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so caroline you're the only person who has shown up dressed up for halloween this episode is going to come out what are you talking about halloween what i'm not dressed up this is the latest trendy look but i'm a walrus every year and so i will have a tito wig with my walrus costume on you're one of the lazy ones who wears the same costume every year i know you got we that's lazy that's what you call frugal every year as a family we go you know as a theme we've done lord of the rings we've done wizard of oz we've done alice in wonderland we've done greek gods when ai swarms bring down society and we're all stuck in our homes you're going to have plenty of costumes to play with maybe you can be like a traveling troop to go to collapsed town after collapsed town to give people some entertainment yeah i i life is life is better with a polyester wig on your head the prepping vibes are very high right now spend any amount of time on x and you'll be inundated with warnings about coming societal collapse driven by the collapse of the grid and list upon list of how to prepare and if you're paying any attention to the news there's a reason people are anxious the u.s military is preparing for a new war and the u.s military is preparing for a new war and the u.s military is preparing for a new war and the u.s military is preparing for at least 90 days and the u.s military is preparing for at least 90 days of blackouts of the civilian power grid of blackouts of the civilian power grid of blackouts of the civilian power grid governments around the world are telling governments around the world are telling governments around the world are telling people to prepare for multiple days of people to prepare for multiple days of people to prepare for multiple days of disruption and cyber security experts disruption and cyber security experts disruption and cyber security experts are warning about the flood of malicious are warning about the flood of malicious are warning about the flood of malicious ai bots that could compromise ai bots that could compromise ai bots that could compromise the fabric of the internet some security the fabric of the internet some security the fabric of the internet some security experts are calling the ai threat black experts are calling the ai threat black experts are calling the ai threat black october it's pretty clear that we're at october it's pretty clear that we're at october it's pretty clear that we're at an inflection point for cyber security an inflection point for cyber security an inflection point for cyber security so how worried should we actually be and so how worried should we actually be and so how worried should we actually be and how worried should we be about the power how worried should we be about the power how worried should we be about the power grid grid grid this week we're joined by someone who's this week we're joined by someone who's this week we're joined by someone who's designed resilience and cyber security designed resilience and cyber security designed resilience and cyber security protocols for power markets and he's protocols for power markets and he's protocols for power markets and he's going to help us understand where the going to help us understand where the going to help us understand where the grid is vulnerable and how seriously we grid is vulnerable and how seriously we grid is vulnerable and how seriously we should take all this prepping advice should take all this prepping advice should take all this prepping advice then a reflection on the most energy then a reflection on the most energy then a reflection on the most energy centric election in modern history what centric election in modern history what centric election in modern history what does it tell us about how energy climate does it tell us about how energy climate does it tell us about how energy climate and data centers will play into the and data centers will play into the and data centers will play into the presidential election that's right here presidential election that's right here presidential election that's right here on open circuit from latitude media open circuit is brought to you by energy open circuit is brought to you by energy open circuit is brought to you by energy hub the flexibility platform for the hub the flexibility platform for the hub the flexibility platform for the modern grid more than 230 utilities modern grid more than 230 utilities modern grid more than 230 utilities trust energy hub to build and operate trust energy hub to build and operate trust energy hub to build and operate virtual power plants delivering 3.6 virtual power plants delivering 3.6 virtual power plants delivering 3.6 gigawatts of flexible capacity as the gigawatts of flexible capacity as the gigawatts of flexible capacity as the resources grow okay this is really great resources grow okay this is really great resources grow okay this is really great this is an amazing resource i can use it this is an amazing resource i can use it this is an amazing resource i can use it it's really valuable but here's what i it's really valuable but here's what i it's really valuable but here's what i really need to do to make it as good as really need to do to make it as good as really need to do to make it as good as or better than my existing conventional or better than my existing conventional or better than my existing conventional capacity paul heinz is the chief capacity paul heinz is the chief capacity paul heinz is the chief scientist at energy hub where his team scientist at energy hub where his team scientist at energy hub where his team develops the algorithms that turn develops the algorithms that turn develops the algorithms that turn millions of ders into flexible capacity millions of ders into flexible capacity millions of ders into flexible capacity utilities can stake their grid planning utilities can stake their grid planning utilities can stake their grid planning on my team is working on the algorithms on my team is working on the algorithms on my team is working on the algorithms that allow us to meet the utilities that allow us to meet the utilities that allow us to meet the utilities goals for shaping these virtual power goals for shaping these virtual power goals for shaping these virtual power plants machine learning keeps raising plants machine learning keeps raising plants machine learning keeps raising the ceiling on what vpps can deliver the ceiling on what vpps can deliver the ceiling on what vpps can deliver energy hub's platform is trained on energy hub's platform is trained on energy hub's platform is trained on years of data from millions of devices years of data from millions of devices years of data from millions of devices optimized for utility needs across every optimized for utility needs across every optimized for utility needs across every season and every grid condition we're season and every grid condition we're season and every grid condition we're working with utilities not to just working with utilities not to just working with utilities not to just enable that capacity but also make it enable that capacity but also make it enable that capacity but also make it more flexible so that utilities can use more flexible so that utilities can use more flexible so that utilities can use it you know more times per year for it you know more times per year for it you know more times per year for longer events in ways that are valuable longer events in ways that are valuable longer events in ways that are valuable to both customer and utility later in to both customer and utility later in to both customer and utility later in the show paul explains how energy hub's the show paul explains how energy hub's the show paul explains how energy hub's platform helps utilities scale vpps for platform helps utilities scale vpps for platform helps utilities scale vpps for their unique needs as grid demands their unique needs as grid demands their unique