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Not Too Late
Not Too Late: Sam Ruben - Why America's Power Grid Is Failing?
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In this Not Too Late episode, recorded amid major disruptions to global oil and LNG infrastructure in the Middle East and resulting price shocks, Zeshan speaks with Sam Ruben, co-founder of HyWatts, about how geopolitical instability and grid fragility could accelerate a shift toward distributed energy. Ruben explains HyWatts’ power plant in a box, which pairs onsite renewables (often solar) with short-duration batteries and long-duration hydrogen storage produced via electrolysis, enabling multi-day and seasonal storage beyond battery economics.
He addresses hydrogen safety misconceptions, outlines U.S. hydrogen-market challenges, and argues the biggest energy cost driver is transmission. The conversation covers U.S. grid fragmentation, wildfire and maintenance issues in California, rising data-center demand, and HyWatts’ deployments, including EV fast charging in Sacramento and a 172-home community in Kerman, California, plus potential applications for diesel-dependent off-grid communities in Australia and Southeast Asia.
00:00 Energy Crisis Opens
01:58 Meet Sam Rubin
02:18 Sam Origin Story
04:45 Power Plant In Box
06:40 Batteries Versus Hydrogen
08:13 Hydrogen Safety Myths
09:52 Hydrogen Market Outlook
12:37 Grid Risks And Geopolitics
15:11 AI Data Centers Demand
17:27 Why The US Grid Fails
23:16 High Watts Deployments
27:08 Off Grid Australia Opportunity
31:36 Global Leapfrog And Hope
34:42 Ten Year Vision Wrap
36:38 Favorite Vegetable Outro
Energy Shock Opens
SpeakerWelcome back to Not Too Late. We are recording at a very unprecedented moment. In the last couple of weeks, uh global energy markets have been thrown in a chaos. Um attacks all now critical. LNG, oil, infrastructure in the Middle East have disrupted the global supply chain right now. And it's sending shocks, like biggest shock waves, which I have not seen in my life. Um, from everything from my country, Pakistan to in America, gas prices are going up, and it's it's costing food, fertilizer, and everything in between. Um, so uh today I'm joined with Sam. Sam Ruben is an entrepreneur, a systems thinker, and a co-founder of HyWatts. Um, I learned about Sam's startup uh recently, and I was chatting with him the other day, and it was so much fun. And then I want to keep that fun conversation in this whole podcast, uh, where we are going to talk about how this geopolitical shock is going to probably permanently change the power we live in, um, and especially in terms of energy sector and why centralized grids are failing us, and how distributed systems specifically uh combining with solar and other clean tech, with hydrogen might be the technology that can have a bigger impact in the future, especially after when things get over uh from this situation um in Middle East.
Meet Sam Ruben
SpeakerUm, so welcome, Sam. Uh Sam. Thank you so much uh for your time. Uh can you please tell me a little bit about yourself and what are you doing these days? Um what what kind of uh how do you deal the with the chaos around us?
Speaker 2Well,
Sam’s Path to Climate Tech
Speaker 2there's a lot to unpack in there. I'll start by introducing myself. So uh growing up, I thought I was gonna be a lawyer and I thought I was gonna go into politics and like be working for a senator or something, and then so I had to study political science and economics for undergrad at Vass College, ended up doing some work at the Red Cross after Katrina in New Orleans, and finally ended out here in uh California in 2006, where my first job was as a beer buyer, but that that quickly got boring. And so I ended up working for a global grassroots interfaith peacebuilding organization called United Religions Initiative, which working with organizations of all sizes, everything from small businesses to municipal districts to breweries, wineries, large nonprofits, private schools, public schools, really kind of the whole gamut, and helping them identify ways to find savings to their bottom line through reductions in waste, water, energy, transportation, and other sustainability metrics. But doing that very much focused on the business case. And then, oh, and by the way, you've got this incredible story you can tell because you're doing all the introductions. And was doing that and serving as a teaching assistant for the operations class at Presidio when one of our former classmates uh posted on one of our Facebook pages that at the time she was at Indieogo, uh, that she was working with some founders in the 3D printing space who were looking for someone to help with regulatory compliance, market research, and sustainability. Uh, and for me, my uh MBA capstone, me and my team actually built this business plan to take clean plastic waste from hospitals and convert it into 3D printer film. Great idea, except for all that plastic is polypropylene. And while there really isn't much of a polypropylene uh film, but it was still an incredible experience, especially because I've been in love with 3D printing ever since I realized that Star Trek replicators are just atomic level out of manufacturing with energy medication. So in my mind, you can 3D print every anything as long as you have the right inputs and the right way to put them together. So I I connected with these founders that my friend did uh post about, and they shared this vision.
