Do We Need to Decrease Energy Consumption?
0:01 Welcome back. I feel like it's been a while since the last energy 101. Julie and I are here with our new friend Maggie Avadisian. Did I say that right? Yep, you got it. You got it. Perfect.
0:12 Bonus points for you. Thank you. We just wrapped up our first Fuse conference. It is Digital Wildcatters New Energy Tech Festival, and that is how Maggie and Julie met. Do you guys want to talk
0:25 about how you guys met, how your experience at Fuse and what we're going to talk about today? Sure, coincidentally enough. I guess I actually met Julie prior. Go for you. Go for you. Yeah.
0:36 Yeah. We had a little technical snag while I was trying to buy my tickets. Oh, that's right. And I said, no ticket goes on last. Yeah. Unbot. Unbot. Unbot. No one's going to lose a ticket.
0:49 So we got here. Yup. Awesome. We pulled some strings. Yup. And got that done quite quickly. Perfect how
0:57 this all worked out. because, I mean, I live in a different country now and I was visiting back home in LA when I heard about this event. Great. So it was super last minute but it ended up
1:10 working out so that I can quickly get the ticket, get a spot to stay and visit Texas again for the first time. Three years, that's a long time. I know, I know, and today we're dealing with one
1:20 of those typical weather storms. So yeah, for those of you listening, the day after Fuse, we're still recovering and unpacking but there was a storm that just came in and it's raining and flooding.
1:35 And we really liked that with Fuse Day, it was beautiful. It stormed Monday night. Fuse started Tuesday, went through Wednesday, Thursday, where it is right clear, beautiful, sunny, I think
1:49 some people got sunburned a little. Yeah, beautiful. And now it's rainy, so those three days of the week, We really, I don't know what we did to deserve it, If someone did something good.
1:59 Whether God's. Yeah. Thank you. Whether God's, you facilitated an excellent event as well. I was gonna say, what did you think? Tell us your experience.
2:09 First of all, I just wanna congratulate you because I thought the impact that this created and just kind of showing what the energy space is about to not just people that are in silos of oil and gas,
2:24 hydrogen, renewables, things like that It kind of showed what everyone is about. So I just wanted to commemorate that amazing ability to create an event like this. That on its own is phenomenal.
2:36 And I'm just so happy to have taken a part of it and make some really, really cool connections. Thank you. Oh my God. Yeah. Thank you. Of course, of course.
2:47 It makes me happy to see something like that. And there just seemed like so many different types of vendors, people, and coming from. from all these walks of life within, I guess mostly the
2:58 United States, but still from all these different walks of life. So I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had such an incredible time. I'm really, really happy. I was able to make it both for those two
3:08 days and the day prior during the kickoff. I'm good. I just wanted you to meet it as well. Of course. Did you know John before, is that how you heard about it? John, I think I just followed him
3:18 on LinkedIn, but yeah, I'd heard about it from him. Okay, okay. The thing is, I mean, and I don't know if he cares for me to say this too much. So I'm Armenian by ethnic origin. And for me,
3:31 we don't meet too many Armenian people within this industry. So for me, it's always very, very important to make that tie wherever I can. So yeah, we're a very small little community, but
3:41 whenever I see an Armenian last name and some tied to the energy industry, somehow I have to try and develop the connection. This is a call out of your Armenian energy. Please reach out to me.
3:53 We're gonna start the run on our media energy run.
3:56 Actually, I'm a part of an Armenian energy group, but we're more focused on things that are going on regionally in Armenia. But yeah, this is a call, basically, if anybody else is interested in
4:08 helping out them on land, let me know. I love that. So, can you tell us about what you do right now, your background, do you live in France right now, how you moved out there, when you moved
4:19 out there? Yep, all of it Of course, of course. So, just to let everyone know, I guess by education and practice, I am a petroleum engineer and energy economist. I got started, I guess, with
4:32 my professional career and education here in beautiful Texas. Yeah. And I went to school at Texas AM for my bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering. During which time, I was a little bit salty
4:45 because I didn't get a chance to do a study abroad experience. I was just really involved in SPE And I just - kind of things domestically. So I thought, let's see what we can find in other
4:56 countries for a master's degree. That's where I'd heard about the IFP school in France, and I don't know if you guys have heard about it. Yeah, so it's the French Institute of Petroleum, or as
5:07 the French know it as It's a handful. So yeah, motion to field trip. Yeah. To the
5:17 French school of petroleum. Yeah, let's go. Let's go
5:21 They need a digital wildcatters community about that. Actually, yeah, we need to make a French one for that. Totally support that. That is gonna help us. She's the French ambassador for DW. I
5:27 love it. I hope the French people don't feel weird about an American being the French ambassador. That's very American about us. But
5:37 I will gladly, yeah, maybe this formed some kind of cross collaborations. Maybe they would be happy about that. Yeah, but so I actually ended up going over there for the masters, I did a program
5:47 and at the time It was petroleum, economics, energy and management. They've recently refurbished that program to be more energy, technology, engineering, and management. So it was a really,
5:59 really cool program. I got to do that for a year. And this was in 2019 though. So literally one semester in, that's when COVID starts. So we ended up having to do that second semester over Zoom.
