Switching The Energy Economy Of San Antonio

NPR - July 8, 2011

San Antonio's mayor says he wants to make the city a hub for alternative and renewable energy businesses. Ira Flatow and guests discuss how a city can change its energy habits. Plus, smart meters let utilities know how much energy a house is using minute by minute. Who should own the data? Can consumers use the info to save money?

IRA FLATOW, host: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. We're in San Antonio this week, broadcasting live from the Witte Museum here, and one thought keeps popping into my mind: I hope the air conditioning keeps working.

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FLATOW: Because here in Texas, it's July, and it's really hot outside. The mercury is hovering around 100, as it does almost every day in the summer. A blackout like the one we had in the Northeast a few years ago or the one they had in Texas earlier this year could really be deadly this time of the year.

Managing the electricity grid and keeping those air conditioners humming can be a challenge for electricity providers, and are sure to get even more complicated when renewable energy is added to the mix, something San Antonio is planning to do.

For example, this week the city's utility announced plans for adding up to 400 megawatts of solar power to their energy menu. So what is the most efficient way to use all that new energy? When you want to run the dryer or charge up your electric car, can you choose the cheapest time of the day or night to draw that power, and how do you know when electricity might be cheaper?

That could be the role of smart meters and smart appliances. Many experts think that they are vital if we want to make our energy use most efficient, something the mayor of San Antonio says is a priority for his city. I'd like to bring on the mayor of San Antonio, and we're going to bring on other local experts about pioneering efforts to make it go green.

And here now is the mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro. He's joining us by phone from a conference in Charlotte. Sorry you're not here in town here, Mr. Mayor.

JULI�N CASTRO: I know. I would be. I see that you've picked up on the heat, though.

FLATOW: Yes.

CASTRO: I'm here in Charlotte right now for a National League of Cities board of directors meeting. But from here, welcome to San Antonio.

FLATOW: Thank you very much. Tell us about your plan for a new energy economy in San Antonio. I mean, we think of, you know, Texas as oil. But you're talking about this new energy economy. What do you mean by that?

CASTRO: You know, when folks think about Texas, they do think about that, very much so. I mean, Houston is the energy capital of the world. In San Antonio, we want to be the new energy capital of the world.

And what I mean by that is essentially to link efforts going on throughout the United States and worldwide to economic development. So a few weeks ago we had great announcements on June 20th on three companies that are locating, relocating their corporate headquarters to San Antonio. One of them makes electric delivery trucks. One of them, in fact from North Carolina, makes home area networks that work with smart meters. And the other makes LED lighting.

So while we achieve energy efficiency, and we invest in a greater way in renewables as part of our energy mix, we also want to link that with job creation.

FLATOW: And so you can also bring in these new jobs by bringing in new sources of electricity and new ways to use it, like LED lighting.

CASTRO: Yeah, and that's a good example. For instance with LED lighting, the company is called Greenstar, and CPS Energy struck up a deal with them to convert 25,000 lights in the urban core of San Antonio to LED lights and then to pursue further projects in the future as part of that.

They're moving what is now between 35 and 50 folks to San Antonio, but because that LED lighting market is growing rapidly, that's anticipated to grow, so all told, those jobs that were announced a few weeks ago represent about 230 jobs now but are estimated to go to between 800 and 1,000 jobs by 2015.

FLATOW: Wow, and you give these companies incentives to come here and do these sorts of things?

CASTRO: Yeah, you know, for us, San Antonio has a natural advantage. It's not the only city that has this advantage, but our advantage is that we have a very large municipally owned utility that is vertically integrated, that has tremendous buying power, contracting power.

And so when we go out and do contracts with folks, either to provide energy or provide services, one more part of the equation is what are you going to do in terms of creating jobs?

FLATOW: But in making energy more efficient, don't you sort of lose money, I mean, because you're not taking in as much revenue by the city?

CASTRO: Well, you know, the utility in the city, if everyone were to conserve the energy that we want them to conserve, you know, in a linear way, that's true. You would take in more revenue because people are not using as much energy, and it's more efficient when they do use it.

But there are ways to create jobs in getting to that. For instance, a couple of years ago, CPS Energy dedicated about $850 million toward what they call the STEP Program, basically saving 771 megawatts of power. One of the efforts to do that was to go and weatherize almost 50,000 homes throughout San Antonio.