needs as grid demands evolve evolve evolve learn more at energyhub.com giving learn more at energyhub.com giving learn more at energyhub.com giving tuesday is december 1st time to put tuesday is december 1st time to put tuesday is december 1st time to put climate giving on your year-end climate giving on your year-end climate giving on your year-end checklist and apply the same due checklist and apply the same due checklist and apply the same due diligence you would with any investment diligence you would with any investment diligence you would with any investment that's what giving green does giving that's what giving green does giving that's what giving green does giving green researches the strategies and green researches the strategies and green researches the strategies and non-profits best positioned to unlock non-profits best positioned to unlock non-profits best positioned to unlock the next big climate breakthrough and the next big climate 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know them by their electric you might know them by their former name renew home we are at a former name renew home we are at a former name renew home we are at a pivotal moment energy demand is growing pivotal moment energy demand is growing pivotal moment energy demand is growing faster than the grid was designed for faster than the grid was designed for faster than the grid was designed for everyday electric believes we need to everyday electric believes we need to everyday electric believes we need to start at home with savings before start at home with savings before start at home with savings before jumping to new expensive jumping to new expensive jumping to new expensive infrastructure they already run the infrastructure they already run the infrastructure they already run the country's largest residential vpp country's largest residential vpp country's largest residential vpp coordinating over six gigawatts of coordinating over six gigawatts of coordinating over six gigawatts of capacity and now they're expanding capacity and now they're expanding capacity and now they're expanding partnerships with energy providers and partnerships with energy providers and partnerships with energy providers and oems so that products like thermostats oems so that products like thermostats oems so that products like thermostats evs and batteries can help households evs and batteries can help households evs and batteries can help households save money and support the grid that's save money and support the grid that's save money and support the grid that's home energy as it should be learn more home energy as it should be learn more home energy as it should be learn more at everydayelectric.com at everydayelectric.com welcome to the show i'm stephen lacy i'm welcome to the show i'm stephen lacy i'm welcome to the show i'm stephen lacy i'm the executive editor at latitude media the executive editor at latitude media the executive editor at latitude media caroline golan is the chief growth and caroline golan is the chief growth and caroline golan is the chief growth and policy officer at nrg and wearing policy officer at nrg and wearing policy officer at nrg and wearing the most wonderful hat the most wonderful hat the most wonderful hat you've dressed up you've dressed up you've dressed up yeah we i didn't realize we were doing yeah we i didn't realize we were doing yeah we i didn't realize we were doing this but i'm delighted to see you this but i'm delighted to see you this but i'm delighted to see you y'all are lame that's all i thought you y'all are lame that's all i thought you y'all are lame that's all i thought you were ted lasso if you had if you had told us we could if you had if you had told us we could if you had if you had told us we could have coordinated have coordinated have coordinated i mean but part of it is like i mean but part of it is like i mean but part of it is like channeling who you really are at this channeling who you really are at this channeling who you really are at this time you know you know and her time you know you know and her time you know you know and her reminding us how much better she is reminding us how much better she is reminding us how much better she is yeah there's also that just whenever i yeah there's also that just whenever i yeah there's also that just whenever i can can can do you have your 72-hour stockpile of do you have your 72-hour stockpile of do you have your 72-hour stockpile of food and supplies food and supplies food and supplies caroline caroline caroline yeah i got chickens yeah i got chickens yeah i got chickens i got garden beds i probably don't have i got garden beds i probably don't have i got garden beds i probably don't have all the other things that we don't think all the other things that we don't think all the other things that we don't think about you know they like scared us in about you know they like scared us in about you know they like scared us in kobe should make a list we should kobe should make a list we should kobe should make a list we should release a list after this to our release a list after this to our release a list after this to our listeners i've got it all hand sanitizer listeners i've got it all hand sanitizer listeners i've got it all hand sanitizer uh hand crank radio uh hand crank radio uh hand crank radio solar-powered flashlights tons of toilet solar-powered flashlights tons of toilet solar-powered flashlights tons of toilet paper and paper towels i've got it all paper and paper towels i've got it all paper and paper towels i've got it all candles you just definitely got plenty of candles you just definitely got plenty of candles you just definitely got plenty of candles yeah yeah yeah yeah candles yeah yeah yeah yeah candles yeah yeah yeah yeah what about you jigger what about you jigger what about you jigger i mean i have been going to 25 years of i mean i have been going to 25 years of i mean i have been going to 25 years of solar conferences you don't think i have solar conferences you don't think i have solar conferences you don't think i have all this stuff all this stuff all this stuff i have like a solar powered hand crank i have like a solar powered hand crank i have like a solar powered hand crank radio i have a solar powered hand crank radio i have a solar powered hand crank radio i have a solar powered hand crank like flashlight i have every single like flashlight i have every single like flashlight i have every single solar powered gadget and gizmo someone solar powered gadget and gizmo someone solar powered gadget and gizmo someone could possibly have could possibly have could possibly have pepper swag you got the pepper swag pepper swag you got the pepper swag pepper swag you got the pepper swag do you i want to make sure that you do i want to make sure that you do i want to make sure that you have your custom nikes and hawaiian shirts have your custom nikes and hawaiian shirts have your custom nikes and hawaiian shirts in that that prepping i do i do i do in that that prepping i do i do i do in that that prepping i do i do i do it is like i am ready it is like i am ready it is like i am ready to host a house full of unprepared people to host a house full of unprepared people to host a house full of unprepared people so why are we talking about all this so why are we talking about all this so why are we talking about all this prepping well let's bring in our guest prepping well let's bring in our guest prepping well let's bring in our guest for more there are a bunch of for more there are a bunch of for more there are a bunch of storylines coming together at once and storylines coming together at once and storylines coming together at once and it's freaking people out it's freaking people out it's freaking people out so over the last month or so we've seen a so over the last month or so we've seen a so over the last month or so we've seen a rapid increase in cyber attacks from rapid increase in cyber attacks from rapid increase in