6:15 So I graduated from Zoom University as well. Oh man. And that's my portfolio. We should have Jules here Jules and Jules as well. She was in New York. Oh gosh, oh gosh, that sucks. I don't know
6:24 how their confinement system went, but for us, I mean, we were confined from I think like March to May. So yeah, basically all of my social interactions were with the four other people I was
6:35 living with and the computer. Right. Fun stuff, right? So I came back actually though, whenever I had finished my classes to start my full-time job, actually right now, working for a company
6:47 called QRI. And I was interning for them as well whenever I just had finished my bachelor's degree. So right before I was going into my master's. And we, as a company, also went fully remote as a
7:02 result of COVID. Of course. Yeah. So I've basically been this digital nomad, in a sense, within the oil field. And I guess now the energy space for the last three or so years, I grew up in Los
7:18 Angeles, actually So my family's over there. So at the times where I guess I wasn't in France or in Armenia, I was staying in Los Angeles. Predominant portion, actually, of 2021, I've spent in
7:30 Armenia. I was working over - Yeah. Due to some political reasons and no war, I actually decided to go over there and volunteer and help out with a little bit of the crisis management. All the
7:42 while, actually doing my full-time job as well. Geez. So - Wow. You know, kind of resourceful as a person. So I try to help out any time my can, not to brag, just literally I just want to help
7:54 out any time I can, yeah. So the world needs more people like you. Yeah, yeah, but for anybody else listening, always make sure mental health is your first priority.
8:05 But yeah, so during that timeframe, I was also doing some work over there. I was working with the Houston Hours back home here And then between those periods of time from 2019, all the way to
8:19 right now, I've also been living in France as I guess my main point of residence. So that's kind of a little bit about me. I'd love to talk a little bit also about just some of the work I do. So
8:31 in QRI, actually, we're basically a firm that specializes in utilizing all of the technical know-how we can in artificial intelligence and machine learning to streamline some of those really tedious
8:44 oil and gas processes that we see in the upstream. So, you know, anything related to opportunity, finding to water flood management, decline curve analysis, anything related in terms of machine
8:54 learning, we've spent a lot of time honing in and crafting our skill on that end to the point where we've developed some very interesting partnerships and conducted some very interesting projects all
9:05 throughout the world with major national companies in which I've also gotten to take part of So I'm really grateful for that and right now I've kind of moved into this role of working with some of our
9:18 new ventures, especially within the hydrogen and the water space. So we're really ramping up in some of those kinds of resource spaces as well. So I've had basically a really nice upbringing and
9:33 ability to learn from really amazing subject matter experts as well as learn how to utilize technology to create real value for clients in any form and fashion. Uh, so really, really grateful for
9:48 that experience. And I think, uh, it's made me really impactful on the technical scale as a, uh, as we talk about, let's say things like, you know, energy supply. Right. Yeah. So that's my
9:58 spiel. Sorry. I love it. No, I love it. I was listening to you kind of talk about that yesterday. Yeah. Honestly, I was like, man, I wish I could understand all of it. Um, and one day I
10:11 want to have you back on the podcast when sometime you're back in Texas. Of course Yeah. Like we got to build our knowledge up to be able to understand the client curves and, um, yeah. Like I,
10:23 just the use, the base knowledge you have to have to be able to talk about machine learning. I'm like, yeah. We've got a way to go. We do. But that's okay. We're on our way. Exactly. And by
10:35 no means will I say that, you know, I've learned it all either, like just to also tell the 25 I'm, audience years old, um, there's still a lot for me to learn as well. I could still be
10:46 considered a baby in the oil patch or the energy patch now, if we can call it that. Energy patch, I love that. Let's call it the energy patch now. I love the energy patch. I love the energy
10:51 patch. It's like a cabbage patch kit, an energy patch kit. Yeah. It's an energy patch.