SpeakerSam, I I want you to give me two lenses. One isn't macro and one isn't micro, right? Through a systems thinking approach. I want you to like explain me that why hydrogen and what is this thing that you're showing, and how is this different with batteries? And what is it? Tell me in a more simplistic way so the audience also can understand it.
Power Plant in a Box
Speaker 2Yeah, so what you see on the screen is HyWatts's first product, what we call our power plant in a box. And what it does is combines on-site renewable energy generation, usually solar, because solar is cheap and you can put it on almost anything, but we can work with wind, we can work with geothermal, whatever makes sense for the project. And then we combine it with our proprietary hybrid energy storage, which in which we combine a normal battery because they're really good for short duration and peak response, with hydrogen for that longer duration, seasonal, multi-day steady state that's critical for really providing, uh allowing renewables to be a base load, despite their temperature. And it works by taking the solar generation and using that as the primary generation technology. So what you see here during the day, sun shining, energy, the solar panels are providing energy directly to the homes. When you have excess production from the solar, such as during the summer months, or times when the house in the middle of the day, other times when the houses aren't at their peak capacity, that excess energy is converted on site into hydrogen via uh electrolysis, so just using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then we store those hydrogen molecules at low pressure, just 200 bar, using type one canisters that have been optimized for both costs and safety for decades in heavy industry. And then when needed, we convert it back into electricity, such as during the rainy season, during the winter months, other times when the solar panels aren't able to provide all the necessary energy. And so by combining all three of those, the onset renewable generation, the short-term and peak response battery storage, and then that long duration hydrogen storage, we're able to allow renewables to be that 24-7, 365 energy solution for residential communities, data centers, EV charging stations, other critical infrastructure that's currently limited by a lack of capacity in the grid.
Why Batteries Fall Short
SpeakerSo, what in in simple terms, what I'm understanding is that uh solar has batteries installed at it or any kind of power generation. Batteries have a very small duration from probably three days or maybe more.
Speaker 2No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. Batteries are good for hours, not days. Um, they like even if you're like the average home consumes roughly 30 kilowatt hours of energy per day. Generally, batteries the folks are installing on residential on individual homes are in your 10 to 15 kilowatt hour range. So they may get you through the night if you're lucky. Um, and that's really what really one of the challenges is that they're also like most home solar systems when they have batteries, they're size based on average demand and average generation. The problem is that your generation is very different in the winter months versus the summer months. And batteries aren't good for holding that energy from from one season to the next. They're good for hours or even overnight, but beyond that, they get very, very expensive. And then you have things like self-discharge and other issues. And so, because of the way we're designing these solar systems and because of the cost of batteries, once they get past that four to eight hour mark, it we really aren't seeing solar systems that can allow that solar to be the full energy source. And that's where that hydrogen component and that longer duration energy storage is so critical because it allows for addressing that difference in production from winter to summer in a way that you just can't do cost effectively
Hydrogen Safety Explained
Speaker 2with batteries.
SpeakerI have a question related to hydrogen. Whenever I think about hydrogen, I'm a little scared.