cyber attacks from swarms of ai agents and the pace of swarms of ai agents and the pace of swarms of ai agents and the pace of events is picking up and it's leading events is picking up and it's leading events is picking up and it's leading some to call it black october some to call it black october some to call it black october more and more cyber security experts more and more cyber security experts more and more cyber security experts are warning that ai is getting so good are warning that ai is getting so good are warning that ai is getting so good it is far outpacing our ability to find it is far outpacing our ability to find it is far outpacing our ability to find and fix security flaws and they're and fix security flaws and they're and fix security flaws and they're telling people telling people telling people make preparations for real world make preparations for real world make preparations for real world disruptions disruptions disruptions this story is colliding with a couple of this story is colliding with a couple of this story is colliding with a couple of others in late september the pentagon others in late september the pentagon others in late september the pentagon unveiled its fortress initiative to unveiled its fortress initiative to unveiled its fortress initiative to prepare bases for 90 days of blackouts is guidance that governments is guidance that governments is guidance that governments have been saying for a long time but have been saying for a long time but have been saying for a long time but the convergence of these stories is the convergence of these stories is the convergence of these stories is creating a swirl of conspiracy theories creating a swirl of conspiracy theories creating a swirl of conspiracy theories that we are on the verge of catastrophe that we are on the verge of catastrophe that we are on the verge of catastrophe and if you spend any time on x you can and if you spend any time on x you can and if you spend any time on x you can you'll be flooded with prepping lists you'll be flooded with prepping lists you'll be flooded with prepping lists and think pieces on survival skills and and think pieces on survival skills and and think pieces on survival skills and um the algorithm has has has somehow um the algorithm has has has somehow um the algorithm has has has somehow hooked me and it's a very anxiety hooked me and it's a very anxiety hooked me and it's a very anxiety inducing place to be so how do we inducing place to be so how do we inducing place to be so how do we actually distinguish the real threats to actually distinguish the real threats to actually distinguish the real threats to critical infrastructure and more critical infrastructure and more critical infrastructure and more specifically the power grid and we have specifically the power grid and we have specifically the power grid and we have with us jonathan monken he is going to with us jonathan monken he is going to with us jonathan monken he is going to help us sort through it he's a senior help us sort through it he's a senior help us sort through it he's a senior partner at converge strategies he's the partner at converge strategies he's the partner at converge strategies he's the former senior director of system former senior director of system former senior director of system resilience at pjm and he specializes in resilience at pjm and he specializes in resilience at pjm and he specializes in energy resilience for utilities the energy resilience for utilities the energy resilience for utilities the military and large commercial customers military and large commercial customers military and large commercial customers jonathan welcome thanks so much for jonathan welcome thanks so much for jonathan welcome thanks so much for being here steven thanks so much for being here steven thanks so much for being here steven thanks so much for having me looking forward to the chat so having me looking forward to the chat so having me looking forward to the chat so we need to start with the the question we've all been ruminating on here is, do you have a prepping strategy? Well, absolutely. I invested heavily in beef jerky early, so I should be fine. I think I'm going to be able to survive almost indefinitely, really. So, you know, honestly, it's funny. I used to be the director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. So I'm an emergency manager by trade. And prep was always part of the job. It's just foundational to what I do just in general. And so I have an emergency kit at home. I have 72 hours worth of supplies. That's just something that's just kind of part of what I've always done. But interestingly enough, even when I designed my house, I put in a 17 kilowatt solar system with a full battery backup for the full house, just because I knew that it's something that is, you know, there's economics to it. It's clean energy for the house, but it's also something that the house could run independent of the grid for 24 hours or longer if it had to, because I think preparedness is just one of those things that's foundational to where hopefully people go when they, you know, understand what the potential risks are. I mean, if you love your family, Jonathan, you'll get a 17 kilowatt system with a full home backup. Thank you. Exactly. That's what love really means. So Jigar finally said the quiet part out loud, and now my kids understand how much I value them. What do you think is going on here with so many governments now issuing these 72-hour preparedness notices? Like, there's a bunch of stories coming together at one time. And I want to sort through each of them individually, but like, why now? Why are we getting these alerts from so many governments? Definitely part of this is just, I would frankly say, coincidence about the timing of when some of these comments come out. I mean, anybody that's worked in government, now, Jigar, you can disagree with me, but if you didn't know this, government policy moves slowly. So a lot of times, like, these messages are being developed over time, you know, they're trying to reinforce some of these things. But I also think it's worth acknowledging the fact that these kind of timelines that are being set, like, what does 72 hours mean? Why are people choosing these specific time horizons? It's really just an understanding of, you need to, the government needs to buy 72 hours of time so that they don't have to replicate or replace these critical infrastructure systems that are sustaining basic life functions. So whether you're talking about electricity or water, wastewater, communications, they need you to be able to sustain yourself for as long. As. As possible so that they can actually set up a proper response. So I think we're going to continue to see this type of message just in general, but I also think that there's just a more open acknowledgement of the degree to which people are generally at risk when we look at these types of power disruptions or severe weather events and the types of things that governments understand that they have a responsibility for. I feel like it's worse than that, though, Jonathan. Like, I think that when you think about what's happening with Ukraine and Russia, right? And the Ukrainians going after a bot farm in Russia, and, you know, what's happening between the U.S. and Israel and Iran, there really is real kinetic warfare happening in the world, and there really is a desire by different kinetic players to actually disrupt infrastructure in each other's countries. Energy specifically, yeah. Yeah, and so I do think that people are like, hey, the probability of this happening has gone up a little bit, and this is a good time to remind people that, you know, we've always been asking you to be safe, but, like, you know, be extra safe this time around because it's actually more likely to occur. Well, it's also new threats, right? And in that new sort of world of AI warfare, like, are we up to speed yet in that defense or are we, they're going to