10:58 No, I love that, and I love that you said that. Something that you said to me yesterday, it like struck a chord in me, and I'm like, man, you said
11:08 something along the lines of not being qualified enough to teach us something, and I'm like, no! I'm like, every single person in the energy industry has something to teach someone else. Like,
11:23 so my expertise would be, and I wouldn't even call it my expertise, just what I know would be like, something in project management, I'm no, I'm not an expert, but I could teach someone
11:31 something. And I think that little thing would help the narrative, change the narrative all around, and help energy IQ grow by just like, People who. This is their everyday life, but they think
11:45 people aren't interested in it. Or they're like, right? They don't care. Like, no, people do care and they want to learn. And everyone's qualified. I think that they just don't know where to
11:54 start with the learning issue. Which is, I mean, as we've said multiple times, why we started the podcast is because there's nothing that is kind of at that baseline. A lot of resources are what
12:07 are put out from the authors of what they think the baseline is, but for the public who is not in energy, doesn't come from energy, like it needs to be a couple layers below that. So that's why
12:18 when you said that, I was like, No, Maggie, you are perfect. Like, I want you on. And I wanted you on because we started talking about, I asked you your feedback and just like, Hey, what'd
12:29 you think about all the content? What do you think was missing? And you mentioned that, and honestly, when you mentioned this, I went so over my head because it's such a foreign concept to me,
12:40 You said that. you know, there wasn't any talk about, as Americans, we don't do anything to decrease energy consumption. And we always talk about building new things and kind of meeting the
12:56 demand and expanding the infrastructure to be able to use and more energy. Instead of doing like Europe does, where they will do stuff to decrease the consumption So let's get into that because
13:13 whenever you've told me that, I'm like, oh, so Europe, this is how just over my head and I don't understand it, I've never been over to Europe. So I was like, oh, Europe needs to increase
13:25 their infrastructure and they need to
13:28 do more with energy so their people can be comfortable. But you're saying that no, their people are fine and they want to decrease the consumption and Americans should do better and become more
13:39 efficient. So let's get into that. So I guess the first point to start off with is, kind of as you said, everyone has something that they can teach to somebody else, but also everyone has
13:50 something that they can bring to the table. So in this case, there's a lot of things, I think in America we do write, and I think there's a lot of things in Europe we do write. And so there's
14:01 kind of a way to bring both of those perspectives into the table. So like you said, at Fuse, we had a lot of individuals that were talking about expansion of this, CapEx thrown into that, new
14:14 pipelines. Here, there, everywhere, transmission grids, make sure that we can provide energy for as many people as possible in, let's say, just theoretical infinite amounts. For as long as
14:26 possible. For as long as possible too, yeah. So that's a good conversation to have, but that only really talks about the supply side. Now, in typical economics, everything has to work as an
14:38 optimization function, where we talk about supply and demand. Those two, we can look at them independently, but in reality, there is a lot of relation between them and even how it relates to,
14:50 let's say, markets and public sentiment. So again, I grew up in the United States. I have a particular viewpoint. I spent a lot of time as well in Texas, where we have this predominantly supply
15:04 side nature of very, you know, we have, you know, utility and we want to increase the quality of life for everyone based off of supply. Great. Now I moved to Europe three years ago and I was
15:19 thrown aback, quite honestly, at that point, at just how different, you know, people view this energy situation over there. Because let's, you know, over there if I remember correctly, maybe
15:31 it's about half the amount of energy equivalent that they're utilizing per capita in comparison to. United States. Yeah, it's way more than I was like, they're definitely less, but I didn't think
15:44 it was going to be yeah, I'm looking at if I'm better never turned off. Yeah. Yeah. Number one thing we can do a digital category.
15:53 Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. So things like that. And I mean, you know, what regardless of this number is a higher or lower, there's still something to be said, and you can very well see it
16:05 just from daily habits of people. Okay, so for the most part, I mean, I was spending time living either with roommates that were international, or by myself or with my significant other. And the
16:19 people that I was surrounding myself with, at least I was trying to surround myself with most of the time were individuals of European origin, because I'm in their territory now, and I really want
16:28 to know, you know, how they think what they do, just so I can not just to blend in or fit in, but to respect them and, you know, be able to assimilate myself into their culture. So now, the
16:40 number one thing was the lights. This is a very, something maybe a lot of people don't think about.
