We are going to focus the next three episodes on the Utility perspective with the theme of “Hug Pylons not Trees” or “This is not your grandparents Grid”. Most of us don’t really care where energy comes from but we do care when it is not available (storms or extreme weather) or the monthly electric bill gets too expensive. But our recent interview with utility expert Stephen Collins from SoCalEdison will shed some light on how complex our electricity grid is becoming with the addition of renewable energy sources. With the goal of reducing emissions and moving towards a net-zero ecosystem, we are introducing a lot of complexity in the lives of our utility providers. Let’s explore more about what is happening behind the electricity meter.https://www.edison.com/clean-energy/pathway-2045 Pathway to 2045

We are going to focus the next three episodes on the Utility perspective with the theme of “Hug Pylons not Trees” or “This is not your grandparents Grid”. Most of us don’t really care where energy comes from but we do care when it is not available (storms or extreme weather) or the monthly electric bill gets too expensive. But our recent interviews with utility experts from SoCalEdison and Colorado Springs Utilities have shed some light on how complex our electricity grid is becoming with the addition of renewable energy sources. With the goal of reducing emissions and moving towards a net-zero ecosystem, we are introducing a lot of complexity in the lives of our utility providers.reference Colorado Springs Utilities https://www.csu.org/

Welcome to episode three of the Future of Energy podcast sponsored by the Ershaghi Center for Energy Transition at the University of Southern California. While all of our guests are special, we may have outdone ourselves in this interview. In our episode today and we have a different format where we went on the road and traveled to Denver, Colorado to the headquarters of Liberty Energy to talk to their CEO Chris Wright about the future of oil and gas. Our program sponsor Kyle Koerner is the moderator.

Fossil fuels make up over 80% of the energy we use today globally so if there is a meaningful transition, we must develop solutions to replace this traditional, energy-dense, source in the context of rising energy demand. That is a big challenge that Mr. Wright describes. He earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was a graduate student in electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and at MIT. Chris is passionate about any form of energy that improves human lives.

We have so much to talk to Chris Wright about and his responses were so informative that we divided this episode into nine segments, and to add more information we have added some “Did you Know” segments as segues between our conversations. As a spoiler alert and just to name drop, Chris Wright is the new Energy Secretary for the new administration in Washington, so listen closely and take a lot of notes. Just like we did.

Check out Bettering Human Lives Foundation https://www.betteringhumanlives.org/

and Flipping the Barrel podcast https://www.youtube.com/@flippingthebarrel