HELLO FUTURE: The Power That Built America — Reimagining Energy for What’s Next

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Everybody's talking about energy, data centers, energy. How do we
get more energy? Should we have energy on Mars? Should
we go to the moon and put data centers? Where
in America? Should we drill? Baby, drill? Hello Future, It's
me keV and this is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier.
The planet is Earth. The year is twenty twenty five.
My name is Kevin Surreally, and today I'm starting a
longer conversation and a theme that I want to continue
to explore on this topic, which is energy. Now. My
dad works in an oil refinery. My sister works in
a refinery. My dad is a civil engineer, hardest working
guy I've ever met. I've been fascinated by energy since
I was a kid, and I have a deep respect
for every single person who has worked in the energy sector.
Hardest working people, truthfully folks, most innovative people, by the way,
that really built this country, that powered this country. I
would argue it's almost like the new Gold. I would
even go further to argue that there is no second
Industrial Revolution, there is no artificial intelligence innovation. There is
no chance of succeeding in quantum computing unless we sort
through the economics of our energy, which is why I
am so incredibly excited and grateful to welcome to the
program my guest for today Melissa Landry. She is the
vice president of the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, looks
at all of the economics of this entire sector, and
you really do need an economic mind in order to
work through all this. So Melissa, thank you so much
for coming on to help us. So I want to start,
even though this is a show about the future, I
want to start by just setting the stage for just
this moment that we find ourselves in America and our
allies find ourselves in that we actually have the tech chnology,
we possess the capability to launch the Second Industrial Revolution.
How is energy and the energy sector going to play
a part?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Great question we find ourselves, I mean, really a critical
moment in history. Really, the harnessing of energy is not
only essential to our national security, but also to America's
ability to compete I mean really in the global marketplace.
One of the biggest challenges is that energy is so complicated. Unfortunately,
one thing that's not complicated when it comes to energy
policy is just how absolutely critical it is and has
always been, really to our daily lives. But because it
is so complex and critical, it is unfortunately become political.
And that's unfortunate because energy is absolutely awesome. It's really
energy production that has literally transformed the world ours the
incredible technology and innovation that enables our lives today. I mean,
just you know, wherever you are, whether you're in your
listening to this in your car or at home in
your kitchen, just look around and literally everything that you
look at that you see energy played a role and
the production and the innovation of that thing.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
And I want to even take it just you know,
as we look into the future. You just made a
really great point. It's a point that I hammer home
on this program all the time, which is that we
never really went wireless. Wireless is such a misnomer. It
is such a dumb, reductive, stupid word to use, because
just because you can't see it doesn't mean that there's
not a satellite in lower orbit, or there's not an
underwater cable in the deep blue sea, or there's not
a refinery somewhere in Delaware or Louisiana that is powering
your ability to get online. And it dates back and
I think this is a matter of national pride by
the way, and not nationalism in the political sense, buttriotism
in the sense of something that Republicans and democrats, those
unspeakable truths that we can't even speak anymore, that we
all just universally agree on in our country, because innovation
is the greatest export of this country, period, and it's
given the world so so much. I was pulling some
stats when I was prepping back in seventeen seventy six.
You know, we have this sense of America two fifties
coming up, and we're all excited. In seventeen seventy six,
America was powered by wood and water. I mean, think
about that, and I guess some extent charcoal, but it
built the colonies, mills, the forges, the shipping lanes. This
was the backbone of our independence. Wood and water. Flash
forward to the eighteen hundreds coal ignites, the First Industrial Revolution.
I mean five million tons according to the US Geological
Survey in eighteen fifty to more than five hundred million
tons by nineteen ten. I mean, think of everything that
came in the First Industrial Revolution and how America boomed
as a result of that.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Melissa yeav You're absolutely right. The arrival of abundant, affordable energy.