16:46 Whenever I leave a room, I'm not using that room right now. There is no reason to keep anything on, okay? And fortunately, if I'm too lazy to reach the switch, I can just call out Alexa, turn
16:59 off the lights, you know? We have that utility over here because a lot of people own an Amazon Echo or they have some kind of smart meter Not everyone does, but you have that utility and you should
17:10 be able to use it like you're right. I mean, it doesn't take too much effort to use your voice. Right. Hopefully. And so, whenever I moved over there, there were certain moments in time where I
17:20 was forgetting to turn off the lights. And so, somebody would bug me and say like, Hey, why is the light on? And I was like, Oh man, it just kind of like slipped my mind. And so in the very
17:28 beginning, I was just, I felt bad actually because this was a very simple fix that I can do to actually decrease my consumption. So, that was one example. Another thing is, let's say air
17:41 conditioning and heating. I'm not home most of the day, okay? And I don't need it to be Antarctica whenever I step back into my house in seven hours or it be a sauna. Why don't I just, you know,
17:54 turn it off and at the moment that I really need to use it, I can turn it back on. Or if I have to, just set it at ambient temperature so that I know that, you know, it's going to be leveled
18:03 enough and it's not going to be continuously on during the day if I put it on an automatic mode Even while, I'm not going to say which hotel, but it's actually not even here, it's in Los Angeles.
18:13 I went to the gym the day I
18:17 got back this time around to Los Angeles was around September and over there in Los Angeles it was like scorching hot, but, you know, typically maybe you would have like the temperature set at, I
18:30 don't know, 80, 85ish if you're, you know,
18:33 And they had it set at like 67 degrees. Meanwhile, it's 102 degrees outside. What the hell is that? And so I made a complaint to the manager and I just very nicely I said, like, hey, you know,
18:46 your AC is set at 67 and it's really, really hot outside. I mean, that difference is gonna cause a lot of energy usage and it's not even able to, you know, keep up with the demand. You need to
18:55 really do something about it. So I came back the next day to the gym and it was still like that And so I tried to like just manually change it and I even couldn't. So these were like really like
19:05 small things that after three years of living over there are really irked me now, you know, that I've come back over here. And they add up because I'm not the only person that sees this or that's
19:15 not the only building that does this. That's one building. How many buildings do we have in the United States? I don't know, but that's a lot, right? And chances are a lot of them aren't
19:24 necessarily fitted for purpose, consideration of like, let's say, you know, their energy or, I don't know, the heat levels are the uh, cold levels, uh, that are within that area. So, uh,
19:37 we, I guess also we see this trend a little bit more exasperated with just this infinite amount of, uh, what we think is supply, uh, actually in somewhere like Texas, this is an energy capital
19:48 for a reason, you know, we want to build and we want to show that quality of life can be infinitely amazing. Yeah, but at what cost? Right. Okay. Um, the other simple thing, which, I mean,
20:00 I was just talking today with this, uh, about this with someone is, let's say, for example, Houston, it's not necessarily the most, um, pedestrian friendly city that you can find. Um, I am
20:13 here without any type of, um, car transportation. I've been using Ubers everywhere I go. And I really wanted to actually walk from midtown to downtown for the conference, but that was a bad idea
20:24 because I, like, I'm going through like underpasses and like, really weird, dangerous, dangerous suspect. Um, there was like one sliver or like a little spot where, you know, it was okay to
20:35 just walk because there was actual like pavage to walk over there. Um, meanwhile, I'm kind of afraid of going through the underpass, not necessarily because of somebody coming up to me. I'm just
20:44 afraid somebody's going to like hit me. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, there are drivers are crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, and that's, I guess more related to like, let's say public sector and
20:54 infrastructure to make walkable areas that people feel safe to walk through. Again, not necessarily with who's going to come up to you is just, are you going to come up to you? to be okay to walk.
21:03 Right, in every aspect. In every aspect. You've got giant gas guzzlers over here that are probably seven times the size of you two. I'm talking about trucks. So over here, you're just kind of a
21:15 little bit underpowered whenever you're looking at them and you're very ambivalent in terms of like, can I walk, can I not walk? But I wanna walk. I'm used to walking now Um, I, I, I want to,
21:27 you know, view the city a little bit and remember what I used to love about being in Texas. But I really can't do that by foot and it's a little bit bothersome. And that actually has a lot to do
21:39 with our consumption habits too. Do you see good public transportation in these areas and do you feel confident enough to, if you're not going to be taking public transportation to be able to walk,
21:49 you can't do either. So what's your next best bet? A car. And if we're a lot, I mean, I don't remember if in Houston, we have what is it called? Carpool lanes in the we do. Okay, great. Some
22:04 places. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you guys live here. So I don't know if you can tell me how often people use them if you can like see. So Colin and I ride to work every morning so we get to get.