Speaker 2Uh yeah, there's a small thing called the Hindenburg that is very deeply embedded in the global consciousness. But as one of our technical advisors says, thank God the hydrogen, the Hindenburg was hydrogen. Because the fact is, no one died from burning. People died from things falling on them or from falling. If it had been another flammable gas, say, I don't know, methane, natural gas, something we have running through our houses, things like, or that we have in giant tanks and propane houses. It would have been so much worse because those are heavy, uh heavy gases that that pool and collect. Whereas hydrogen is the lightest element in the world. It or it just dissipates immediately. The second you uh if there's a leak, it automatically goes into the atmosphere. Um, oftentimes with batteries or other flammable gases, when they're burning, you have this thick, black, toxic smoke like we're seeing over Tehran. Um, when hydrogen burns, you get water vapor. Uh so it's so it's non-toxic in that regard. Uh, it also burns at a lower temperature, so there's less risk of a secondary fire. Um, and it requires higher levels of oxygen to uh to become exploded. I mean, hydrogen is used every single day in incredibly high pressure in industry across the world. And you also never hear of any safety issues or any explosions or anything. But do they happen? Sure. It's a flammable gas. Like it still is a flammable gas, but if you take common sense precautions and follow the standard, the regulations that are in place, it's incredibly safe.
Hydrogen Market and Use Cases
SpeakerSo tell me a little bit about the hydrogen market right now in America and how is this technology combining with other clean tech can change the whole systems.
Speaker 2Yeah, so there's been a big push, particularly. I live in California, and California's been a national leader in trying to create hydrogen infrastructure. Um, and frankly, it's been a mixed bag. Uh, there's been a lot of hype a few times, and that's kind of fizzled. And part of the problem there is that a lot of the focus so far has been on creating the supply, but there haven't been the off takers. You're seeing more and more use cases in aviation. Um, because one of the downside the electric electricity is amazing, but it batteries are not useful when it comes to plays because batteries weigh a lot. And batteries also don't reduce weight as you fly. That's one of the great things about liquid fuel. It's like as you use it, it goes away and you're no longer carrying that weight. Um, but with batteries, you're the same weight at the beginning. So you have to it it impacts how you how far you can go and your storage. But if you if you use, say, compressed hydrogen instead, even whether it's a fuel cell or combustion, you're able to replicate that reduction in weight as you're as you travel, and you're also able to capture incredible power that can meet the needs of whether jet fuel or um fire or electric uh planes using fuel sets. Uh, so a lot of opportunities there. It's also heavily used in various industrial processes. It's a critical piece of uh semiconductor uh chip technology. That's actually one of the places it's used extensively at high pressures. Um something we we already see a lot of, but it's about how do we really leverage it as that next phase of the energy transition because we're we've moved largely, we've largely moved away from coal. Um, and that's been both a regulatory decision, but even more so a market decision. Coal's too expensive, it can't compete with solar and with some with these other technologies and fossil fuels. We're starting to move away from oil um because of cost structures. We're starting to see, and that's why natural gas has been getting so much uh becoming more pop. Most of the cost of the energy is not for the energy itself. Most of the cost of the energy is to distribute move that energy across long transmission lines. And so with our technology, what we can do is we can deploy this where it's needed and create fully off-grid uh communities that aren't reliant on um the body grid. Or we can do grid connection connected communities that are incredibly resilient and have their own energy security in the face of rising costs, in the face of an uncertain grid. Um, and particularly more and more like what we're seeing in the modern world of uh cyber warfare. If you look at, say, what happened in Ukraine, Russia shut their grid down. That was one of the first things they did. And so if the US that like that, and that very likely would be if the US were to enter into more of a formal war, and it still could happen even with uh Iran, knowing what we know about their uh cyber capabilities. Um, so we could see attacks on the US grid that knock out whole swaths of our country. And if you don't have this distributed resource, that is can be incredibly dangerous. And because the reality is like, for as comfortable as our lives are, we're probably a week from chaos, if not more, if not less. Um and we saw a little bit of that with the supply chains during uh the lockouts and what happened when all of a sudden thing the things we're used to being able to just go to the corners and get more not a thing.