In order to do that, you need the folks to actually go out and take up the jobs of weatherizing those homes. So you create employment opportunities, as well as ensuring that more homeowners in San Antonio have a lower electricity bill.

FLATOW: Well, Mr. Mayor, I want to thank you for taking time to be with us today, and good luck. We'll be following your progress, as I'm sure lots of other cities around the country will also.

CASTRO: All right, thanks a lot, Ira.

FLATOW: You're welcome. Mayor of San Antonio Julian Castro, joining us from Charlotte, North Carolina, meeting with other folks there.

I'd like to bring in my other guests for the program. Let me introduce them to you. Cris Eugster is the executive vice president and chief sustainability officer for CPS Energy in San Antonio. That's the power company the mayor was talking about. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

CRIS EUGSTER: Good to be here.

FLATOW: John Kelly is deputy director for the Galvin Electricity Initiative, that's based in Oak Brook, Illinois. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

JOHN KELLY: Thank you, Ira.

FLATOW: Good to see you. Brewster McCracken is the executive director of the Pecan Street Project in Austin. Thanks for coming down.

BREWSTER MCCRACKEN: Yeah, thanks, Ira.

FLATOW: Coming out to see us. Les Shephard is director of the Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Thank you.

LES SHEPHARD: Delighted to be here.

FLATOW: We've got a few minutes before the break. Let's see how many questions I can get in. Chris, your company, CPS Energy, as the mayor said, supplies San Antonio and is hoping to get 400 megawatts of solar power. Wow, that'll put you way up there with the solar players, wouldn't it?

EUGSTER: That's a lot of solar.

FLATOW: And where would - how would this work? Where would the panels be? And are they photovoltaic, or are they other kind?

EUGSTER: Yeah, they're photovoltaic, and one of the nice things about solar is we can generate the power right here in our community. We're already the largest municipally owned utility in terms of wind contracts. So we have 859 megawatts of wind in West Texas on the coast and South Texas. But the solar is something we can do right inside of our community and have it be part of the fabric of our community.

FLATOW: Wow, so is there potential for putting more? I mean, you started out with a smaller project, and then the price came down, correct, for making these...

EUGSTER: Yeah, the price, it came down, and what we were also seeing is the economic development piece can be greater, you know, the more solar commitment that we make. And when we think about 400 megawatts, we don't think about it all at once. We think about it spread out over time.

FLATOW: Yeah, so will this be all concentrated in one place, or is it going to be spread out around...?

EUGSTER: No, it's going to be spread out, but it's going to be all part of our distribution system. So it's going to be within Bear County.

FLATOW: Wow, you know, we hear other cities talking about solar panels on roofs and things. Will these be on roofs, or will it be on the ground?

EUGSTER: These will be ground-mounted, big utility-scale solar farm. We do have programs for roof-mounted solar as well.

FLATOW: Wow. Les Shephard, where does San Antonio's power come from now? Give us a little...

SHEPHARD: Well, it comes from a variety of different sources, and I think one of the real strong attributes and characteristics of San Antonio is the fact that they early on elected to diversify the generation capacity. Today they generate about 38 percent of our electricity through nuclear power. They generate a comparable amount through coal.

We have actually deployed on the southern part of the city here a 14.4 megawatt solar photovoltaic system called Blue Wing. We have, as Cris has alluded to, a large wind generation capacity located in West Texas that also provides a considerable amount of electricity.

FLATOW: And how much part of all these planning is - are these new smart appliances that we're going to be seeing, you know, appliances you plug into the grid, and then people will be able to choose what time of day they want to run their washer-dryer to get the cheapest - do we have to integrate that also at the same time, John Kelly?

KELLY: Yes, Ira, and I think what the manufacturers are waiting for is for the price signals to get to the consumers. They recognize that until those consumers get a price signal, they're not going to buy these devices.

FLATOW: And they need smart meters for this kind of thing.

KELLY: So really the smart meter is an enabler of pricing signals, and so it's really its purpose.

FLATOW: But people seem to be resistant to this idea. Some people think it's an intrusion on their privacy. Are they wrong in thinking that?

