This episode of the Pipeliners Podcast features a thoughtful conversation with Scott Tinker on the realities of the global energy landscape and the often-misunderstood narrative surrounding the energy transition. The discussion explores energy demand, economic development, and the continued role of both traditional and emerging energy sources, offering a fact-based perspective on what the future may realistically hold. Listeners are also introduced to Scott’s education-focused initiatives aimed at improving global energy literacy and addressing energy poverty.
Just the Facts, the Reality of the Energy Transition Show Notes, Links, and Insider Terms
- Dr. Scott Tinker is an internationally renowned energy explorer and communicator who serves as CEO of Tinker Energy Associates, Chairman of Switch Energy Alliance, and Director Emeritus of the Bureau of Economic Geology at UT Austin, widely known for bridging industry, policy, and academia through films, public media, and global speaking on energy, environment, and the economy. Connect with Scott on LinkedIn.
- Energy Transition — The commonly used term describing shifts in how societies produce and consume energy; in this conversation, it is framed as additive rather than a replacement of existing energy sources.
- Energy Mix — The combination of energy sources (oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, renewables) used globally; discussed as remaining heavily dominated by fossil fuels despite growth in renewables.
- Energy Poverty — A condition where populations lack reliable, affordable access to modern energy; presented as a foundational barrier to education, health, and economic development.
- Fossil Fuels — Coal, oil, and natural gas; emphasized as continuing to play a major role in meeting global energy demand for decades due to scale, density, and reliability.
- Renewables — Energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biomass; discussed in terms of benefits, limitations, and their relatively small share of total global energy consumption.
- Hydropower (Hydro) — A renewable energy source generated from flowing water; identified as roughly half of the renewable share in the global energy mix.
- Energy Density — The amount of energy produced per unit of volume or area; used to explain why wind and solar require large land and material footprints compared to natural gas or nuclear.
- Dispatchable Power — Energy sources that can be turned on or adjusted as needed to meet demand (e.g., natural gas, nuclear); contrasted with intermittent sources like wind and solar.
- Intermittent Energy — Energy sources that depend on environmental conditions (sun, wind); highlighted as requiring backup systems to ensure reliability.
- Electric Grid — The interconnected system that delivers electricity from generation to end users; described as one of the most complex machines in the world.
- ERCOT — The Electric Reliability Council of Texas; referenced as an example of real-time grid management complexity.
- Department of Energy (DOE) is a cabinet-level agency of the federal government responsible for ensuring America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.
- FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) regulates, monitors, and investigates electricity, natural gas, hydropower, oil matters, natural gas pipelines, LNG terminals, hydroelectric dams, electric transmission, energy markets, and pricing.
- Electrify Everything — A popular phrase advocating widespread electrification; critiqued as unrealistic due to industrial, material, and physical constraints.
- Molecules vs. Electrons — A way of distinguishing fuels (molecules like natural gas) from electricity (electrons); used to explain why certain applications cannot rely solely on electricity.
- Midstream — The segment of the energy industry focused on transporting and storing fuels; discussed as remaining essential for moving molecules well into the future.
- Energy Security — The reliability and control of energy supply chains; raised in the context of mineral sourcing, geopolitics, and dependence on global supply chains.
- Rare Earths and Critical Minerals — Materials needed for renewable technologies and batteries; discussed in terms of mining intensity, environmental impact, and geopolitical control.
- Belt and Road Initiative — China’s global infrastructure and investment strategy; mentioned in relation to control over mineral processing and supply chains.
- Global Energy Demand — The total amount of energy consumed worldwide; projected to increase significantly as populations grow and economies develop.
- GDP and Energy Correlation — The strong relationship between economic output and energy consumption; used to illustrate why energy access underpins economic growth.
- Exajoule (EJ) — A unit of energy measurement; used to quantify current and future global energy consumption.
- TCF Equivalent — Trillion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent; used to translate energy quantities into familiar industry terms.
- 50–50 Concept — A benchmark describing roughly 50 megawatt-hours of energy consumption per capita and $50,000 GDP per capita; used to illustrate economic parity in the developed world.