War, Supply Chains, and Prices
Speaker 2We're about to see that, see shocks in the system right now with the war in Iran, because as you noted, like it's oil and gas, yes. Yes. Oil and gas under drive the cost of everything. They drive the cost of plastics, they drive the cost of food because you've got diesel trucks moving everything everywhere, you've got diesel tractors. Uh they you also have issues with the Straight or Homo's being one of the number one places in the world where ammonia travels through, and ammonia being a critical fertilizer. Uh, and this particularly right now being a critical time for fertilizing in places like India and Pakistan and Asia. Um, you're gonna see plastics in the US start get a lot more expensive. Because yes, in the US, we don't necessarily use a lot of oil from Iran. China does, though, Japan does, um, a lot of Asian countries. And the broad and what we're also seeing is I think in the uh I think it was Total, uh, the French energy company just today was announcing that 30 to 40 percent of refinery capacity in the Middle East is destroyed. Not just offline, destroyed. And then additional capacity taken offline through emergency shutdowns. Those ones that were shut down, probably six months to a year to bring back online. Those ones that were destroyed, years to bring back online.
SpeakerI was actually reading an article on CNBC and I remember last time we saw that uh now after this war or the the policy changes in the last one year, moving away from clean tech, now bringing us back to clean tech. Which is which is such a metaphor. I I don't know. Can you tell me more about it and tell me the way how it will shape the things in future?
AI Data Centers Drive Demand
Speaker 2And that's part of the problem too, is that a lot of this is caused by how we're approaching um AI and com and like how we're this idea of machine learning and just throwing compute at LLMs. But I think we're starting to see that shift in terms of the tech side because we're seeing they're realizing that the energy costs and everything make it so that if you're building your model on LLMs based on a ton of compute, you're not making your money back. There's not a not a viable profit pathway. And so we're starting to see shifts like Nvidia's coming up with new architectures that can allow their chips to run a lot more efficiently by shifting how they do some of the um inference and stuff. You're seeing models are moving towards greater, get more and more efficiency of compute rather than just brute force compute. And so that's going to change the equation a little bit on the energy demand side. But it like that's one of the things that China is doing really, really well right now is China is rolling out data centers left and right because they're using that, looking at them as part of energy infrastructure, and they're doing so as they bring on significant new solar and other renewables. And so the only way that here in the US we can actually bring all those data centers online that we've been talking about is by thinking about them as energy, uh, as part of the energy system and really moving that forward uh in that way in in combat combination with onset with generate generation, in combination with more utility scale renewables and storage. Um, because when you've got a data center that's using hundreds, e tens or hundreds of megawatts, you're talking about a city. You're talking about a big city, like we're like the like what we're talking about, these data centers. Yeah, we're not just talking like in terms of energy, we're literally talking about bringing entire cities online. And I don't think that's how people are thinking about it, but that's what we're talking about in terms of energy. And so we need to think
Why the US Grid Is Fragile
Speaker 2about it in that way.
SpeakerWhat I'm saying is for a Guardian that let's how how do we explain the problem uh right now? Uh and obviously, let's say, for example, Texas is one of the places which is shooting up in terms of data centers and like what component is.