KELLY: We think so. We think really it's like any device in your home. We buy wireless routers for our homes. We have all kinds of wireless devices in our homes already. This is just another wireless device that's going to send usage data to you directly, as well as back to the utility for them to use.

FLATOW: Cris, does San Antonio have smart metering now?

EUGSTER: We do. We do. We have a pilot of 40,000 AMI meters, advanced meter infrastructure, that are going out. And we also have this new deal that the mayor talked about, which is a home area network solution, which we are bringing over - bringing to our consumers.

FLATOW: Brewster, you have - you have a demonstration program in Austin running now?

MCCRACKEN: Yeah, we do. In fact, CPS is one of the utilities we work with. We're based at the University of Texas. So what we're looking at is what is smart grid's value proposition for consumers. And I do think, actually, it's a fair criticism that at the moment it's not very much. But where we are right now in smart grid and clean energy, if it's done right, and I think the prospect is there to do it right, is what telecom looked like in the early days after deregulation.

I mean, if you would have told AT&T executives in 1984 that by 2007 people would be lining up outside of a store to buy a new telephone, you would have had to revive with smelling salts. And here we are with iPhones and Android devices.

So what we've seen with Internet and what we've seen with telecom is that as you add information technology to the edge of the system, it makes it possible to develop new products and services for customers.

But I do think that we haven't seen that happen yet. I think people ask where's the killer app for clean energy and smart grid, and it's not out there. So out in the audience, everywhere, this is a challenge to you to help develop that.

FLATOW: And it might be the killer app on your iPhone or your iPod or your Android.

MCCRACKEN: In fact it probably will be, actually.

FLATOW: You can set it and forget it from out there. Don't forget, we have here in our auditorium, we have the microphones here. Please, step up to the mic, ask your questions. We're going to take a break, we'll come back and talk lots more about the future of alternative energy here in San Antonio and how it reflects in other parts of the country. So stay with us. We'll be right back after this break.

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FLATOW: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking this hour about San Antonio's electric or energy future. My guests: Cris Eugster, executive vice president, chief sustainability officer for CPS Energy in San Antonio; John Kelly, deputy director for Galvin Electric Initiative, that's based in Oak Brook, Illinois; Brewster McCracken, executive director of the Pecan Street Project in Austin; Les Shephard, director of the Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

I want to go back to you, Brewster, and talk about - you have - let's talk about your project that you work on. You actually have volunteers in the neighborhood. You have these smart meters. Can you tell us what you're learning from your pilot program that other people will need to know?

MCCRACKEN: We kind of almost by accident have ended up with the world's deepest database on how people use energy and now gas and water. It's in 15-second increments, which is just actually the company that won the bidding from us.

The most granular data before that was 15 minutes. So...

FLATOW: Fifteen minutes.

MCCRACKEN: And now we're at 15 seconds. And that's obviously going to be pretty impractical and actually not necessary for utilities, but it is very important for product development to understand, you know, if you're going to try to create a product that is of value to a customer, it's really important to understand what the customer wants.

And so one of the ways to do that is to find out their data. And we're finding out, for instance, in the summertime, surprisingly, that the peak time of electricity usage in terms of draw on the grid is 10:30 at night. It's not 5:00 in the afternoon, which was a huge surprise.

But that's what shows up in 15-second data.

FLATOW: Do you all agree with that? Do you use your electricity - let me poll the audience, quick poll, yes? Hands up, 10:30? Oh, a lot of people.

MCCRACKEN: Well, and Ira, here's why, actually. And it doesn't show up in 15-minute data. It only shows up when you take it down to a finer level. We do this in my family, a lot of folks do. You turn down your AC when you go to bed at night to make it a little bit cooler.

And the AC has such a huge influence on your home energy usage that it's about - the draw, peak draw can be up to 20 percent higher at like 10:30 at night, 10:00 at night, as it is at 5:00 in the afternoon, which was a tremendous surprise.

FLATOW: And you - before the break, you were talking about the killer app. I mean, this literally will be an app on your cell phone or your smartphone that you can set remotely?

MCCRACKEN: I don't think it's going to be about energy. I think it'll use what we learn about energy to make products better. But for instance, I think what happened with cars is probably a good example of what we're going to see with smart grid.

You know, 15 years ago, cars did not have computer chips, and now every car you buy has more computing power than the most powerful personal computer you could have bought 15 years ago. And you know, the cars don't call themselves KITT and drive around and fly and stuff. They just work better.