- Energy Corps — A nonprofit initiative focused on investing in scalable, sustainable energy access solutions to address energy poverty.
- Switch Energy Alliance — A nonprofit organization dedicated to non-partisan, objective and practical energy education and public awareness through films, TV, radio, classrooms, and other media.
- Switch / Switch On — Documentary films focused on global energy systems and energy poverty; used as educational tools to present facts without advocacy.
- PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) — A public media organization airing the Energy Switch series, expanding public access to energy education.
- 501(c)(3) — A U.S. federal nonprofit tax status; referenced in relation to establishing Energy Corps as a formal charitable organization.
- Point-of-Use Energy — Energy generated close to where it is consumed; discussed as a growing trend alongside centralized infrastructure.
- Clean Cooking — Energy solutions that replace indoor wood or biomass burning; highlighted for health and quality-of-life improvements in developing regions.
- Solar PV (Photovoltaic) — Technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity; used in examples of culturally acceptable, localized energy solutions.
- Energy Ecosystem — The supporting infrastructure, training, maintenance, and economic systems required for energy projects to succeed long-term.
- Energy Independence — The ability of individuals or communities to reliably access energy; framed as a key driver for lifting populations out of poverty.
- AI and Hyperscale Data Centers — Large-scale computing facilities with massive power demands; cited as examples of future energy-intensive infrastructure.
- Nuclear Energy — A high-density, dispatchable energy source; discussed as a critical component of future energy systems.
- Energy Education — Providing factual, physics-based understanding of energy systems; positioned as essential for informed public discourse and decision-making.
Just the Facts, the Reality of the Energy Transition Full Episode Transcript
Russel Treat:
Welcome to the Pipeliners Podcast, Episode 420, sponsored by EnerSys Corporation, providers of POEMS, the Pipeline Operations Excellence Management Systems, operations and compliance software for the pipeline operator to address safety program management, control room management, and field operations. Find out more about POEMS at enersyscorp.com.
[background music]
Announcer:
The Pipeliners Podcast, where professionals, bubba geeks, and industry insiders share their knowledge and experience about technology, projects, and pipeline operations. And now, your host, Russell Treat.
Russel:
Thanks for listening to the Pipeliners Podcast. I appreciate you taking the time, and to show that appreciation, we give away a customized YETI tumbler to one listener every episode. This week, our winner is Jake Greer with Eastman. Congratulations, Jake — your YETI is on its way. To learn how you can win this prize, stick around till the end of the episode.
This week, we’re going to be speaking with Scott Tinker with Energy Switch about the reality of the energy transition. This is a great episode. Just a note to the listeners: Scott was very generous and gave us a ton of links that we’ve added to the website with lots of resources around our discussion today. Scott, welcome to the Pipeliners Podcast.
Scott Tinker:
It’s good to be here with you, for sure.
Russel:
I feel honored because you’re like a professional media person, and I’m a wannabe media person. I feel very honored that you’re taking the time to do this with us.
Scott:
Not at all. [laughs] I think you’ve got a few miles on your belt in this, too, so good for you.
[crosstalk]
Russel:
Yeah, a bit — a little bit. Look, let’s start with an introduction. If you would, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, and what you do and how you landed there.
Scott: [laughs]
I’ll try. I’ll try to keep that short. I’m a geologist by training and worked in the oil and gas industry for 17 years, all technical, which was fun.
Then, about January 2000 — I was actually at Marathon’s lab in Colorado and had done a PhD along the way, a lot of field work and subsurface work, and was just having a good time there. Upstream stuff in the early- and mid-’80s, Russel, until then.
Then around ’99, labs started to close across the country. The spray paint was on the bathroom wall. I was looking around at other things. I had always supported the Bureau of Economic Geology research and been engaged with Charlie Kerans and other folks there.
They advertised for a director. They didn’t have anybody qualified. I ended up getting that job.
[laughter]
It was a great gig. We had a little bit of trouble — they were about 90 people and coming out of some tough economic times. It’s a soft money organization, which means they bring in all their own money. It’s also the state geological survey. About 90 people and under $10 million a year in research.