Speaker 2Because it's really easy to deploy energy and new energy in the world. Yes, yes, like that's one of those like the deregulated market in Texas around energy is part of why they're able to do the deregulated market in Texas is also why they all lost power during an ice storm. Yes, a couple years ago, and the fact that they their grid's completely disconnected from the rest of the US grid. So for though for those out there who have no concept about the American's grid, it is I don't want to say shit show messy. Uh we don't actually have a grid, we've got like seven grids that are all interconnected except for Texas, which is its own little thing because it doesn't like playing with others. I think there's one emergency, but that's it. And so you've got these independent system oper operators like California Kaiso here in California, California independent system operator. Um in Texas, it's ERCON, the Energy Resource Commission of Texas or something. I forget. But these are the kind of the organizations that oversee their portion of the grid, and these grids often are privately owned. Uh, like where I live in California, most of our transmission lines are privately held by Pacific Gas and Electric, which is the northern utility here in the north. Uh, they're uh an investor-owned utility, so they provide dividends. Uh, and so one of the reasons we've been having issues in California is that with the wildfires and everything, part of why they've been so devastating, and frankly, why they've started in many cases, is because of PGE and other investor-owned utilities failing, uh making decisions around whether to use their money for up maintenance and upkeep of the grid or to pay out dividends. Um, that's a whole other conversation. I won't get into that one too much. But it's that lack of maintenance on the grid uh that's caused a lot of these wildfires in California. And it's why PG ⁇ E has gone bankrupt something like three times in the last 10 years, um, because of all the damages owed to people, the billions and billions and billions of dollars because of these incredibly destructive wildfires that were started by old uh equipment moving in the wind, basically, and sparking and and so the way it is in the US is it's these big power plants that they kind of it's kind of a centralized hub and spoke system, one way, where you've got a centralized big power plant that's providing energy, like hundreds of megawatts or gigawatts of energy that's then moving across these transmission lines, sometimes thousands of miles, um, but often less, uh, to get to where it needs to be to your house, to this light bulb right here. Um, and that's great, except for it can be it's really expensive to build out new infrastructure. It can be really expensive to build out new high transmission lines. Uh, and so, and there's a lot of critical supply chains within that. Like if you're really large electrical transformers and inverters and all this equipment that sometimes like one of the reasons we've been seeing delays in new interconnections is one, both because of there not being enough casting in the grid, but also years-long backlogs of some of these critical of these critical transformers and other components of the grid. And so it's a very complex thing that hasn't really been upgraded much in the last 50 years. There, and and I don't want and for those out there working in the industry, yes, I know you're all working hard. I'm not trying to it, but it's really we didn't to have the grid we need today, we need to start investing and upgrading it 20 years ago, is I think maybe the best way. And we didn't. And so the simple fact is if we want to have all this cool new stuff that uses electricity, like more efficient uh hot water heaters, AC, cars, data centers, all this fun stuff, we need better ways of providing that electricity. And that's where distributed production and on-site generation are critical because that adds so much strength and resilience to the broader grid. Because it means that instead of that data center pulling energy that might otherwise be going to these homes, it's able to offset that with what it's generated on site, perhaps all of it. And then it also becomes an incredible tool for the broader grid, because one of the most important things the grid does as a grid, and where that interconnection becomes really important, is moving electrons where they're needed when they're needed. And so one of the things, like, and this is where storage becomes critical with renewables, is like in California, there's because of all the solar, there's a thing called the duck curve. And basically it refers to the fact that during the middle of the day, sometimes energy becomes negative. The the grid actually has to pay people to take it because there's so much energy, uh, solar energy coming in during the middle of the day. Um, but then you get spikes in the cost during the night when that solar goes away. And so it's part of it's gate how do we make sure those are where they need to be? And storage gives those electrons somewhere to go when and then saves them for when you need them, uh, when there's too little of it. And that's what the hydrogen does, but it does that instead. Of between say morning and night, it does that say between July and December and holds them for those for that period. And for that, and it's and that's that long duration is critical along with that shorter duration. Um, but the distributed part means that we are more secure because a failure over there doesn't mean it means no longer means I lose my energy. Um, and that and that's not just important for business, but this is important for people's lives. I mean, think about hospitals. They're often they often have generators, but those generators can only run for so think about stores, think about people's food in the fridges, all these things that electricity is critical for. Heat during the summer. I mean, yes, heat as we're seeing hotter and hotter summers, AC is no longer a nice to have. AC is literally the difference between life and death for some people in some places.
SpeakerYes. Um that's a very good analogy because I come from Pakistan and I have seen growing up no electricity for like eight to ten hours. And now, uh, in the last three years, when they made a solar policy, things have been completely changed. All the rooftops in the country has been installed with solar panels, especially after 2022 floods, because it was the most devastating floods. Right.