So what that reflects is that if what happens with smart grid is that we get products and services that just work better for us as customers, then this will have been a good investment. If this ends up that they can bill you more in the afternoon and turn off your air conditioner in the afternoon, I think it's going to end up being tremendously unpopular with people. So that's really the fork in the road we're at.

FLATOW: Now, you talked about the early days of, for example, the telephone. But in those early days, if I - early days, 50 years ago ...

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FLATOW: If I took my phone, I could move it across the country and plug it into any jack, right? Now, John Kelly, can we do this now? We can't do that with smart meters everywhere yet or - because everybody's got their own little system going. One of your goals is to make it open source so that anybody can move it anywhere, right?

KELLY: Exactly, and Brewster's working on something important in his pilot in that he's the first one to require the vendors that are supplying the home energy systems, they all have to be open source to the Internet so any application could talk to the home. So you can get access to any new application we design, whereas some providers are sort of holding that captive in their own websites.

FLATOW: Les, that's important to do that?

SHEPHARD: It clearly is, and this whole notion of how do you marry technology and people in a meaningful, significant way so that people feel that their destiny, their bill at the end of the month is really in their control and they can influence it, is critically important.

FLATOW: Yeah, that certainly will get people involved, you know, in doing this. Let's go to the audience, yes, sir.

ED STOUFFER: Hi, my name is Ed Stouffer(ph). I live just outside the city. I'm a CPS customer. And I've watched Windtricity, which is essentially the wind farms out west, and I guess what concerns me is for the billions that we spend to build these centralized plants, then we need transmission, and we need grid and all the other stuff, why are we not spending billions on residences so we reduce the demand on the grid, we put transfer switches in your home?

Because here it's a double hit. You know, every time I turn a light on, I've got to cool the heat that it creates. So why are we not making houses somewhat self-sufficient so AC and things can run, they have less demand during peak on the grid, instead of building these large, monolithic plants and relying upon the grid not failing us when, you know, demand gets high?

FLATOW: Will you put LEDs in your house?

STOUFFER: Yeah, I've spent about $800 putting LEDs. I've got...

FLATOW: They're very expensive now, aren't they?

STOUFFER: They are, but I took 40-watt bulbs down to nine watts apiece. So you start running the numbers, and, you know, 10 to 50 thousand hours of rated life, you know, it helps reduce it. But until it becomes more self-sufficient, when the grid fails, you know, it gets awfully hot, to your early remarks, Ira.

FLATOW: Cris, how would you answer this?

EUGSTER: I think it's an important point. I mean, we have an energy efficiency program where we are trying to save 771 megawatts with $850 million that we could have used to build a power plant, but instead we're putting it back for energy conservation measures at homes and businesses.

On top of that, our smart grid pilot that we are rolling out with this company out of Raleigh, North Carolina, which is going to come here to San Antonio, really enables the consumer to reduce their energy consumption in a way that they don't have to be actively involved.

And so, you know, there's a lot of wasteful energy that's happening right now. You know, do you know what your thermostat is set out right now? Is your hot water heater running? Is your pool pump running? So there are all these variables that consumers really just don't want to think about, but if we can put the right software in place so that the system can optimize that and basically lower your bills while you're in control, and you set the profiles, we believe that that can ultimately lower your energy bill as well as make it in synch with the generation supplies that we have.

FLATOW: John Kelly, you have a handout that you give out, and it's published. And let me quote from it. It says: Our electricity consumer principles comprise a bill of rights that ensures that smart grid efforts best serve the consumer from policy to implementation. Give us some of the highlights of the bill of rights that you think consumers should have.

KELLY: Well, when that was developed, Ira, we actually had a constitutional convention in Illinois and brought a whole bunch of people in.

FLATOW: Is that right?

KELLY: Yeah, a Tea Party kind of thing.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

KELLY: Not really. Oh dear, sorry.

FLATOW: You just lost half the audience.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

KELLY: I know. It was going to go 50-50 either way...

FLATOW: You gave it a shot. That's good.

KELLY: So - but two, I'll give you two of the principles. One is choice, choice of their power supply. And I'll add to choice, Ira, in that think about when you buy food. You actually get a label on the food you buy. When you buy power, you don't get a label. You don't know what's in that power.

