Energy fuels everyday life

00:00:00: Welcome to the energy tailgate a new podcast from Chevron where we're gonna sit on The back of a very nice pickup truck and have real conversations about the Energy that powers our lives how?

00:00:11: We use it Where It Comes From And Of Course, where it's headed.

00:00:14: no bordering jargon here No complicated lectures because I just couldn't handle That Just straight talk with the people who actually know this stuff.

00:00:22: I'm Tanner Faust, race car driver stunt driver and TV host.

00:00:25: And I've spent a lot of my life behind the wheel so i've been able to see just how much energy shapes the way we move work and live because whether you're filling up your tank charging your phone flipping on light switch Energy is part of your everyday story.

00:00:39: now We're kicking things off right here at a chevron station in houston texas with A guy that's got a pretty big role In That Story.

00:00:46: Chevrons CEO.

00:00:47: Mike Worth Thank You So Much for Joining me On The Tailgate Here.

00:00:50: Great To Be Here

00:00:54: Obviously not your normal office.

00:00:56: It's actually a bit nicer, I like it.

00:00:57: A little

00:00:57: nigh-hand nicer!

00:00:58: All right we don't have the CEO hat on or just real talk.

00:01:02: when did you really discover how important energy was?

00:01:06: Like...how much it mattered?

00:01:08: How much it really mattered?

00:01:09: The first memory i had of that is uh..actually one as young child and grew up in Colorado where at a winter storm the power lines down.

00:01:21: We were without electricity for several days and all of a sudden my life changed, school was closed.

00:01:27: I had to stay at home all day.

00:01:28: when the sun went on.

00:01:29: we went to bed.

00:01:30: uh...we didn't step because the television did work.

00:01:33: The food in the refrigerator all went bad pretty quickly.

00:01:37: it's cold outside so we have burn firewood where huddled up with blankets around the fire for heat In early morning or evening actually through today.

00:01:46: And i realized pretty quickly that everything made my life comfortable was gone.

00:01:54: It wasn't much fun, the first day might have been an adventure but after then it's not great.

00:02:00: and so I think this is when you realize wait a minute what happens if your don't get energy?

00:02:05: You know

00:02:09: how easy to take for granted while its so consistent?

00:02:12: The other time there are hurricanes.

00:02:18: when you have a large populated area that is without power for just a few days, society starts to break down.

00:02:25: I mean people are scared they're hungry their angry and so it reliable energy underpins the kind of stability in life style but we really do take for granted.

00:02:37: When i think about my morning.

00:02:38: this morning The alarm clock went off um...I grabbed myself on which had been charging overnight.

00:02:47: The shaving cream that I use to shave has got products come out of petroleum.

00:02:53: Hot coffee, a hot shower.

00:02:55: getting here checking my email on my device literally each step in the morning was made possible by energy which is always available and it's worked its way into every aspect our lives space cooling, mobility, mechanized agriculture.

00:03:20: The things that enable all of us to live the life we do are impossible without reliable and affordable energy.

00:03:28: You mentioned a lot different forms of energy.

00:03:30: What were some of these fortes?

00:03:33: And applications where maybe they're best suited.

00:03:37: So oil is very good for it's got great energy density.

00:03:42: so liquid hydrocarbons Are very very energy dense.

00:03:46: And so in things like transportation, they're very useful because you can get them where you need.

00:03:51: You carry them around inside your vehicle.

00:03:54: Natural gas is a critical component of fertilizer Very important.

00:03:58: and power generation Because power turbines are highly efficient gas gas fired power turbines Winden solar our good at generating electricity.

00:04:09: A lot of capital costs up front but then virtually no operating cost because the wind and the sunshine are free, but they're intermittent because the wind doesn't always blow and the sun does not shine.

00:04:20: They have a very non-ratable load capacity.

00:04:27: so you've got to have other parts of energy system that help create power more continuously cause.

00:04:32: society uses power around the clock.

00:04:35: You get to nuclear and it has tremendous ability to generate steady power generation.

00:04:42: You've got nuclear waste issues that have to be dealt with, nuclear plants were very expensive to build and the regulatory environment in the US has made it difficult.

00:04:51: but it plays a role as well.

00:04:53: so you've all these different elements.

00:04:55: one of things I think this discussion can get a little polarized at times.

00:05:00: We need it all and they also have a different role.

00:05:03: And markets are very efficient at finding the best application for each one of these technologies.

00:05:09: One of my first races that I ever got to do, and i always feel so fortunate To race stuff.

00:05:14: but there's so much innovation That happens in competition sure?

00:05:18: And what am i?

00:05:18: first races was pike speak.