Dove in — great folks — started hiring people and looking around the world. Ended up building about a 250-person organization, $35 million a year. Had just a blast doing global energy, environmental, and economic research there with a great team of people.
Also helped start the Jackson School of Geosciences along the way, got to meet Jack, and was one of his “Jackson 5” [laughs] as he called us. I was the kid, the president, and other important people like Peter Flawn and Bill Fisher.
The school formed. It’s been 20 years since that happened now. I was a professor, had an endowed chair and tenure, and all that stuff. A couple of years ago, I fired myself and said, “Let’s let other people have this fun.” Now I’m sitting on boards and continuing to speak around the world, just enjoying some of the more mentoring things as well.
Russel:
You have two nonprofits that you’re promoting, both of which I think are fascinating. One of which is Energy Corps. The other is Switch On. I’d like you to tell us a little bit about Switch On first.
I heard you speak, I think, at API Pipeline. I found your message really compelling. Tell us a little bit about what Switch On is and how you got involved in that, because as a researcher and educator, that’s a different place to land.
Scott:
Yeah. It is interesting and fun. About 16 years ago, a filmmaker named Harry Lynch — who I was with this morning recording a voiceover — we can talk about — we’ve been working together over 15 years — interviewed me for one of the films he was making. In fact, it was on the Barnett Shale early days, on unconventional. The film was called Unconventional.
Afterwards, he said, “Hey, you’re not bad on camera. Have you ever thought about making a film?” No. “Writing a book?” he said. I said, “I’m too lazy to write a book.” He goes, “You want to make a movie…”
[crosstalk]
Russel:
I just had that conversation with somebody else not an hour ago.
Scott:
He goes, “You want to make a film?”
Russel:
Writing a book’s a lot of work. Getting on a camera and just yabbering — that’s not near as hard.
Scott:
No. Exactly. It’s over and done.
He said, “How about making a movie about global energy?” I said, “That sounds fun.” This was 2008. Harry is a really smart guy and a great filmmaker. Lots of different things, but he’s quite good at energy.
We set off and raised some money and started making this film. The Great Recession of ’09 hit, so we were not staying in the nicest places in the world. We went to about a dozen countries and just looked at the best forms of energy around the world — solar in Spain, wind in Denmark, nuclear in France, geothermal in Iceland, etc. — pros and cons.
Made a wonderful film called Switch. Released that in early 2012 after a couple years of production and post-production. That started this. It got quite popular. It got used in a lot of universities. It got seen in theaters. It won a lot of awards.
The first real global film on energy — and you might say on the so-called energy transition — but we were actually showing that we weren’t really transitioning from anything, just adding more stuff.
Harry went on to do Mental Health Channel and other things. I continued to blabber all over the world. I give 50 to 60 talks a year somewhere in the world.
Then I said, “Harry, we got to get back together because we left off half the world in our first film. We looked at people that had energy, not those who don’t.”
That’s when we made a second film, called Switch On. That’s about energy poverty — five or six different countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Colombia, Vietnam, Nepal — that kind of thing.
That’s a different, emotional film. Very different tone — powerful, etc.
Right about that time, as we were making that film, I formed the Switch Energy Alliance, which is the official name of the nonprofit. It’s grown from there. We had our holiday dinner just last night. There were 18 people around the table.
Russel:
That’s awesome.
Scott:
It’s a pretty neat organization. We have four pillars of education — K through 12, a neat thing called Switch Classroom; campus education, particularly a case competition for energy poverty; professional education via Switch Academy; and public education.
That last one is highlighted by the PBS show that I host and Harry produces, with two guests on every episode. We dive into topics. Highly produced. We’re in 110 million PBS households around the nation. All the major markets now run it.
That’s Switch. Our mission and vision is to inspire an energy-educated future. We think we’re doing that. We’re having a lot of fun and—
[crosstalk]
Russel:
I’ve had the opportunity to see some of your material and such. What you do that’s really interesting is you’re not really advocating one thing or another. You’re just trying to get people the facts.