So we were developing a system, actually, that would give you a label and choice in terms of the power you supply. So we think consumers should have choice. Even in a public utility like this, we think there should be a menu of options that CPS offers all the consumers so that they can choose the power they would like.

The second one is direct, secure, wireless access to your data. So if somebody puts a smart meter in your home, you're going to - with a nice 36-digit secure code, you're going to get access to that data so that any entrepreneur can come and put devices in your home and help you.

That'll open the market up, we think bring a lot of innovation, as opposed to the utility giving you a system to try and manage your load.

FLATOW: So it should be open-source. You can see it, and you can watch it, and you know what's going on.

KELLY: Exactly.

FLATOW: Cris, anything wrong with that?

EUGSTER: No, I think we have a wide variety of choices for our consumers. Our consumers can sign up for wind power. They can sign up for, you know, energy efficiency programs, smart meters, home area networks. So I think choice is key.

FLATOW: Can I look, though, at my smart meter and say, oh, look, I'm saving 15 percent right at this moment that I'm using something?

EUGSTER: That's where we're going to be.

FLATOW: You're going to be able to do that, and...

EUGSTER: You know, again, our approach to smart meters is we want to make it easy for the consumer. We want to have the consumer in control. And at the end of the day, they have a lower bill with this technology.

FLATOW: And they'll find out they don't have to watch TV at all and miss nothing. Okay, let's go over here.

ANNA: Hi, my name is Anna(ph) in San Antonio, Texas. I have a question about - you were talking about the different alternatives of energy, and you mentioned the nuclear energy that we're using here. And after what happened in Japan, the tsunami, and considering our proximity to the ocean and our different issues with hurricanes in the past and things that have come through, how that influenced, perhaps, the decisions that are happening or that will happen as more people are more aware and more concerned about the use of nuclear energy.

FLATOW: What was that word? Nuke...

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ANNA: Nuclear energy.

FLATOW: Thank you, thank you.

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FLATOW: Les Shephard, do you want to answer that?

SHEPHARD: Well, certainly, just don't ask me to spell it.

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SHEPHARD: I think first it's important to recognize that on a global scale we have about 440 operating nuclear power plants today around the world, here in the United States roughly about 103 or 104 operating power plants, depending on the day.

EUGSTER: What - also important to recognize that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in this country has an ongoing program that rigorously evaluates and reviews what I will say - call the safety basis for the operational modes associated with a nuclear power plant. And as part of that, they look at what I will call abnormal conditions. And clearly, what we experienced in Japan was an abnormal condition beyond, in fact, what we had expected.

So the overall approach is to rigorously evaluate that in an ongoing process, identify those what I will call low-probability, high-consequence events, be sure that we have a safety base in terms of the technology, in terms of the operational procedures, in terms of the protocols in place to address those abnormal events in a credible way. And from my point of view, what you'll continue to see around much of the world is a continued expansion of nuclear power.

FLATOW: You think so?

EUGSTER: I do.

FLATOW: Yeah. What will this crazy fracking do everywhere? Everybody's fracking all over the place. How will that fit into the mix and offer us competition to other alternative energies?

EUGSTER: Well, I think it's - I think that's a great question. And, of course, I think everybody here in San Anthony fully understands that we sit right on the cusp of what, today, is probably one of the most active gas shale plays in the United States. Most of the production today is occurring, actually, looking at oil overall.

I think one of the challenges that we face, not only here in south Texas, but I think around the country, is to really look at how does one implement a sustainable systems approach toward the development of these gas reserves - which are significant, not only across the United States in North America, but around the world - in such a way that they provide this bridge in this transition to what I will call traditional, sustainable technologies like wind, solar, concentrated solar and photovoltaics. That's a real challenge for us, but I believe we have the technology and the capabilities and the perspectives from a systems view to actually do that. And I would hope, here in San Antonio, we avail ourselves of that opportunity for leadership.

FLATOW: Okay. Let's go to audience, here. Yes, ma'am.

JULIA: My name is Julia, and I am from Leon Springs, just north of San Antonio. I, too, am a CPS Energy customer and 100 percent wind-tricity person, although I'm much maligned for it. Can you explain to me how to come back with a good answer as to why I am supporting it, why it's the future and why it is a good incentive to get behind?