22:16 And it's yeah, it's pretty bare. Not a lot of people use it and traffic will be stopped on on I 10 completely and we're just zooming past no one's in the car. Yeah, exactly. And if they are, I
22:28 noticed there's no one else in the, they're not supposed to be there. They're not even supposed to be there. Yeah. Every time we're like, they need some cops over here, get these people. Yeah.
22:38 Yeah. So you got it, basically. I'm used
22:45 to taking buses now. I'm used to taking the metronal. I don't really think twice about it. If I have to go pick up groceries and let's say it's a 30-minute walk, I'll do it Even if I have like
22:55 three or four bags in my hand, it's just more like nature to me now. Nobody really had to tell me to do it. I was just viewing other people and maybe there's something to be said about that kind of
23:05 public sentiment. Over here, there needs to be someone, I guess, in maybe this is more of a regional thing where you have to look at it city by city, but there has to be somebody over here to
23:15 kind of like start that initiative mentally And this goes out to the audience. I mean, maybe you don't need someone to start it off. maybe what I'm telling you you maybe never thought about and it
23:29 makes sense to you to maybe try some of these things but there still has to be some kind of like push let's say policy-wise or somebody to show that you know there is actual value in trying to
23:40 decrease our consumption. There again it has to be an optimization effect you know we can't expect that every resource we have in our life is and you know you can even talk about you yourself you
23:51 know you're at some point you're gonna even die sorry to be a little bit sad there but you know nothing is permanent in this world um and same case with some of the resources that we're using so uh
24:04 just something that needs to be kept in mind more and maybe if you think about it a little bit existentially it can you know push something in your brain to say like hey you know maybe I don't need to
24:15 be utilizing this much of this or this much of this um I can actually cut them down by really simple steps throughout the day. Do you guys drink, um, I'm doing it now too, but do you guys Often,
24:25 or? We actually here now have water dispensers, and we have other than this. We bought water bottles. We had a ton of water bottles at leftover from use. We have the now, but typically in the
24:36 office, we save these bottles for guests, and we are under rules that everyone else uses our reusable ones 'cause we drink the most water here just day to day. Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. So
24:48 there's kind of another simple fix that a lot of people can do Home water filters are actually pretty reasonable investment. Can you explain that? Yeah, how does this decrease energy consumption?
25:00 Right, so - Or increase, sorry. So this is manufactured. Okay. Okay. And more manufactured materials automatically implies some form of consumption because you can't make anything without using
25:13 anything. Right. Right. This is a very simplistic thing because we do have an issue with a lot of plastic usage and some of it does actually end up being recycled, Why does it even need to be
25:25 recycled when you don't even need to produce as much? Why not use our natural resources that are readily available through systems that were funded by the state to provide this life-enhancing liquid.
25:40 So it goes back to supply and demand. Right, exactly, yeah. We are drinking this all the time. Yeah, this is - And they're gonna make it more. Exactly, yeah. Long story short. But now,
25:52 again, water filters aren't necessarily the most expensive investment and they pay off very well and it decreases the amount of waste that you are utilizing. So all in all, it's kind of a effect
26:04 that goes way beyond what you think. And if you kind of just open your eyes outside of your immediate vicinity, you'll be able to see that too. Yeah, that's really interesting. I am curious,
26:18 when you talk to other people here and you bring this up, like, Why don't we talk about? you know, decreasing consumption, what is the like rebuttal? Like, what do they say? Like, are they
26:31 like, why would you even say that? Like, I just want to know like what the narrative is. Yeah, it's not even a why would you even say that? It's just, it's always like, you know, kind of what
26:39 you said, I never even thought about that before. Yeah, it's like, you're dumbfounded. Like, you can do that. Yeah, you're actually an awe. Yeah. And this is the most basic principle of life,
26:52 okay? Supply and demand, again I mean, I've said that a little bit too much at this point, but it's supply and demand. And it doesn't just work one way or the other. And we don't hear it enough
27:06 in our heads, or we don't see it enough across us to actually want to think about that. So it's as simple as that. Like, nobody really goes long enough to, or far enough to actually educate or
27:17 talk about this with a lot of people. Again, like, whenever I was living here, I'll say that.