The facts are that all of these so-called transitional energies, while they have value propositions and there’s a lot of places where they have a lot of value, they’re not a do-all, be-all. Oil and natural gas and coal and those things still have a place in the mix, and a major place and…
Scott: A big place.
Russel: and for a long time. That’s not to say we can’t get more efficient and more effective in the way we use it, in the way we produce it, in the way that we manage emissions and such. We can do all that and should. What’s really interesting is you’re just presenting facts. The facts are compelling. They’re really compelling.
Scott:
They are. It confuses people. [laughs] Like, “Where are you politically?” I’m on the side of energy. I’ve installed solar. We’ll feature that in our second film.
We put first solar in the indigenous village of Gunchukwa, the Arhuaco people, in Colombia over a week and filmed that and went a year before to get baptized in the river to be invited back, etc. They’re the end of the line. In fact, they’re beyond the end of the line. This is the only option for them.
On the other hand, as you say, you go back 60 years. The mix of fossil fuels was about 85 percent in the total global energy mix. Today, it’s 82 percent. In 60 years, maybe dropped three percent, but all three, coal, oil, and gas, have gone way up because the demand for energy has gone up in the world and continues to. They’re all…
Russel: It’s going to continue to. That demand’s going to accelerate. It’s not going to slow down.
Scott: It will for a while longer. Then the population demographics are really fascinating. We can dive into them if you want. We did a show on PBS on population. Really fascinating, what’s coming in the next 50 years with global fertility rates and how quick population actually changes in the world. I won’t be around in 2075, but my kids and grandkids will. They’ll have a different set of challenges.
Russel: That’s one thing that’s for sure. There will be challenges, for sure.
Scott: Always.
Russel:
Let’s talk a little bit about that future and what that means for people that are in their 20s, in their 30s, are evaluating careers or looking at the future and wondering what things are going to look like.
Maybe you could tell us a little bit about what does the energy future look like. Maybe to start, demand and population are somewhat correlated, but they’re not perfectly correlated because some demand is different than others.
For the listeners of this that are primarily working in pipelining, what would you say to those listeners about what the future looks like with regards to energy? Where do you think we’ll be in 50 years?
Scott:
I don’t know because nobody can see the future but certainly have thought a lot about it and have some thoughts. Full disclosure, I’m on a midstream board, Howard Energy Partners, with Mike Howard.
The future is going to include electrons and molecules. This “Electrify everything” is a cute phrase, but over 40 years, we’ve gone from about 15 percent electricity in the end use mix to 20 percent globally. That means 80 percent is not electricity today. It’s a very slow transition. AI and others may pull that a little stronger.
We have to have molecules for so many things. Just to make the heat for cement and steel takes a tremendous amount of heat – you got to burn molecules to do that – or plastics or ammonia for fertilizers. It’s all molecules.
Those who think we’re going to be electrifying everything need to look deeper at the many different ways we demand use energy. Those in the midstream, you’re going to be moving molecules for a long time, including water.
As you look out 50 years, we realize that there’s only about 1 billion people like us, 1.3 billion, who are in the developed world, the wealthy world, if you will. That leaves seven billion other people in the world, somewhere from nothing, transitioning into where we are.
You can split that in the emerging economies, which is about four billion people that don’t have much at all, Russel, and then another three billion that are the developing economies but not to the point where we are.
What you see is this spread of economic health. That is very tightly correlated, the GDP, to the amount of energy consumption by country. I’ve got plots of every country in the world. You see a very tight correlation. You could argue that it’s causative. I said a long time ago, energy won’t end poverty, but you can’t end poverty without energy. That’s the great dilemma, if you will.
[crosstalk]
Russel: I want you to say that again.
Scott: Energy won’t end poverty, but you can’t end poverty without energy.
Russel: That’s deep. There’s a lot bound up in that little phrase.
Scott: There’s a lot. I first said that in Quito, Ecuador, after visiting a heavily impoverished village and realizing they had a little bit of energy, but to end their poverty was something else. If you don’t have energy, they don’t have a chance. When you start thinking about…
Russel: Energy is a prerequisite.
Scott: It’s a prerequisite. It is the foundational piece.
Russel: It’s not all the things that you need, but it’s a prerequisite.