HyWatts Deployments and Costs
SpeakerI wanted to ask more, Sam, about HyWatts. Um where have you installed the project yet? Um, what are the numbers? Because numbers around America are probably the most important thing.
Speaker 2And that's something where we believe the people in it, hi watts is you have to be able to make the business case.
unknownYes.
Speaker 2Um, like the fact like I actually don't talk about the carbonization anymore. I talk about resilience and security because the decarbonization part is nice and it's definitely a positive, but it doesn't move the needle at the end of the day. What moves the needle is cost of cost per kilowatt hour of electricity. And so what we've done is uh last year we deployed a MVP system, which was a mobile trailer-based system. Uh so it's like a 60-foot trailer running a couple level two chargers uh with roof and side-mounted solar, and then our storage technology inside with the hydrogen conversion unit, the battery inverter, things like that. Uh, and did over a thousand, almost 1,500 hours of level two charging and got incredible amount of data. We did a lot of that here in the bay, also took it over the Rockies to Denver to the uh NREL industry growth form, just some charging there, SoCal, NORCAL, all over. Uh, and that gave us some really, really good data, which shows that depending on the scale, we can deliver electricity anywhere from nine to twenty-five cents per kilowatt. Which in some places that's gonna be expensive. In places like California, that's dirt cheap. You're here, we're paying 35 to 45 cents per kilowatt hour, and it's only going to keep going. So we have our first two commercial deployments uh coming up this year. One is being backed by a grant from the Sacramento Air Quality Uh Management District, uh, which oversees pollution for the entirety of Sacramento County. And so we're deploying a DC fast charging station uh there, which is going to be a part of their vision for 52 mobility hubs across their service area. Um, and they're really excited about what we're doing because we can provide, we don't have to wait for the grid to be upgraded in places. So, like for example, the one we're doing in Sacramento, we're getting about 300 kilowatts from SMUD, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and then we're deploying 300 kilowatts of solar. So it's kind of 50-50, and that's gonna be able to do fast charging for 30 plus cars per day. Uh, the other project that we're breaking ground on this year is for a 172 household residential community in Kerman, California, outside of Fresno, here in the Central Valley. And that's gonna be really exciting. It's 118 single-family homes, 54 apartments, center amenities, and so for that one, rooftop solar on every building. Uh covered part uh we're deploying additional covered parking with solar canopies uh to ensure that we have all the generation necessary for the community. And then we're using our uh storage technology to allow that to be the 24-7 uh supply. We'll still have so each house is gonna have an allotment. Let's basically we're doing sending it what we're doing is we're selling the energy to the HOA, and then the HOA is providing energy as a part of its services. Um, and one of the things that it's really attractive to homeowners is that we're guaranteeing them a price for the next 20 years at a price that's already lower than what they're paying the utility now, and the utility has already announced increases. So that's one of the things the developers are able to really say. And then for this first, this phase, we're going to have the utility on site as a backup. So when each hit house hits its allotment, they flip over to the grid and then at midnight flip back. But for the the goal is for the next nine phases to be fully off-grid. Um, and this is really a vision for resilient communities and to allow infrastructure to move forward at a pace it just simply can't currently because there's just not enough energy. And to do so in a way that's going to future proof them against instability and against rising costs. Um, and do so in a way that doesn't provide uh generate fumes. Like if you're talking about, say, a rural community of the Toronto
Off Grid Opportunity Worldwide