take a few hiccups? No joke. I was in a meeting. I was in a meeting with lawyers, and they were talking about bots against bots, and my head just sort of exploded, and I wanted it to be 1995 again, you know? I think that's a good transition into one of the questions I have for Jonathan, which is thinking about what this Black October means, right? This is a loose label for all these cybersecurity incidents related to AI. I'm curious about how you read the increasing security vulnerabilities and the ability for unsophisticated hackers to use swarms of AI to perhaps penetrate physical systems. Like, how are you thinking about this moment? Yeah, I think the risk is very real, and it is significantly elevated. So, I think Caroline's term was correct. Like, are we up to speed on this, I think is the right word. And then also, to Jigar's point, like, the increasing attacks that are focused on critical infrastructure, some of them are kinetic in nature, and that includes the United States targeting energy infrastructure and Iran, Iran targeting a lot of critical infrastructure, specifically energy in the Middle East, and then certainly Russia's ongoing focus on the bulk power system within Ukraine. These are all examples of things where we're just in a different era right now, where critical infrastructure in that regard used to be generally off the table, just in terms of what modern warfare looked like. It's illegal to go after critical infrastructure. Yeah, absolutely. Without a doubt, it is. And I think the gray space has been on the cyber side of things, where you're not seeing bombs and missiles hit grid infrastructure, because. It's more of a clandestine function. And Steve, your question, I think, is very appropriate, which is, what we've done now is we've lowered the barrier to entry dramatically to bring enhanced cyber capabilities to that offensive capability against critical infrastructure. It used to be that there were only a handful of nation-state actors in the world that had the scale and sophistication, the manpower to actually focus on critical infrastructure. So, Russia, Iran, and China were really the only. countries that had enough people to spend enough time to focus on critical infrastructure. Now, you really don't have to be that sophisticated. You can use off-the-shelf tools from an AI standpoint and do what it used to take an entire cyber brigade to be able to execute, which is, frankly, not great. I think it totally changes the risk environment. It's like nuclear deterrence, again, except AI. Yeah, and the bots versus bots conversation is really complicated for a number of reasons, not the least of which is. You know, there's a lot of open-source AI capability that's there that. Is our AI better than your AI? Is it working faster than your AI is? Are we focusing it in the right places? There's a lot of questions about the sophistication of both the user and the tool, and you have to have the combination of the two in order to be successful. I want to hang on the bots-on-bots question for a second because my understanding is that we're in a pretty vulnerable place, and that huge swaths of the internet and the software that guides companies, et cetera, are human-made software with lots of security vulnerabilities that have never been uncovered, and suddenly we have these AI swarms that are relentless and can find vulnerabilities that have never been uncovered, and we just saw this recently with the discovery of a gap in PHP software, which guides like 70% of websites on the internet, and that folks are worried. There's this time period, like a year or so, when our AI defenses are not good enough or that we have this legacy human-crafted software internet that is vulnerable to the offensive AI hackers. Do you think that we're in a time period of particularly high vulnerability? Yeah, I mean, I think before the defensive tools catch up to the degree that they need to, we're in a very, very dangerous window in that regard. We're in a time period of the pacing at which vulnerabilities are both discovered and then addressed and patched. We've frankly gotten used to something that's typically measured in weeks or longer when we say, okay, there's a slower pace to vulnerability assessments that are happening or vulnerabilities that are being actively hunted by humans, and then the timeline of when a company develops a patch for an identified vulnerability, pushes it out to their customers, those customers go through their sandboxing and testing, and then they ultimately put the security patch out there, that's a timeline typically of weeks. So the difference now is if the vulnerabilities can be identified in real time, if it's happening immediately, and there was an example in Black October of the vulnerability was identified four days before the patch could even be developed and then sent out, and you've got this four-day window now where you say, this is an open door. This is frankly just an open door. If it's going to be happening at that pace, the patches necessarily can't be developed as quickly as the vulnerabilities can be identified. It's like anything else. It's a lot harder to build the patch than it is to just poke a hole in something and figure out that there's a gap there. I'm still, like, reeling from the fact that Black October doesn't mean I get cheaper stuff. What do you—oh. It might. I mean, it could. Isn't it, like— It could. Isn't the whole— It could. I'm pretty sure Amazon's doing that. So, I mean, part of what I'm trying to understand, Jonathan— You could buy this hat. Not really. This was not cheap, honestly. I know you, Caroline. Nothing you do is cheap. That's true. But, like, I mean, I guess what I'm trying to understand is that, like, as somebody who is a Luddite by nature, so all of this stuff happens, right? Like, these guys get disrupted, and those guys get disrupted, and Binance gets, like, hacked, and this guy gets hacked. Like, where does this all lead us? Like, it feels like it just leads us into a massive recession. Like, is that basically what happens? Like, I'm just trying to understand what I'm prepping for exactly. Like, give me the actual, like, what is it that I need to do in my list? Because the solar and battery storage, I already got done. Like, that's working. And I am, like, laughing at everyone who doesn't have one. So, like, you know, everyone needs to get one. And then the water. I'm just trying to understand, like, which systems are going to get disrupted first, right? Like, what is that? What does the negative consequence look like? Yeah. Great question. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I like the question for a number of reasons, because I know that you like to identify which stocks to short early. So, I'm trying to just give you as much insight. Yeah, 100%. I need to know what your top five stock picks are. Glad you understand why we do this podcast now. Right. I got the assignment. Don't worry. I got this locked in. So, I think the biggest challenge is, certainly, you have the scale issue when you talk about big companies. So, you talked about Amazon. Or you talked about. I mean, you could pick a large utility. You can talk about these companies. These are companies that have resources. But as you know, there are more than 3,000 electric utilities out there. And they don't all have access, financially or operationally or technically, to the same tools. The same is certainly true when you talk about water utilities, as an example. If you think 3,000 is a lot for electricity, there's over 250,000 water utilities out there. And a lot of them are just very small-scale players. When we talk about where the risk shows up on the grid, it's really at the edges. So, when we talk about smaller utilities, less sophisticated tools, still have those vulnerabilities that haven't been patched. The PHP example was a vulnerability that was there for 20 years. So these vulnerabilities exist out there. It's just that you can scan so many more things simultaneously