Scott:
In fact, you go back to Maslow’s little hierarchy, in those bottom two tiers, if you will, the physiological needs and the safety and security needs, all the way up to self-actualization and beyond, those bottom two, physiological, safety/security, energy impacts both of those, period. It makes those better. That’s the human needs.
When you look at this spread, the wealthy world, conveniently, averages about 50 megawatt-hours a year of energy consumption, total consumption. I’m saying in megawatt-hours, but that’s all energy converted to that, 50 megawatt-hours.
Its GDP, the average of the wealthy world, is about 50,000 bucks a year per person. 50 megawatts per capita and 50 grand, 50-50. It was very convenient when I digested all of that. The US is higher, by the way, in both. It’s just the average of the 1.3 billion. Down from there is a lot less.
As you look at the future, If you leave that economic disparity in place and continue to grow the rich world, it won’t end well. This has never ended well in countries or regions. It won’t end well globally if economic disparity continues to expand.
Instead, yes, keep growing here, but what would it take to lift everybody up into that 50-50 space? I’ll just give you the numbers, the ballpark numbers. It’s about a tripling of current global energy consumption, from about…
[crosstalk]
Russel: I want to pause there because I want people to really digest that. You take all of the worldwide energy consumption. If you’re going to lift all the worldwide population to the level that we are at, at the United States…
Scott: No. Not the US, just the average of the rich world, which is lower than the US.
Russel: You’re going to raise it to the First World, more a median of the First World, which would be below where the US is. That’s a tripling of current energy consumption. That’s without additional population.
Scott: That’s a tripling without additional population. The growth continues. Just to put some numbers for your listeners, we’re at about 600 exajoules today. Conveniently, an exajoule is about the same as a TCF of gas in energy content…
You’re looking at about 600 TCF equivalent to 1,800 TCF equivalent to get the world’s economic disparity compressed. Again, the rich world is going to continue to grow.
That gets people to a point where they don’t feel like they have to migrate away from autocrats, where everybody has access to education and food. And clean water and some shelter, where the women aren’t going for the water or cooking indoors with wood, where fertility rates stabilize.
There’s so many sub-benefits to that kind of energy and economic health that it improves the whole world circumstance. It’s a phenomenal change.
Russel: What do you think happens with the energy mix?
Scott: What happens with the mix?
Russel: The mix. The so-called renewables are about 12 percent of the overall mix, if I got my numbers right. Is that correct?
Scott: It is, except half of that is hydro. Shockingly, two to three percent of that is bio of some kind – biomass, biofuels – so you’re looking only at about five to six percent solar, wind, and waves, and tides, and geothermal today.
Russel: If we’re going to triple energy consumption, and we’re going to do it all with wind and solar…
Scott:
No, you can’t. You can’t – full stop, you can’t – for a lot of reasons. Not that there’s not enough wind and sun out there – there is – but, hell, there’s enough gold in the ocean, we can’t get it. [laughs]
[crosstalk]
Russel: There is this thing called economically feasible, right?
Scott: Correct. Right.
Russel: The level of rare earth minerals you’d have to harvest to do that is just…
Scott:
Not even rare earth. Not even rare earths, but just metals, the number of metals, because of the density challenge.
Again, for those listeners who might not like this answer, it’s not judgment here. This is just the physics of energy density. The sun and the wind have a very low surface power density in watts per meter squared as compared to natural gas and nuclear, and even oil. You get denser as you go through time.
Harvesting the sun and the wind, or the waves and the tides, or geothermal takes a tremendous amount of stuff in order to get it and convert it into the kinds of energy that we use. As you’ve mentioned already, that’s mining. That’s a lot of mining.
Then, you get into the energy security challenge of who controls all those. Brilliantly, by the way, who controls all that is China. They have, through time, bought the processing rights to all those metals and minerals. I say all, 80 percent, through Belt and Road and other initiatives, they have bought globally.
It’s a security challenge. It’s a reality of extraction from mining. It’s always not done with human rights in mind or the environment in mind. Now, some of it will be that. I love mixed portfolios, I love optionality, I think there’s a role to play, but you can’t electrify everything. The density challenge pushes you toward natural gas and nuclear.