27:24 Very truthfully, I didn't even think about that as much, you know, I thought I can just, you know Use my car pump it with gas and then be on my way Meanwhile, there's people in actually France
27:34 that are retrofitting their vehicles in order to run on 85 ethanol Wow, can you imagine the amount of reduction in your emissions just by doing that? And I mean those are very simple investments you
27:47 can make into your vehicle to move you from point A to point B If you absolutely have to use your own vehicle
27:54 There's even initiatives now. I feel like it was about three or four months ago where One of the ministers, I believe it was the Minister of Energy in France actually said that they're going to be
28:06 finding Businesses that leave their door open and have the electric or sorry the air conditioning on Wow So that very simple thing right that do you think it like in your head if you know your air
28:17 conditioner is on do you like? Do you leave your window open? you're not supposed to, right? Or you're not even supposed to leave your door open. Like the point of the air condition is to
28:25 circulate. Yeah, cold energy. I've seen people over here actually that leave their, whenever they're driving, they leave their window open and they have the AC on. 'Cause they like the feeling.
28:35 Now, okay, you bring that up. I have, okay, this is kind of embarrassing, but I'm not afraid to admit it because I'm learning. Of course, please, please, for learning. So Colin and I, we
28:47 drive to work every morning. I'm always cold. And you're not. So he likes to blast the AC, and I'm like, get it off of me. Well, we have like, okay, so we have a Toyota Camry. So it's not,
28:60 it's a small cart. I like to put mine on like the heat. Okay, yeah. And his is on like cold, and he got so mad at me. He's like, you're wasting so much energy. And I'm like, no, I'm cold,
29:13 like, I'm not wasting energy. Like it would be wasted anyway.
29:19 Are you serious right now? He's like,
29:23 he's like, no, he's like doing this. He's like, the car is like trying to pump this and pump that. And it's just circulating. And you're using more gas, which is energy. And I'm like, yeah,
29:36 well,
29:39 I don't feel good. So I was like, I turned it off and I'm like, well, we just won't use any energy.
29:46 Smarter, smarter. I know, I know And after I said that, he was like, I shouldn't have gone there. But it was just like, things like that, I didn't even like, it didn't compute to me like that
29:59 using AC in your gas uses or using the AC in your car and like using more gas faster. You have to fill up your car more. Yeah, exactly. Just things like that, they never, I've never thought
30:11 about it in a way of the overall picture and I love that you brought up that they're in France. And I'm sure other countries that, you know, businesses are getting fined for stuff like that.
30:25 'Cause it reminds me when we had, I guess the freeze, I think, something had happened in the last couple of years. And I remember it was a whole thing. And the city was encouraging everyone to
30:36 save their usage during the freeze. They were doing rolling blackouts, all this stuff. And you look at downtown and every single skyscraper had multiple lights. I'm sure the air was on And a lot
30:49 of people were getting a little bit testy on social media at our city government for being like, are you telling these businesses to do the same? Yeah. You know, you're getting on continuous for
31:01 doing it. And what was it that? Because they were close to the med center. Like I think they couldn't turn off the - I don't know. I mean, I know all the hospitals. I don't know. I mean, I
31:11 know like downtown, I'm sure there's, so I remember just looking downtown and I get, they couldn't turn off the power, the issue was that
31:21 the businesses could have sent someone or somehow delights, that thought it was completely lit up when everyone in the city was supposed to consume or was supposed to be conserving energy. And so
31:35 these are moments where it's like a very short-term response to, I mean, granted, I mean, like I said, everyone has something to bring to the table. I'm not saying everything that they're doing
31:45 in France is correct right now. They're also dealing with the energy crisis over there Maybe France is a little bit less impacted because they predominantly use nuclear in order to create their
31:54 electricity. But there's a lot of like short-term responses a lot of people are doing in order to manage the energy situation. So it's understandable, but it has to be kind of inclusive of everyone,
32:07 okay? You don't just say to the average Joe, hey, stop using electricity or stop running your water from these hours to these hours. You have to also enforce it the businesses and if the
32:19 businesses don't have some kind of like value proposition to actually keep things open, except for, hey, I need to make money, then turn it off. Tell them that we're from home. Tell them we're
32:29 from home too. You see
32:33 how small like it gets, it could be very, it could be simplistic. Now, if you ask maybe a politician, they're going to say, oh, but there's red tape, there's whatever else, hell else that you
32:45 have to think about Okay, but are we still going to be thinking about that red tape in, let's say, the next 50, 60 years, when things can get very testy in terms of our resources and our
32:58 constraints? What are we going to do then? So think with the short-term response, but understand that in the long-term, a lot of what's happening right now is going to affect what your long-term
33:12 outcome is going to be Yeah, yeah, right when I'd be interested to see to what sort of initiatives, some just energy companies, no matter what vertical an energy that you're in, are taking on the
33:25 business side. Like are they making a conscious effort to, yeah. Just like I said, turn off the lights, make sure the lights are off, yeah. At the end of the day, if people are in their
33:34 offices, 'cause people forget, you know, is there a way that they can just make sure that, you know, they're conserving electricity? Yeah, well, in terms of energy conservation, I've
33:45 definitely seen a lot of more businesses are saying. To at least there were more, it's like, hey, if you can work from home, actually, in this case, you're not gonna be utilizing gas in order
33:54 to go from your own location to the office, and essentially make sure you're only powering your laptop for work from this hour to this hour. Can you imagine how simple of a fix that is? Yeah. Yeah.