on all these edges of the system. So when we talk about what should you be most concerned with, I think really where we see the most concern is those kind of lower-level sophistication, smaller-scale systems, they're hiding and kind of hanging out on the edges of the larger system. And what that ultimately translates to is if you can really expose those vulnerabilities and then take advantage of them at scale, individually it might not be a big deal. I'm sure you guys remember when the Tampa water system was hacked like three years ago. Very small scale, so it was handleable, if that's a word. So you can kind of wrap your arms around it and you say this is like a finite footprint. Well, if you're talking about dozens or hundreds of utilities simultaneously because they have a shared vulnerability that can be exploited at scale, that's when you start getting into that threshold event of saying, well, it's not geographically isolated, it's not infrastructure specific, it's multiple companies in multiple geographic areas. And now what you're doing is you're immediately exceeding the collective ability to respond and sustain people that are having disruptions to those electric services, communication services, water services. That's the game right there. You've been doing this a long time. You've run a lot of different scenarios. You've developed emergency response and resiliency plans. When you think about the new threat of AI swarms, what is different? Are there new risks that are imminent? Like how should utilities be planning for this? Just explain like how different the threat is today versus, you know, in the past. Yeah, I mean, I think we have to treat this as a foundational shift in how we approach security. This is not like a, okay, well, this is a. an interesting intellectual problem that we can consider for a little while and we'll take our time and get there. There has to be a lot more intentionality about how we do it. There also needs to be much better public-private coordination when we talk about the ways in which the government is able to specifically support utilities and what they're doing from a cyber defense standpoint. There's certainly, you know, anytime you ask, you're like, oh, absolutely. We work very closely together and the government's a great partner. But we have to get way past the lip. So there are not joint cyber defense capabilities that are mature enough to make sure that the tools that are necessary in order to handle this AI-enabled cyber attack vector, we're not set up for it the way that we need to be. So I think there has to be a much stronger consideration for government has access to AI tools, private sector has access to AI tools. What does the crossover look like and how are we being much more coordinated in making sure that we're more proactively addressing the speed at which these vulnerabilities are exposed and then the speed at which the actual patching is done so that we can address those vulnerabilities. So, different era. Earlier, we met Paul Hines, Energy Hub's chief scientist. His team develops a machine learning that orchestrates 3.6 gigawatts of virtual power plants. When you see a utility using algorithms, that we wrote on the whiteboard running 250 megawatt events, I think that's pretty amazing. Utilities need capacity they can deploy now, and they're finding it in virtual power plants, which are precise and configurable. I've got customers that have time of use rates. We need to make sure we respect that. I need to pre-cool during these hours. Maybe there's some hours that have a lot of solar power, so let's make sure that we soak up as much of that solar as we can. But I need to really manage my peak during this other period of time. And so figuring out, how do we take all those goals and then come up with schedules for all the resources, whether it's batteries, thermostats, electric vehicles. Energy Hub maps that evolution through a four-level maturity curve. Level one looks like traditional demand response. At levels three and four, a VPP is a real-time resource that can meet many different needs on the system. It's actually better than a power plant because you're able to solve problems in the distribution network, which is where a lot of the cost is right now. You're able to solve problems in an automated way, whereas power plants, actually are fairly slow to respond to issues. It's the future of how the grid operates, and we just need to connect them in the right ways, give them the right algorithms and make that happen. Energy Hub's Grid Aware DERMS is the flexibility platform trusted by 230 utilities across North America. Learn more at energyhub.com. Giving Tuesday is December 1st. Time to put climate giving on your year-end checklist and apply the same due diligence you would with any investment. That's what Giving Green does. Giving Green researches the strategies and nonprofits best positioned to unlock the next climate breakthrough. Climate impact is difficult to quantify, but Giving Green's research suggests a donation to one of their top climate nonprofits is roughly 10 times more effective than a high-quality carbon offset. And the Giving Green Fund sends 100% of every dollar straight to them. Maximized impact per dollar, no cuts or guesswork. Make your first gift before 2027, and it's matched up to $1,000. Go to givinggreen.earth/summit. OpenCircuit to claim it. OpenCircuit is brought to you by Everyday Electric. You might know them by their former name, Renew Home. After years proving the market was ready, they're delivering a new kind of VPP. So how does it work? Starting with features built into the products people already own and use. Things like smart thermostats, electric vehicles, and home batteries adjust automatically based on everyday routines, helping lower bills and add capacity. People can get meaningful savings and earn rewards from the grid. And this contributes to a reliable, resilient system that lowers costs for everyone across the grid. That is Everyday Electric's vision. It's the next great addition to your program portfolio. You can learn more at everydayelectric.com. So I think you failed at the assignment. Me? Or. Tomorrow is Halloween. Shorting the stock? That's the assignment? I mean, tomorrow is Halloween. And I am not scared at all. Yeah. And so I think that, like, you need to do a better job of scaring the crap out of our listeners. And so, like, Tom Fanning, like, to be clear, left Southern Company and joined an organization in D.C. and his whole thing was that, like, these cyber attacks, he thinks, can shut down the entire country and that we need a Black Start manual on how to do that. Yeah. And so, like, we need to figure out how to restart the economy. Right? So his nonprofit was, like, we need to figure out how to restart the entire economy. Yeah. Right? With, like, this Black Start capability. I got kind of scared after talking to Tom Fanning. Yeah. Yeah. You're like. I have one. I, like, can I add one other thing here? Like, we don't have enough first responders to deal with the climate events that are going to come our way in this country. Right? Sure. Right? The only way we've always dealt with this is, okay, something's blown up, something's bad, National Guard goes in, maybe you get power back, maybe the water gets back. But we have this, these sort of, like, reserve, literally, troops that come in. We don't have enough for that for even climate. So if you layer on top of this, we're just banking on the fact that there's going to be some really smart software engineers that are going to figure this out. Like, what's the. I guess my question is. Like, if you layer me in, like, how do you fix it in real time? You're like, 72 hours. Who's actually fixing it in those 72 hours? Because. Yeah. I'm not. I'm not. I'm. I'll scare you in this regard. I'm freaked out. Yeah. Okay. We can't. Because I am actually freaked out, and I'm just curious how freaked out you are. Yeah. All I can tell. So I spent. I just finished a 24-year