Then, the simple physics of wanting electricity 24/7, so I want it always on. There’s certain kind of power plants that are dispatchable, and certain kinds that are not. Some that need backup, and some that don’t.
Russel: I’ve often said there’s a bit of a disconnect in the US between flipping the light switch and everything that has to happen for that to actually work.
Scott: Absolutely.
Russel: Yes. We think I just flipped the light switch and it just works, but there’s a lot that goes on to make that happen.
Scott: It’s the most complicated machine in the world, the grid.
Russel: Yeah.
Scott:
Incredibly. In our first film, we take you inside ERCOT, and you can see what it takes to manage just the grid in Texas.
Literally, Russel, and you know this, but it’s generation plants going on everywhere of all scales, and in real time, those electrons move across those wires. They get basically very high voltage down, down, down, and it finally comes into your house, 60 hertz and 110 volts. I’m looking at my socket here on the wall.
Some big demand comes in, and you have to fire up the plants. You can plan on nighttime going down, etc., but there are unpredictable events also that you’re managing that grid.
When you see grids that aren’t able to handle that, it has a trigger effect, a topple down effect, if you will, a domino effect, like in Iberia Spain, and things go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and you have a blackout. It’s really complicated stuff.
Russel: For sure. Just for the listeners, Switch On is a series on PBS, and you can find it where you can find PBS content.
Scott: That’s called “Energy Switch,” actually.
Russel:
Energy Switch. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you for that correction. Energy Switch. We’ll link some of these resources up so that you can find this content. I want to pivot because I want to talk about Energy Corps.
The other thing, and I’ve had this conversation recently with some others, I think there’s actually a shift beginning to occur in attitude about energy.
People are beginning to get curious about how these things actually work and what the physics are and what the limitations are and what the costs are and all that kind of stuff. They’re starting to get curious because they’re starting to see it hit their pocketbook.
Scott: Boom. [laughs]
Russel:
Yeah, right. [laughs]
[crosstalk]
Scott: Nothing drives curiosity…
Russel:
We’re on an audio podcast, but Scott just put his finger on his nose and says, “Yes, exactly.”
[laughter]
Russel: When you start hitting people in the pocket, but they start asking questions.
Scott: Nothing drives curiosity like expensive electricity and gasoline. [laughs]
Russel: Why am I paying three times more for gasoline than I was four years ago, right?
Scott: Right.
Russel: Policy. Policy matters. Talk to us about Energy Corps. What is Energy Corps, and how does that relate with what you’re doing with Energy Switch?
Scott:
Energy Corps, after we made that film on poverty, “Energy Poverty,” Toby Rice and I were at an event just over a year ago together in DC. I was actually interviewing him in that case.
A student that was there asked, “How do we get involved in this? How can we, the students, help with having access to energy for everybody in the world?” I said, “Well, we need to form a core of some kind,” C-O-R-P-S. Toby looked at me – I don’t know if you know Toby. He’s awesome – He goes, “Dude, dude, we need to talk.”
[laughter]
Scott:
Afterwards, we go over, and he goes, “My wife and I just started something called Energy Corps,” C-O-R-P-S, “a nonprofit in Pennsylvania, and we’ve applied for a 501(c)(3) federal status.”
That just set us going because we had actually formed something called the Switch Energy Corps, C-O-R-P-S, nine years earlier, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to make it work, etc., so we focused on education.
In a year, it stood up, got the 501(c)(3) financials, and it’s a real business, made five grants already, have started to bring in significant money. Energy Corps has a mission. Its vision is 50-50. That’s the vision of the Energy Corps.
When? In 50 years, by 2075, let’s shoot the moonshot to lift everybody on the planet up to the average of the rich world today. 50 and 50 in 50. 50 Mwh, $50,000 by 2075. That’s our vision.
The vehicle is this thing called the Energy Corps, where we are investing in groups around the world who have been working on bringing energy in different ways. Clean cooking propane, solar for electricity, solar for water pumps to get some clean water, this kind of thing, Russell.