00:05:19: then pike speaks.

00:05:20: unique event right up The street from.

00:05:22: you know where you lived.

00:05:24: It's short Altitude causes combustion engines to suffer on power.

00:05:29: You lose almost fifty percent at the top of this mountain, fourteen thousand feet.

00:05:34: So electric cars have a big advantage.

00:05:36: The first year I did it was in two thousand and two.

00:05:39: the Engineers that had the electric car said they had to carry around eight pounds Of battery To equal the energy They could get out one pound of gasoline And That Was Their Problem When the record was taken.

00:05:50: It is still held by an EV.

00:05:53: That ratio had really only changed in almost twenty years to six-to one, where batteries are still carrying around six pounds.

00:06:00: To have the same equivalent energy as gasoline It seems like a slow progression.

00:06:06: What is the breakthrough that needs to happen for certain types of mobility energies?

00:06:12: To be viable?

00:06:13: yeah well One of the advantages that liquid fuels have this incredible energy density and portability.

00:06:19: batteries our Portable, but they're not very energy-dense and so you've got to carry a lot of weight To get the same amount of energy out of a battery.

00:06:28: Batteries have been around for hundreds years.

00:06:31: And so they'd been optimized in.

00:06:34: The technology has been advanced.

00:06:36: There's been a huge amount of investments.

00:06:37: who I?

00:06:38: lithium ion batteries that are You know?

00:06:44: And it's basic physics and thermodynamics.

00:06:47: Then you get into the economics, because your weight means more cost.

00:06:51: It is one of those reasons that batteries in light-duty vehicles like passenger cars go a certain distance every day.

00:06:59: they can come home or recharge You get into heavy duty applications like, uh... eighteen-wheel on road trucking.

00:07:06: And the batteries to do a typical run in a truck become so heavy you can't carry very much cargo and so the economics don't work.

00:07:14: It'd be great if could fly airplanes on batteries but you've got so much weight that you cant put anything else on an airplane.

00:07:20: then we'll go far as same thing with ships.

00:07:22: So this fundamental issue of physics energy density actually sits at the core of some of the challenges that we continue to work on from an engineering standpoint, a research and science standpoint.

00:07:36: But I sometimes tell people laws of physics and thermodynamics in economics are stubborn... ...and they're immutable!

00:07:43: And so you can't beat them.

00:07:44: You gotta try find a way to engineer your ways or use it as your advantage.

00:07:50: It's tough.

00:07:50: As we adapt how energy is used for us the uses of energy for a long road truck versus a passenger car.

00:08:03: Like, where is the future?

00:08:04: Is it being more adaptable to the use of energy or does there... It doesn't sound like those are golden recipe out there.

00:08:11: Yeah you know its useful.

00:08:12: I think sometimes we go back and look at the history of energies.

00:08:15: You go back to eighteen fifty And most human life was spent each day trying get food and fuel for heat that night And people's lives were not very productive.

00:08:31: Farming was done with human muscle and animal muscles, heat came from burning wood or peat moss eventually coal.

00:08:44: but most of the human endeavor was survival.

00:08:47: today because we have these advances in energy You can race cars, you're gonna fly airplanes.

00:08:54: Uh...you think big thoughts.

00:08:55: You could develop new businesses and make movies to find ways to entertain people.

00:09:01: all because we don't spend it every day just trying to live the next day.

00:09:05: I think what were going see number one.

00:09:07: a lot of world doesn't live that way.

00:09:08: We do still And so there are billions and billions on the planet.

00:09:12: they dont have reliable electricity They don´t clean cooking fuels.

00:09:15: There is alot investment in doing that but i think will continue.

00:09:20: We're going to need all these different technologies, we'll look for breakthroughs.

00:09:23: I'm a big fan of what's happening right now in data science and AI.

00:09:28: New materials new ways to build this.

00:09:31: energy systems are going be enabled by the greater intelligence capabilities that will come from system but always fighting those three laws physics thermodynamics economics you counter with human innovation and I'm not sure what the future will look like, because i don't think fifty years ago we could have seen what were doing today with a amount of power you've got in your cell phone.

00:09:57: You know...you had more on that cellphone than it took when they first landed man-on-the moon uh..in the lunar module.

00:10:04: so um....I am big fan innovation technology and its great adventure to see where takes us.

00:10:11: Mike, thank you so much for kicking this off with us.

00:10:14: Spend a little time on the tailgate.

00:10:15: really appreciate that You can follow The Energy Tailgate For more conversations about people and progress shaping the role of energy in our lives.

00:10:23: Be sure to subscribe on Spotify & YouTube.