Literally transformed the world first by coal, than by oil,
than by natural gas, and of course now you know
many other forms of derivative energy sources that we have. Now,
you're absolutely right, and where we find ourselves right now
today is rather than you know, it being a political
fight that is, you know, sort of pitting different forms
of energy against each other. We need policies, we need
leadership in America that is pro growth, pro innovation. We
shouldn't care about where it comes from. As long as
it's affordable, reliable, and secure, and it makes people's lives better,
that's what we want here in America.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
History repeats itself, right, I mean, this is not a
conversation for folks that we're talking about energy with artificial intelligence,
and it's a worthwhile conversation for sure. I'm sure Melissa
would agree with that. But back in eighteen eighty two,
when Thomas Edison opened the Pearl Street station in New
York City and really helped some modernize electricity in the
United States, Gee, how do you think all of America
got to be able to turn the light on coal?
We wouldn't have electricity without coal, no matter what they
tell you in the mainstream media, we would not have
electricity without coal. So maybe have a little gratitude when
you're talking about coal workers, okay, because that's how we
got to the nineteen hundreds. But there's another thing that
and it mirrors so much. And I was just talking
to some White House technology fellows the other week, and
these are the non partisan, a political folks who are
recruited by the government, people that I don't even know.
They're like in all the sci fi novels. I'm assuming,
and they've worked for like the Fortune five AI companies
and their experts, And it really dawned on me two things.
First is quantum computing artificial intelligence could actually unlock solutions
to figure out many of the questions of energy policy
that we have now that we can't even comprehend. So
it's almost what comes first, the chicken or the egg.
If we're looking to make sure that everything remains affordable
for Americans, Nobody wants a higher cost. No one wants
that because then there's no purchasing power. No matter what
they tell you, nobody wants high costs of electricity of energy.
Everyone wants it affordable. It's a marketplace. I would assume
you would agree with that absolutely. But the point that
I guess that I'm trying to make is if quantum
computing and AI can tackle some of these challenges, why
wouldn't we want to modernize our infrastructure?

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Absolutely right about that? I mean, I think that one
of the things that is getting lost in some of
the mainstream conversation and maybe fear that's being driven by
kind of mainstream media, but in data centers, is just
the tremendous value that this new technology brings to our
everyday lives. I was just listening to the winner of
the Nobel Priest Prize who has been working on quantinum
mechanics for his entire career, and the reason why he
won the Nobel Peace Prize now is because of the
wide spread application of that technology to literally improve humans
lives around the world, and the transformational impact that that
is already having on the world. A lot of times,
I think people when they think about data centers, what
they're not thinking about is this isn't just places where
the pictures on your iPhone are stored in the cloud.
It is really the powering of.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Everything, literally everything, your Alexa, your your serri, your your
stock market, the emails you get, I mean it's and
I go back to Thomas Edison because me that is
the greatest mirror of all of this. At the turn
of the nineteen hundreds and the end of the eighteen hundreds,
which is nowadays, they would have said, Thomas Edison is
a billionaire bro who you know, wants to charge Americans
an extra monthly bill. And we don't need lights, we
have candles. He's putting candle makers out of work, like
it doesn't even compute in twenty twenty five to think
of the criticism that Thomas Edison, and I'm thinking to myself,
Thomas Edison is Thomas Edison. I mean, he is an
American patriot. This guy brought electricity. I mean, can you
imagine us if we still had candles?

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Melissa, Well, I'm sure glad that we don't.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Well, there's another historical analogy that I know you're really
really following, and that's World War Two in national security,
and you mentioned this, and you know I didn't serve
in the military. Both of my grandfathers served in World
War Two. I'm a grandson of the greatest generation. I
have the utmost respect for all of our service members
and all of their families that served. But this World
War II analogy I think is incredibly important, and I
was diving into it because I've been reading some of
what you've been putting out. In World War Two, the
role that US production of energy played in many ways,
I don't think it can be overstated enough. But for
fear of not using analogies in the correct way, I
won't try. Because obviously our troops won that war. US
and coal powered the victory. In World War two, refineries,
refineries Okay produced more than four point seven million barrels
of oil per day by nineteen forty five. This is
according to the Council on Foreign Relations, an incredible group.
Incredible group. I love CFR, and this stat jilted me.