We’re looking at all the groups and saying, which ones are being effective? How can we accelerate and help them to leverage? We also have the added components of, we’d like to see a pathway to commercialization.
Not just aid, not just gifts. Our research showed that gifts are nice, but they don’t last because there’s no skin in the game, and the local people really haven’t engaged in.
Russel:
You have to build an ecosystem around what other technology you’re delivering. You have to build it because if there’s no way to support it, maintain it, and that means you’ve got to have some technicians.
Those technicians have to be trained. They have to have the appropriate tools, so you got to build an ecosystem. The issue about lifting a society or a community out of energy poverty is way bigger than just, “Get them a solar system,” right?
Scott: Yes. Completely.
Russel: Those things help, but those are kind of putting Band-Aids on the gunshot wound.
Scott:
Yeah, that is the start. I’ll just tell you, at Gunchukwa, when we went there, they had a river we could have put pico hydro in, but the river was sacred to them.
They had power lines three or four miles away. We probably could have tapped into, but that was different people’s electricity. The only thing they would accept was a solar array, PV solar, so we installed a 3.5-kilowatt solar array. That’s what they wanted culturally.
We trained them how to manage that with the battery, and they made a commitment to replace that battery themselves. They’re raising money over the next 10 to 15 years. My wife and I bought the battery, and they’re expensive as hell. This is a battery stack, but it’s exactly that.
Now, they’ve started selling popsicles from a refrigerator freezer that we installed with them.
In Nepal, you saw people selling induction cooktops in the roadside stores. There were new installations of biogas systems to get away from cooking indoors with wood, where these kids are dying.
We take you to show you that in the Siddhi Memorial Women and Children’s Hospital. It’s a really tough scene in the second film, Switch On. In fact, I didn’t really hold it together watching these kids die so simple.
But what happens is commerce starts. We take you to Kibera, the largest slum outside of Nairobi, and you see with lights now, they’re open at night and the kids are able to read in some other huts. There’s a little bit of commerce going on that didn’t exist safely before there was electricity there.
These are the kinds of virtuous cycles that begin to happen and they grow their own community. Why is that so important? Many reasons, but one of the biggest ones is corruption. Corruption is what inhibits a lot of this because leaders don’t really want their people overly educated, or well-fed, or housed, because then they’re not dependent.
Russel: It does go to their ability to hold power.
Scott: Boom.
Russel: For sure. That same thing happens in the US. That is not just a third-world problem.
Scott: Every country.
Russel: That is a problem-problem, right?
Scott: Every country in the world.
Russel:
It’s interesting because I’m actually having a similar conversation. I actually think that one of the things we’re going to see with energy over the next 50 years is these large industrial, statewide, citywide kind of infrastructure projects are going to diminish, and we’re going to go to point-of-use energy for a lot of things.
Certainly, with some of the things like fuel cells and some other stuff, we can get to that more quickly, more easily.
Scott: We can. We can. You still have big industrial and commercial processes. Now, AI, let’s say a hyperscaler, a data center, which might need a third, a half, a gigawatt of power, you can call that end use, but they’re basically putting a nuclear reactor there. [laughs]
Russel: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.
Scott: That’s Energy Corps. That’s what we’re striving to do, is that big vision. It is to invest around the world in a way that the people can gain access to the foundational energy they need to lift themselves up from poverty and all the benefits that come along with that.
Russel:
There’s all kinds of things that we have here in the US that we take for granted that my grandmother didn’t have. My grandmother was born in 1900. She grew up on a 40 acre dirt farm north of Dallas in Texas, outside of Louisville. She had a wood-burning stove, and an outdoor outhouse, and a water well that she pumped manually.
Over the course of her life, she moved into a nice little house with heating, and air conditioning, and running water, and all the modern conveniences.
Scott: A washing machine.
Russel: Right. All that created time to have leisure, and leisure created other opportunities to read and get educated and have community, and on it goes. All that occurred for the most part over about 50 years in her life. There’s no reason that cannot occur across the world.
Scott:
Exactly. In fact, you’re going to love this. My grandparents, one set was born in 1901 and 1902, just like yours. They were in Michigan. My grandfather was a high school principal educator, but ran a camp for boys initially on this little island in a little lake in northern Michigan.