Speaker 2and diesel. Um, and we've we've had some great, we're currently actually exploring the Australian market. We're still very, very early in that. But one of the things that has us really excited about the activity there is take, for example, the Northern Territory, which is like that big state that runs from like the center of the country now springs all the way to the tropics in the north and Darwin. Um they have 54 off-grid communities across the across the territory. Those are all currently running on diesel generators. Many of those communities are inaccessible by wheeled vehicles six months of the year due to flooding. So only if you go accessible by boat or by uh plane during those times. And so your communities are dealing with giant diesel generators in the middle of their communities with fumes, with noise. And many of these communities are Aboriginal communities and First Nations. And so one of the and the other critical piece is the Northern Territory government subsidizes energy for the entire territory. If you're by if you're in the territory, you pay 35 cents per kilowatt hour Australian, no matter what time of the year, where you are. And so that for more developed places, that means the states subsidizing 20 to 25 cents per kilowatt. For those communities where your cost of the diesel can be 70 cents or more, and frankly, it's going to only go up now with everything in Iran and everything, they're subsidizing more than half of that. And so there's a really exciting opportunity to use our solution to provide clean, reliable, resilient energy to those communities that can reduce their energy costs while also eliminating the need of the state to subsidize it. And so it's situations like that where it really becomes a win-win-win, uh, where everyone benefits. Um, and then it's a but it's also a situation where there's carbonization itself. It's awesome, it can provide funding, but that's just that's just a secondary. It's really about that low-cost, reliable energy that people need. Because all of a sudden, when you do that, people don't have to leave their call small towns to find economic opportunities, particularly if you combine it with say satellite internet connections. Or all of a sudden you can create economic development in places without having to wait for spending millions of dollars in running uh power lines there.
SpeakerDan, tell me uh when you were talking about a lot of these communities uh which are distributed in terms of uh power uh in Australia and maybe other places.
Speaker 2Oh, all over the world. I mean, so across Southeast Asia, like we're seeing right now. I mean, one of if you've been watching the news, uh the Philippines just went to a four-day work week um because to reduce the need for to save people a day of gas. Uh you've had places that are subsidizing it. Uh you've got places like Indonesia that are holding off, and but that's because they wanted to wait for everyone to get back from Eid before they implement things. Because when they tend to mess with the fuel, they get protests. And so one of the things that we're going to be seeing, I think, in these places, because one like these are communities, these are countries and areas where mobility scooters are a big part and motorcycles and two wheels are a big part of mobility. Guess where the majority of electric vehicles, what type what the majority of electric vehicles in the world are? Oh, hey, two-wheeled uh motorbikes and scooters.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So there's an incredible opportunity in these places to be able to take infrastructure like ours and deploy it, where we're deploying distributed generation with storage. And all of a sudden, you can switch from a fossil fuel economy to an electric economy. You can start saving your consumers money by allowing them to buy uh electric scooters that they can charge at a at a relatively low cost, or even charge home if they put their own little solar up there. And so that shift, I think, is gonna be accelerated because we're going to see a lot of social upheaval in these places with those that are so dependent on imported fuel. Um, because that's that goes directly to the cost of living. And these are places that already have a history of unrest when fuel costs go up. And so I think we're gonna see a big shift across Southeast Asia, and that's somewhere, and so island nations and areas with limited RNC label grades is an incredible opportunity there. Even places in the US, like tribal lands and elsewhere, there's opportunities to support that. And by doing so, it's not just increasing creating resilience and security and economic benefits, it's also allowing for a leapfrog and to move in terms of technology from instead of following the same path that the US and China have, where we go through coal and oil, it it can allow for leapfrogging of technologies and moving to the next phase. And that opens up the possibility for whole new ways of being and whole new solutions.