career in the Army. I did eight years as domestic operations officer in the National Guard, so all disaster response. And the last 13 years as a cyber operations officer. Thank you. Thank you for your service. You're welcome. You're welcome. There we go. Let's start with that. Okay. Go on. So we can't fix it. We will. We are not capable in that 72 hours of actually fixing the problem of the scale that we're describing. So doing complex catastrophe analysis and exercise design, so like, Jigar, I do GridX, right? And I was in the room with Tom Fanning when he was talking about restarting the economy in the context of that exercise. And the challenge here is we are not capable. We are not capable of handling an event of that scale full stop. We can't. So what we had to plan for when we talk about complex catastrophic planning is what we call a mass migration event. If you disrupt critical infrastructure systems to the degree that we're describing right now, it's a mass migration event because there are insufficient resources, even in the aggregate, National Guard, reserves, government responders. I mean, FEMA's fundamentally gutted right now. If you talk about what we have available to replace, even on a temporary basis, these infrastructure systems, it's not possible. It's a mass migration event. So we're in a can't fail environment right now. I think what we're seeing in the deployment of this technology is the potential for being able to disrupt at a scale that exceeds what our threshold is to respond to it. Like, that's the space that we're playing in right now is the potential is too small. potential is too high and we don't have what we need in order to sustain it. ourselves. I really want to ask you about this fortress plan. This is the military's preparation for 90 days to isolate bases in the event of a civilian power grid collapse. There are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there right now that are seizing on this. I mean, Dan Bongino, the former deputy director of the FBI, Glenn Beck, they're all out there saying that this is proof that the government expects imminent blackouts. I know this has been going on for a long time. What is Fortress? How long has it been in the works? And what does it really tell us about military preparedness? Yeah, I mean, Fortress, I think, is really a mentality that you're saying, you know, the military has to protect itself, and that's the only way that they're going to be able to make it through what comes next. So the idea that you're going to create, there's about 500 major military installations in the continental United States. And the idea of creating 500 islands that are independently functioning is, I think, the intent behind it. And I think it's a great idea. I think it's a great idea. I think it's a program. I think the implementation of it is, frankly, impossible. It's kind of like, and I would put it in the same category as how Jigger describes the idea of an off-grid data center. Like, that's just not a thing. You warmed my heart, Jonathan. That's what I was thinking. That's exactly what I was thinking. Exactly. And I think it fails to appreciate some really key variables here, which is you could light up the installation like a Christmas tree, but if the defense community is not energized, they're part of the mission capability of the installation. So, you know, I think it's a great idea. And also, if you lose the other infrastructure systems that the base depends on, you're still not functional. And if you lose the defense industrial base at the next layer out that is providing the materials, the munitions, everything else that's necessary to make missions go, you're just missing the picture. So, the idea of creating 500 islands, which is really what Fortress is all about, it doesn't mean that you can't take preparatory activities on the base, like adding generation there, increasing the capability and sophistication of technical systems to transmission and distribution on installations. Great. I think trying to understand, though, the interconnected nature of these systems is what's being missed right now in this conversation. And Fortress came up as a very, very quickly, frankly. Like, it's been a conversation within the department for years about bringing more generation on the base, about hardening infrastructure. The pace of action is, in my opinion, way too slow. Like, we have to do a lot more in this area to try and sustain national defense capability. Because we're just not intentional about it. It's not part of grid planning. Straight up. It doesn't matter what utility you're talking about. It is not a formal part of grid planning. It's happening on an ad hoc basis, on a customer basis between the installation and the servicing utility. It's not integrated as part of transmission planning at any ISO and RTO. It's not integrated as part of IRPs that are being submitted by utilities. It's just not a formal part of the process. So, there are ways to improve. But in this particular instance, 90 days as a threshold, the idea that a base could sustain itself with nothing else from the outside for 90 days is, to say it's a tall order is a gross understatement. Like, the idea of being able to Steven, can I just say that Jonathan is my favorite guest of all time. And he needs to come on every month to make me look better. Oh, dear God. I don't know what you said, Jonathan, to get that reaction, but. The fact that he's saying that since the Obama administration, this has been policy, right? The fact that, like, every military base could actually generate its own power and figure out a way to be a little bit more resilient, etc. The utilities never took it seriously, never integrated it into their integrated resource plans, never thought, oh, this is an opportunity for us to test out new technology or do cool stuff. Like, is a cultural problem, right? And it took, basically, a meathead as the head of the Department of Defense just randomly announcing the Fortress Initiative for anyone to take this damn thing seriously. What the hell? It's a full circle of that. I can't believe it's happening now. Well, just to address this head on, just because there is so much chatter right now about what the military is preparing for with this Fortress plan, like, this is not an indication that the military thinks the grid is going to collapse, right? I mean, I think so. I think it's an acknowledgment of the fact that it can, which, honestly, is the problem. Yeah, I mean, I think, I don't, they could say that, but I mean, they can't implement what they're describing in a timeline that would align with, if they thought the grid was going to fail tomorrow, if they genuinely believe that it was going to fail tomorrow, this is, even if everybody, if the culture problem gets solved and we say we're actually going to be intentional about it, we're in a situation where we're going to be in a situation where we're going to be in a situation where we're going to be in a situation where we're going to be in a situation where we're going to decades-long timeline of trying to implement what they're talking about if we don't fundamentally change how we plan infrastructure. We have to be able to do that. Okay, Jonathan, wait, I have a doomsday bingo card order for you, okay? Oh, nice. Climate change, severe weather, rogue AI terrorist attack, massive data centers tripping the system and bringing down the grid. Which one happens first, and which one should we actually be talking about politically? I think we'll probably get to the data center challenge very quickly. I think, let's put it this way. Number one, I would say rogue AI cyber attack. You're putting very deadly weapons in the hands of children is basically what's happening right now. People that don't have the intellectual capability to understand the implications of what they're doing and the human cost of executing that. I think second is the data center problem. And I say that because the Department of Defense has been the