It’s still in my family, and we have a home there now, but on that island, there is no electricity. We have a hand pump, we have lanterns, and we have an outhouse still today. [laughs]
Russel: Oh my gosh.
Scott: The kids, it’s like stepping back a century in time. You can’t even charge a cell phone.
Russel: Oh my gosh. I want to go there for like a month.
Scott:
It’s awesome. It is still awesome.
[crosstalk]
Russel: I want to go there for like a month. I don’t think my wife would like it, but I’d love it.
Scott: [laughs]
Scott: Well, she might like it if you go for a month.
Russel: When you think about that, at that time, back a hundred years ago, if you had all that around your house and you could sleep indoors out of the weather, near a fireplace and all of that, that was high living, man. Because a lot of people lived out of tents.
Scott: You were in business. You were good.
Russel:
I think it’s fascinating. Look, again, I’m really thankful that you came on and shared this conversation. I think this is an extremely hopeful message for people that work in oil and gas, and have been beat up in the last 10 years. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for us, and what we do is a noble endeavor.
We have the opportunity to…I think what you’re doing with Energy Corps is awesome. I could see oil and gas companies in the US allowing employees to take a six-week sabbatical to go someplace and do something, to do these projects.
Scott:
It’s exactly what we’re hoping. Every dollar matters, both individual and corporately, to these endeavors. Both of those endeavors.
Switch, by the way, has a partnership with Energy Corps, so that a buck that goes to Energy Corps, 20 cents goes to Switch for the educational component. I’m chairman of both of the boards, and we know education and action are both vital.
I completely want to say to you that, for your listeners, you’re right on the beat-up part. I was in the industry quite a while, too. My dad was with Shell for 39 years, his whole career. Don’t be ashamed of what you do. In fact, quite the opposite. Speak up.
If your neighbor asks what you do, tell them. “I’m in the oil and gas business, and I lift the world out of poverty. What do you do?”
[laughter]
Russel: What do you do for a living?” “I lift the world out of poverty.” “Really? How do you do that?” “By giving people energy independence.” “How cool. How do you do that for oil and gas?” I like it. That’s a story you can tell, right?
Scott:
Tell them. And it’s true. It usually has them thinking about what they do. I could list a series of careers, and they’re all important.
[crosstalk]
Russel: Well, sure, but it’s all how you frame it. You’re a storyteller, I can tell that by the conversation we’re having and the work you’ve done. You’re a storyteller. You understand the value of story. How you tell your story matters.
Scott: It does.
Russel:
For sure. You guys have come up with a really compelling story for energy and why it matters. Good on you.
As we always do for the listeners…We have a website. It’s pipelinepodcastnetwork.com. You’ll be able to find this episode of the podcast. There, you’ll find a transcript. We’ll link up resources so that you can find some of this content and share it with the naysayers. That’s what I would say. Share it with the naysayers.
Hey. Scott, again, thank you very much. As we’re recording this for the listeners, we’re just about to shut off for the Christmas break. Scott, Merry Christmas to you and your family. I wish you all success in the upcoming year as you continue to move your vision forward.
Scott: Thank you. The same back to you and your listeners. Thank you all for what you do. The country needs you, even though they don’t know it, but I think they’re starting to know it now. [laughs]
Russel: Thanks to guys like Billy Bob Thornton and “Landman,” right?
Scott: [laughs]
Scott: Taylor Sheridan.
Russel: Storytelling, once again.
Scott: Thank you, Taylor Sheridan.
Russel: Take care, man.
Scott: All right, man. Take care.
Russel:
I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of the Pipeliners Podcast and our conversation with Scott. Just a reminder before you go, you should register to win our customized Pipeliners Podcast YETI tumbler. Simply visit pipelinepodcastnetwork.com/win and enter yourself in the drawing.
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Russel:
If you have ideas, questions, or topics you’d be interested in or if you’d like to be a guest, please let me know, either on the Contact Us page at pipelinepodcastnetwork.com, or reach out to me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. I’ll talk to you next week.
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