consider donating to it, which you can do by clicking on the donate link at blue dot podcast.com. Until next time, stay curious, get the facts and focus, and never stop fighting for what matters. Peace out, everybody.