34:09 And I, man, I can't comment on, you know, any businesses in particular This is what I've seen is just like an aggregate. uh, from some of the businesses in Europe. Uh, but there's definitely
34:20 institutions and organizations that, uh, have made this like effort. Um, yeah, I just can't say exactly who's done what. Yeah. Um, I don't know actually if in Houston during, uh, what was it
34:33 that, um, the, uh, the wind energy issue, what was it during the free? So it was called, that's what was called the freeze. Yeah. Were they telling people to work from home at that point or
34:45 no, people couldn't be on the roads. Okay. So essentially working from home. Right. Yeah. Like no one was working. Okay. Like the city like shut down. No one was working, no, cause no,
34:55 nowhere had power. Yeah. Like, wow, before the rolling blackouts, everything was out. Yeah. Everything was, it was bad. So it's like hurricane level impact on work. It really was. And it
35:08 wasn't really was Houston. It was all of Texas. Yeah. Wow. I didn't even and realize, 'cause they just kept talking about you soon. Yes, it is.
35:15 Where was it, was it Dallas that it was really bad where you would, like, people's pipes were bursting and it was like frozen, like, what are those icicles? I'm like, what are those things? I
35:27 don't get to know. The icicles, the frozen things. The freeze, the frozen, the popsicles, but they're not popsicle. But yeah, it was really bad and it was all of Texas. Oh man. Yeah. So
35:41 that's more of a, I guess, I mean, we talked about this at Fuse, you know, that's more of an infrastructural situation. Right. That's where, you know, capital expense has to probably go the
35:50 next time around to make sure things like intermittency aren't necessarily going to be very problematic, which actually you guys had a really good conversation in regards to energy storage about this.
36:02 So that I really appreciated listening to that. I do not, I do not, I do not wait. to listen to all of the panels. We didn't get a chance to listen on any - It's hard, yeah, you guys work and
36:12 running around making sure nothing breaks. So we keep hearing about how good they were. So I'm like, I can't wait to watch. We sent out the surveys this morning. And so far everyone's cool.
36:22 They're all really good, yeah. It was really cool to like listen to some of these. It's been okay. That's been good. One six out of 10. Shout out to everyone. Six out of 10. You know who you
36:32 are.
36:35 Yeah, I liked how some of those conversations really weren't super vanilla. It regardless of whether or not, I agree with someone's public sentiment. I think it's always very important to be vocal,
36:50 opinionated because whenever you just start to maneuver around these kinds of big, hot topics and not really wanna answer things appropriately, that's where this miscommunication and misalignment
37:04 really does come from. And these are big businesses. This mentality does translate very heavily into just, again, your average Joe, average consumer. So
37:17 being vocal, very, very important from that both business perspective and from the regular consumer perspective. I was gonna say, speaking of being vocal, we are just so happy that it all worked
37:30 out. Yeah, this was for Julie. Julie on the fly was like, can you do the podcast tomorrow? I know, and that you are willing to. I, that's really cool that you made time to come. Of course.
37:41 We're so excited. So, Joel's usually asked three questions at the end. They're called Rapping Fire questions. I actually don't remember what they are 'cause she usually says them, but we're gonna
37:51 try this. So, rapid fire, three questions. I feel like I remember two. And do I have to give quick answers? Yeah. Okay, cool. So, I know one is what is like one thing you wish people knew
38:03 about the end of the day.
38:06 What is either the biggest misconception, you think that around energy, what is the biggest misconception that you? We're not out to destroy the world. We want to help it. Yes, I love that. And
38:22 I know one is what's your most embarrassing story. That's the last one, there's one in between that. Oh, why should like, so she usually asked this. Okay, yeah. Are you, are you a jinzier?