Jelted me. American energy supplied sixty percent of all Allied
fuel tanks, planes, ships, They ran on US energy. Melissa, Now,
there's some forces in our country that somehow want to
punish generations later into the future. And this is a
future is a mangle. They want to punish the people
that helped win World War Two, literally close to seventy
years into the future. Explain to me in just in
basic terms, what's happening down in Louisiana.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, you're you're absolutely right. You know, World War two
just an unprecedent in time for America, and you know,
many many different ways, but America is really not ready
just from from an industrial sort of production standpoint, as
any student of history knows. You know, the leaders at
the time did everything they possibly could to keep us out,
you know, of another world war, and yet you know,
we ended up right in the center of it, and
American industry rose to that challenge to support America's effort
to win the war. It was a time of unprecedented,
on paralleled public private partnership between the War Department and
in particularly in particular the US energy industry to drill
and produce the fuel that are planes needed. Airplanes played
a significant role in that war in a way that
they really had not before. But also not just to
fuel our airplanes, also to fuel the production of everything
that we needed. So we needed to build more ships,
which means we needed to produce more steel, right, and
all of that requires energy. So yeah, it was a
time of unparalleled public private partnership between the US energy
industry and the War Department and support of America's efforts.
And yeah, unfortunately, we are living through a period of
time now where folks are seeking to look back on
those activities with a different lens and really challenge the
production activities that took place. What started out as a
pretty wild fishing expedition as actually I now made it
all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.
There is a landmark case titled Chevron versus Plackhaman's Parish
that is the Supreme Court is taking up this term.
The Supreme Court has a chance to really confront one
of the most troubling trends in American legal system today,
which is really the systematic weaponization of our courts against
American energy pert.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Well, like I put simply, folks, like this is why
it's really interesting if you're a futurist, is this suit
is essentially blaming the public private partnership back in the
nineteen forties for coastal erosion in Louisiana. That's right, which
when you like think of it from a national security standpoint,
the fact that this industry and not even industry, this
national initiative that helps literally prevent the Nazis from winning
the war, and this thing that should be celebrated in
our country. Public private partnership from the nineteen forties is
now being weaponized as a thing that is bad. Beyond that,
what's startling to me is I thought climate change was
causing coastal erosion. So this is really really startling for
a host of different reasons. And the innovation boom that
we're in in twenty twenty five. If you are in Nvidia,
if you are at SpaceX, or if you are open Ai,
or you are Microsoft or your TSMC or your other
tech titan industries, and you're trying to partner with freedom
and democracy and Team America again not on the Republican
or right, but like a universal idea of America standing
up against authoritarianism in China and Iran and Russia. And
you're staring down a case where in the future, the
greatest generation is being taken to the Supreme Court. It's insane.
It literally and I don't really articulate opinions frequently, but
it is really insane because I think of my grandfathers,
I think of my grandmothers who sacrificed everything for their
families during World War Two. I think of Rosie the Riveter. Yeah, yeah,
and now it's very alarming.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Melissa, Yeah, absolutely, and I mean I totally agree with you.
I mean, to weaponize the legal system to in an
attempt to go back in time and really kind of
rewrite history, to impose retroactive liability for activities that dating
back to the nineteen forties, many of which were conducted
under federal permits and contracts and literally wartime directives. It
is deeply troubling. And what's even more troubling, there's over
forty of these lawsuits standing out of Louisiana right now
today target hundreds, literally hundreds of energy producers, again, most
of it for production activities that you know, dating back
wor World War two. One of these cases went to
trial in the Louisiana State Court earlier this year and
resulted in a seven hundred and forty five million dollar verdict.
If you think about the implications of that are absolutely enormous.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
China weaponizes freedom of speech, they weaponize the judicials. I mean,
it's they use our freedom against us. It's crazy. We
are out of time. But Melissa, I could talk about
this for a very long time. You will have to
come back on. But Melissa Landry, if people want to
find you. How do they get a hold of you?

Speaker 2 (16:43):
You can always find me on x at Melissa k Landry.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Awesome. Thank you Melissa for showing up to meet the
future and have a great tomorrow today m