single largest rate paying customer in the United States and actually in the world since World War II for the last 70 years. That will not be the case in the next 12 months. They won't even be in the top three anymore. Data center companies are going to have more aggregated IT and energy load than all of those military bases combined in the next 12 months. That impact on the grid cannot be ignored, and it will be felt soon. And then I think the climate component of it is going to continue to be a problem. I think that timeline is longer, which unfortunately means people are going to find excuses to continue to ignore it. We've talked about rogue agents attacking the bulk power system. Now we have this new part of the bulk power system, which is essentially being built out in real scale and in real time to service training, service compute, of which more and more of our greater economy is relying on. At what point do you just start getting massive compute data centers? And does that become more disruptive in the longer term? You see what I'm saying? In the longer term, because everyone's running their banking, they're, you know, they're doing their online trial. Everything is run by this. Wait, Carolyn, are you saying that we should be building only 20 megawatt and below data centers? Okay, okay, yes. Digger's brilliant. We're all in it. I mean, oh my God, so much winning. So much winning. But to your point, Carolyn. Good day for you. Absolutely feel like a real serious threat. Yeah, how do you see that threat, Jonathan? Yeah, I mean, I think that's what we have to be very, very aware of. You can, look, data centers, they don't segment the IT load inside the facility based on the individual customer, except in very unique circumstances. So when you talk about an ability to affect multiple infrastructure systems simultaneously, you focus on that. So you don't even, I mean, from an adversarial standpoint, they may not even know the full impact of if they do that, if they focus their attacks on that data center disruption, they basically just get to sit back and watch all the ripples on the pond and find out just how many things are going to be immediately affected by the loss of compute that is enabling so many of these different systems. The difference here is understanding that is a point of vulnerability that is not currently baked into how we understand critical infrastructure. Last question for you. Is the industry changing fast enough to meet this threat? I mean, I'm guessing not, but like, are you seeing an acceleration of preparation and planning in a way that leads you to believe that the industry, grid operators, utilities, et cetera, are really taking this new threat seriously? I think they're taking it seriously, and I don't think that they can move fast enough right now. I think we're in a window of time that I think you articulated well earlier of we have not caught up from a defensive situation. We're in a window of time that I think you articulated well earlier of we have not caught up from a defensive standpoint to try and fully address what we're seeing in terms of new offensive capabilities. We're unfortunately in, like, that between zone that we have not been able to understand how that needs, our defensive capabilities need to be leveraged to address this threat. We're not there yet, and we, I think it's always the defender that's at the disadvantage. It takes more time to develop the mitigation than it does to develop the vulnerability, and so we're in that window. I would say that the last question I have is, if I have a frozen Connie's Pizza in the freezer with Chia De Niro peppers, would that cause you and your family to want a bunker at my house? Any chance to get close to Chicago Deep Dish Pizza, I will come to your house immediately under any circumstances. Okay, to be clear, I have a dozen chickens, seven garden beds, and of, like, three solar-powered freezers stocked full of stuff, so I think— I love where we're at right now. I've got options. That's what I need. I need research. redundancy. Thank you both. I also have four children I have to deal with. it, though. Okay, now I'm kind of leaning on Jigar right now. Workforce. Well, whoever Jonathan and his family decides to hunker down with, you are definitely coming back on the podcast. It's a time of high anxiety, and I really appreciate you walking us through this. So thank you so much. It's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. I enjoyed it. Jonathan Munkin is a senior partner at Converge Strategies. He has a 25-year career in the Army. He's had multiple combat deployments, and before joining Converge Strategies, he was the senior director of system resilience at PJM. What a good conversation. We'll catch you later, Jonathan. Sounds great. All right, let's turn to the election. We are recording this a couple days before the midterms, and it will come out just as Americans head to the polls. And of course, gasoline, diesel, power prices, data centers were all top issues in the year leading up to the elections. High energy prices have historically been a Republican weapon, but this time Democrats have largely controlled the message. And people are just mad about high costs, and the backlash is so severe that Nate Silver is calling it the possible end of the Trump era if the outcome predicted by the polls comes to pass. So if Dems win in red states, I think we can make a case that energy was one of the most important factors that derailed the president's coalition. And at the same time, it was a matter of time before the election. So I think it's a very important factor. And I think it's a very important factor. I think it's a very important factor. I think it's a very time. It was a massive turning point for how we don't talk about climate, for how Democrats think about messaging on climate, and mostly by just not talking about it at all. So I guess first question for you, do you agree with the premise that this is the most energy-centric election in the U.S.? Obviously, we have the 1980 presidential election when Reagan beat Jimmy Carter after the oil shocks. That was a big one. But where do you guys think this stacks up? Jigar? I mean, we have an entire series on Energy Empire called Energy on the Ballot. So I think you know exactly where. I like sit here. I mean, I have found it amazing. All 36 governors running for election this fall are beefing up on who's to blame for higher electricity costs. I think the big difference, though, is that gasoline has been on the ballot before. But electricity bills have almost never been on the ballot. And then you have the U.S. that's been on the ballot for a long time. They are most firmly on the ballot this fall. Absolutely. Yeah. It's interesting to me how disproportionate energy is compared to just the overall rising costs of the economy on many critical goods. And you think about the rising costs of groceries, right? I mean, it's insane how the cost of groceries compared to where it was three or four years ago. Rising costs of health care, rising costs of other I mean, everything has gone up. And we all know the reasons why it's gone up, but everything has gone up. It's interesting how much more electricity gets a play, because I don't think proportionally electricity has gone up as much as some of these other sort of what we would see like critical public goods. But it's getting the biggest vitriol. And I think we've talked about that before. It's because, you know, it's driven by this like spooky AI actor that you know, we can't wrap our hands around. But that's that's the most interesting part to me is the disproportion there. But absolutely striving it. So as affordability took over, it feels like energy dominance stopped working as a political message. Do you think that that's the case? Any thoughts? Well, it's hard to I mean, I think Trump is still trying very hard to explain our engagement in South America, in Central America, in the Middle East, in Greenland, as an energy dominant