38:31 It's one of the jinzier. I think, I don't remember. Okay. I act like it a little bit But I feel like I still got my millennial room. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. So, pretend I'm Jules. Okay.
38:43 And you're 23. And I'm 23. Okay. Can't you tell?
38:48 Why should I get into the industry? Like, why should I be interested in energy? Why does it matter to me as a 20-something, you know, you're old? Why should I care? Well, you're 23 right now
39:03 chances are you have still quite old. lifetime on this earth, but if you have any sympathy for it, and maybe you're whoever you create as a result of your life,
39:19 it's something that is going to affect them a lot in the future. So you have to be cognizant for the sake of your future. If that's your, you know, whoever you're going to create I hope you're
39:31 listening.
39:34 I hope that was a good answer. It was a great answer. Then the last one, what is your, one of your most embarrassing stories? This is a fun one. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, just a
39:45 quick, whatever comes to your mind. Gosh, the thing is I have a lot. Let's hear them all. Oh gosh, I told mine. Oh gosh, I don't even know which one. I think Diana still takes the cake for me.
39:56 I need it. Oh man,
40:03 I'm drawing a blank, honestly, but I have a lot. That's the problem.
40:09 We should have told you this question if we didn't say you could've thought about it. Oh man.
40:15 I guess they're not so embarrassing now that I think about it. So maybe I don't, maybe I don't have any embarrassing stories. Next time you're back on our podcast. You have to go on, do something
40:26 embarrassing between them. Yeah. Okay, we'll do. And you can even ask me I'll even allow you to ask me one extra rapid fire question as a result of not being able to answer this. I'm on the fly.
40:38 Let's go. What are you most excited about in the industry right now? It's a good one. We should just add that. Yeah, that's a probably a good one to add, yeah. There's a lot more communication
40:50 now and people are, they seem to be realizing some of the, the importance of our current like energy situation, again as it relates to supply and demand. So I love how the conversations have
41:04 become a lot more fruitful and also a lot more energy professionals have become more vocal as well. And have started to post a little bit about their experiences and their opinions. So you feel less
41:16 alone, actually, and you feel like you have an outlet, much like Digital Wildcatters, in order to speak about some of those important topics Awesome. Amazing. I love this conversation. It was
41:30 really good. I learned a lot. I am not going to drink water bottles. Yeah. I can't promise that, but I'll try. Just, you know, what helps some people, and it's weird, but it actually does
41:42 help a lot. Get like a really cute water bottle. I do, and I like for you to hold a bunch of water that way. Exactly. And then you can stretch. Yeah, me too. I use my Fitbit always to like
41:53 track how much water I drink throughout the day And it just, it makes it more interactive, which I think is what, you know, like whenever we say we learn through interaction and like experience.
42:01 Having those like outlets that allow you to be a little bit more interactive with your love it right consumption is actually very important So highly recommend for other people that are drinking too
42:10 much water from plastic bottles Get a cute water bottle with little numbers on it. Make it in an accessory. Yes. I have a friend who has only called her emotional support water bottles She's got
42:20 anywhere. Yep. Yep. Shout out to you. That's a baller
42:27 Very Maggie, if people want to like learn more about you or you know, yes Yeah, they can find me on LinkedIn if you can spell my last name correctly, but it's already a very like different name So
42:40 it really is a problem and Maggie and you why yeah, so you when you'll find on LinkedIn Yeah fun fact about that. Actually, I think it was whenever they translated my bird certificate Cuz I was
42:52 actually born as expat in Russia. So I guess whenever they translated my bird certificate It ended up being m-a-g-y. I don't know how but Was it supposed to be M-A-D-G-I-E? I don't think it was
43:01 supposed to be,
43:04 it just happened to be M-A-G-I-E. Sorry, though. I mean, I'm for it, though. I mean, it adds a little - It's very different. Yeah, I like it. It's a little bit of something different. Yeah,
43:15 I even asked John, I'm like, 'cause I was writing the email and I'm like, Hey Maggie, and I'm like, John, are you sure it's M-A-D-Y? He's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, Okay.
43:24 Yup, yup. That's awesome. Thank you so much for joining us Obviously, safe travels. Thank you. We went back to LA. for issuing a ship back to France.
43:31 Yeah, I'm gonna go back to LA. a little bit, chill out over there, and then probably, you know, sometime towards the next month or so, I'll head back over to France. Awesome, well, safe
43:41 travels. Thank you. For everyone out there, like and subscribe. Yeah. We will start putting out more content. Now that JUZ is over, we can breathe and we can create content and - We'll be back
43:56 I'll be back. All right. Great.