FLATOW: Could you explain to the rest of our audience what you're...

JULIA: Well, I pay - actually, I don't fully understand it. Every month, I look at my bill and I say: Is this working? I am paying a percentage of my megawatts of price to support the growth of the wind program.

FLATOW: Oh, OK.

EUGSTER: Yeah. I mean, you are a very important customer in supporting, kind of, Texas wind. You know, Texas has been a great wind store. We've got close to 10,000 megawatts of wind. It's been as high as 20 percent of all the electricity generated across Texas. Had CPS energy not been in the game, you know, we might not be where we are right now. Wind, today, you know, customers have to pay a small premium for that energy.

But I think, kind of, in the future, looking into the future, traditional fossil fuel prices will be going up, while renewable energy prices will be coming down. And at some point, there's a crossover there. And you will have been one of those folks that has made that crossover point possible.

JULIA: So I'm giving it up for the team. That's what I always say. I'm taking one for the team.

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EUGSTER: Right.

FLATOW: Think of it in the long term. Well, let me just remind everybody that this SCIENCE FRIDAY, from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow, here in San Antonio. You know, I think what people lose sight is the long-range, you know, of savings. People - it may be costing more, and I have this conversation about global warming all the time. And people who say to me: You know it's going to cost us money if we abate global warming. And I say, well, have you figured into your costs what a rising ocean is going to cost you to build the dams all along the coast of the United States on, you know, to Galveston, everywhere else, and in Houston, to move the population, to build up the dams, to build those dikes. What is that going to cost you, as opposed to not doing it? No one has an answer to any of that.

EUGSTER: And, Ira, the data actually doesn't even support that it stays expensive very long...

FLATOW: Right.

EUGSTER: So Austin, in, like, and Austin Energy did the first batch of green choice energy in that city in 2000. And by last year, it was half the cost of average price of electricity, because what clean energy is for - it has strengths and weakness. But one of its strengths is it's inflation-free electricity. So the it's price doesn't change. It's just the capital, because you don't have to pay for fuel. And so what that meant is that when the average price of electricity was - had gone from probably four cents in 2000 to about 12-and-a-half cents by 2011, the cost about first batch of green choice was still 5.25 cents, all 10 years. So it was more expensive in year one, but its cost curve for clean energy is this, and the cost curve of conventional resources tend to be more like this.

FLATOW: Right.

EUGSTER: If you're on the radio, I was moving my hand up to the right.

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FLATOW: Right. I was trying to figure that out myself. This is going up. This is going flat-lining. Yes, sir?

TIM DREIER: I'm Tim Dreier(ph) from San Antonio, Texas. I actually had just graduated from UTSA. I have couple of questions, but I'll try and pair it down to...

FLATOW: I only have a minute (unintelligible)....

DREIER: ...(unintelligible). So one of the big concerns about photovoltaic cells has always being conversion efficiency. And so what is the efficiency on the project that CPS is just putting in? And why was the decision made for going with photovoltaics instead of, like, concentrating mirrors or some of the other technologies that are, I think, in place in Nevada. And also, what about battery technology development for off-peak - off-generation storage?

EUGSTER: Lots of questions in there.

FLATOW: I got a minute left, Cris Eugster.

EUGSTER: You know, one of the reasons that we like PV versus concentrated is PV, you can do it in smaller increments. Concentrated has to be very, very big plants, you know, hundreds of megawatts, way out in kind of West Texas. Again, PV, we can do it here locally. We don't have to worry about transmissions - transmission lines coming over. We can feed it right into our distribution systems to power our homes and businesses directly. So that's one of the reasons we like PV. And, in fact, we see the price, you know, very comparable. So we're not giving up much - we're not giving up any on the price by going down that route, as well.

FLATOW: Thank you, Cris. We've ran out of time for this segment. Cris Eugster is executive vice president and chief sustainability officer for CPS Energy in San Antonio. John Kelly is deputy director for the Galvin Electricity Initiative in Oak Brook, Illinois. Brewster McCracken, executive director of the Pecan Street Project in Austin. And Les Shephard, director of the Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute. That's at UT San Antonio. Thanks you, gentlemen, for taking time to be with us.

EUGSTER: Thank you, Ira.

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