narrative. I just don't know how well it's working. So, you know, I was looking. It doesn't seem to be working. So I was looking at a bunch of polling data, and it was pretty shocking that like only like 10% of Americans have even heard of energy dominance. So it's not even a term that most Americans voters has heard. And what most American voters care about is local. Resilience, local. How do I protect my family? How do I protect my community? How do I protect my county? Right? And so when you look at like Spanberger in Virginia has been talking about how the state becomes more self-reliant because, you know, Virginia is the worst run state in the country in terms of electricity. They import more electricity than any other state in the country. And that's the message that's resonated way more than even like energy dominance, decarbonization, any of that stuff. It's really about local. Do you think voters should trust Dems on this? Like, are they going to. What do they need to do to not screw this up if they are going to come in? And I'm talking about both the federal level and the state level. Like, how do they not screw this up? What are the real energy affordability priorities that they need to tackle right away? I mean, you know, I've said it a million times, but like we have to incentivize distribution level generation. We have to incentivize a market that values that. We have to create policies that put resilience in the hands of homeowners. And we have to free up the bulk power system. I mean, we know how to do it. It's not just storage, even though. Batteries. Batteries. Okay, there you go. Batteries, batteries, batteries. Is this like Beetlejuice? It's not just batteries, but it's a big part of it. And I actually. What I find interesting is that there is a lot of rhetoric and there is a lot of questioning about whether moratoriums or posturing will just sort of die out after the midterms, right? Like, this is sort of just a political jockeying stick. I actually don't think that it I think that some of the moratoriums are really just like a pause and they're trying to figure things out and that will probably alleviate. But I do generally think that there are a lot of governors out there who are looking for the authority to solve these problems. And some are overstepping their historical authority. And this is the political environment by which overstepping your political authority, like, wins you a gold star, right? And so I think that they're. I think that the Dems are going to have to if they win. But I think that they actually want to this time. And to be fair, I think the Republicans want to as well. Like, I don't think that it's just the Democrats that want to fix this problem. I think both sides desperately want to fix this problem. And I actually don't even see a moral authority on either side in this. I think they both. I think they both feel very stuck between, you know, an antiquated system, a, you know, administration that hasn't keyed in with rural America well enough, and the realities of this AI, like, monster load growth. Yeah. Yeah, I think that Carolyn's exactly right, which is that this is. Say it one more time. One more time. Oh, wait. Carolyn's exactly right. There you go. There you go. It's not really about change. It's not about Dems versus ours. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, if you look at the permitting bill, if the permitting bill dies, everyone in Washington believes that it'll be the electric utilities that killed it. So if we don't pass permitting reform, it will all be blamed on the electric utilities. And remember, the National Energy Dominance Council is who wants the permitting bill to pass, because they want the Clean Water Act amendments for the natural gas. I think when you think about what's happening in each one of these states, if we don't get a handle on figuring out how data centers pay for all of the incremental costs that they're creating for the grid, then those governors have failed. And every one of those governors, 36 of them on the ballot this fall, have basically said that they are going to do business differently. That is what Abbott had to say. In order to get elected in Texas is that he was more suspect of data centers now and more suspect of the utility decision-making process. If he didn't clear those two bars, then the voters of Texas would not re-elect him into office, right? And so that has been the litmus test that every single governor and every single senator has had to go through to be able to be elected this cycle. Any thoughts on how this is going to shape the 2028 election, coming up? Are data centers going to be the thing? Are energy prices and data centers going to be the main driver? Are we going to see anti-data center candidate? Oh, I mean, I think we're going to see a blue weight. I mean, I think, yeah, I think we're going to see massive turnover. But it's not as if the Dems are the only ones thinking about this or trying to fix this, right? And so it's like, there's turnover because people are angry, right? And I think there's going to be. the accountability would be the same. I think, whether or not, you know, there's a turnover. I think the accountability is here to stay, which is great. I'm here for it. I think I've said it before. Like, if these, you know, irresponsible, you know, build-outs are the thing that brings the right and the left together and reinvest them in their community, then, like, bring it on. Let's do it. I think people feel like the oligarchs in the United States have taken away their power. Their agency. Right? Like, when you think about the fact that Elon took it upon himself to come on the side of Russia over Ukraine, that's a problem. That should be decided by the U.S. military and the U.S. Congress, not by Elon Musk, right? When you think about some of the stories around how we're going to build out the power grid, how we give people permission as to. Whether they can run their house off of their vehicle, which General Motors and Tesla now allow you to do, right? When you think about all of these things that people want access to, they want to know that their elected officials are actually in charge of whatever it is that they're supposed to be in charge of, and not some trillionaire or billionaire that's, like, pulling the puppet strings, right? And so, we are entering a phase. Where people call it socialism, people call it all sorts of things, but what it is, is that these collective decisions that we make, whether it's about the electric power grid or drinking water or figuring out, like, some of, like, our national security priorities, et cetera, they want to know that our elected officials are in charge and not a bunch of campaign contributors. Well, we're going to have to close it there. Jigar, you have an election watch party that you're hosting, is that right? I do. In D.C. at Hook Hall, and so we're excited to see everybody, and I think, look, I think whoever you're voting for, I think everyone should vote. Just vote. And I totally agree with Carolyn, which is that, like, you know, the solutions have to come from the community. Well, I'm going to be listening to the results on my hand crank radio, eating my can of beans, surrounded by my. 30 days of supplies, so I won't be there. You're chickens. I'll at least be protected. Caroline, good to see you. Thanks for showing up in costume. Have a great Halloween. Enjoy your party. Thank you. Open Circuit is produced by Latitude Media. It's edited by me, Sean Marquand, and Bailey. You can find all our audio episodes anywhere you listen to podcasts, and transcripts are at latitudemedia.com. All of our industry coverage is there, so make sure to sign up to our newsletters, and go to YouTube to watch our episodes. Subscribe to Latitude Media's channel for episodes of Open Circuit and Catalyst, and if you like the show, give us a rating and review anywhere you listen to us. Thanks a lot for being here. I'm Stephen Lacey. We'll catch you all next week. you