Thriving in Scarcity
Speaker 2Um, because something something I'm a big believer in, and this is something I know you were gonna ask a question about, but I'm beating you to it, sorry. Um, is that as we move toward like as a as a global society, we really need to be looking to those communities that are thriving, not not just surviving, but thriving in many cases, in places like uh the uh slums of Mumbai or the or Kibera in Niger or the ghettos of Johannesburg or favelas of Rio, like these places where people are creating community, creating ways of living and creating opportunities for themselves. We as a global society have so much to learn from people who are able to thrive in scarcity in those and who are able to make do with less. Humanity and society as we know it is probably gonna go the way of the dodo. Except there's a little thing called human ingenuity, our unique ability as a species to come up with totally new ways of doing things that change everything and do so really, really quickly. Problem is we usually do it by mistake. So if we did it with intentionality, think about what we could do. And and it's that that unique ability of our species. And it's it's not just people who've gone through formal life, people who are have those lived experiences that inspire them to see different ways, that inspire them to new possibilities, uh, to having the imagination to look beyond into a better. And that that's what gives me hope. And part of that's also about figuring out how do we do the how do we make the right thing the easy thing. Uh, this is something that we've we've talked about as well. And for for me, that's really we we saw during the lockdowns, and and we're likely seeing gonna see it currently, other aside from the massive amount of uh smoke over the Middle East. We can do we can make the changes we need to to buy humanity time. We like saw lockdowns, like we were for the first time in years, we were on the right path during the lockdowns in terms of initiatives. Yeah, but what but the problem is it requires a level of sacrifice and sh that we don't have leadership on the global level to inspire because it does require change, it requires people doing things differently. Um and so when I say we need to make the right choice, easy choice, it's about going upstream. So that's why one of the reasons why with mighty buildings I focus on the built environment because so much of our energy goes into the built environment, and there's opportunities for the built environment to be a climate solution. Same thing with energy, so much of our emissions are tied to energy and how we generate that. So we can figure that out and do so in a way that makes the business case because at the end of the day, it's still you it has to you have to make the business case. But the cool thing is climate tech makes the business case. Sustainable business is good business, it uh makes you more resilient, robust, and resilient during times of upheaval. Um and so by making that case, we can make that right choice easy choice. We can turn, we can focus on zero emission energy, not because it's zero emission, that's that's a huge positive, but because it allows us to do the things we want on a day-to-day basis in a way that we can't with the current technology and solutions.
Ten Year Vision and Wrap
SpeakerLast question, uh, and then we wrap this up. I mean, this is the last question.
Speaker 1Do we have to? This is fun.
SpeakerUm 10 years from now, let's say, where do you see yourself and higher watch? Where where do you think where are you going to be as a company and as a person as well? Your personality.
Speaker 2Uh glow glow, I think I mean in my my vision and my dream, I would love to see HyWatts as a network of glob of companies around the world providing distributed, like whether perhaps as a new new model of utility, or perhaps it's as a technology provider for companies within these countries, but being a part of unlocking low-cost, reliable, distributed energy everywhere, and really giving people empowering people to make the choices that they want to, not necessarily choices being forced into choices that they have to that may not be the best choice for them simply because that's the energy cost or the availability of electricity, but being really freeing humanity to to do those things that forward forward us as a species by by providing energy. Because then we're getting to a point where energy is a should be is a human right, and energy determines what you're able to do and what technologies you're able to take advantage of. And so that's for I think on the high watch side, and then for me personally, if I get to be a part of that, man, I've done something. Um my hope is that in 10 years the world's such that I still get to go outside, I still get to uh see natural beauty, um, I get to uh take care of my people, um, and I get to say at the end of it all that I do the world is at least a little bit better if I haven't been a part of it.
SpeakerYeah. Last thing, what's your favorite vegetable?
Speaker 2Ooh. It's a tough one.
Speaker 1Growing up, it was weirdly Brussels sprouts, um, but I don't think it is Brussels sprouts anymore. Um Hikama's really good, but I don't eat a lot of it.
unknownI don't know.
Speaker 1Cucumbers are also really good, zucchini, but it's oaks.
Speaker 2So you you you don't have one. No, no, I really don't. Like I love like I I I I really don't have a favorite anything, because so much of it depends on my mood. Like what I what what what I like might be my favorite right now probably won't be in a week. Um, and then will be again the next day. Like it's yeah. I like a lot of exactly and what uh what's yeah, it all it changes by the day. Um it's just the underlying value.
Speaker 1It's pretty consistent. Amazing.
SpeakerThank you so much, Sam.