According to those ubiquitous late-night commercials, we start to lose ENERGY when we hit 40.

Well, NO WONDER Indiana is so PREOCCUPIED with energy • On its last birthday, it turned 205!

Unlike the stars of those TV spots, however, the state couldn't give a HOOT about some age-busting, libido-boosting SUPPLEMENT.

Its focus is COAL - or, more accurately, the state's all-but-inevitable TRANSITION from coal to natural gas and, increasingly, to RENEWABLE sources of energy, such as wind, sunlight, vegetation, and organic waste.

Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and on THIS week's show, we'll do our best to ILLUMINATE competing visions of Indiana's energy future: It promises to be an ELECTRIC discussion, so don't go away • do we place our scale in wind farms or should we as some policymakers subject adopt an all-of-the-above strategy.

It promises to be an electric discussion.

Don't two away.

INDIANA LAWMAKERS - from the Statehouse to your house.

Our SUBJECT is Indiana's ENERGY FUTURE, and I promised an ELECTRIC discussion.

I figure I'll supply the wind - or at least the hot air - while my GUESTS provide the proverbial sunlight.

Put another way, I'm the FOSSIL, and THEY'RE the fuel.

Joining me are •Republican Senator Eric Koch of Bedford, chair of the Senate Utilities Committee • Democratic Senator Shelli Yoder of Bloomington, a MEMBER of that committee • Kerwin Olson, executive director of the Citizens Action Coalition, which bills itself as Indiana's oldest and largest consumer and environmental advocacy group •and Peter Schubert, director of the Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, where he's ALSO a professor in the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology.

Thank you all for being here.

Energy effects all people of the state from one border to the other.

This is a flippant question.

Bear with me.

We created a task force for an energy policy.

Last year you reconstituted the committee.

That's still in progress.

As I look at legislation that's related to energy and making its way through the general assembly this session, I see one bill that's received overwhelming support in the House and Senate would require the regulatory commission to provide annual studies and data about where we're getting energy and the cost and so far and so on.

Here's the question: when do we stop studies and when to we start doing?

>> Well, John, first of all, thank you for having me on the show.

A lot of the legislation that you've seen the last couple of years on energy has come out of the work of the task force.

It is one of the situations, the more we dig, the more we find.

An example of that is Dr. Schebert bringing the technology.

Reporting is important to us and it is important to stakeholders in the field.

This field is moving so dynamically.

And so quickly.

But that reporting is even more important.

So we've put a lot of value in the report that we get from the commission and institutions like Purdue who also do energy-related research to validate what we're doing and supplement the work that we do here.

It is very worthwhile.

The extension of the task force as you noted, I think, is a reflection of the dynamism going on in the space.

>> Talk about that, Senator.

You are new to the platform but not new to the issue.

It is just a slice of life.

Like highway instruction in Indiana.

It is never really tone.

>> Information is never a bad thing.

The more that we know the more confident that we can move towards some solutions.

We can't -- we cannot undervalue the importance of gathering data.

That's what the bill is going to also provide is information not just to study, but data so that we can make the most informed, the best informed decisions and as quickly as we can moving forward.

As we move to carbon neutrality, which we need to quickly, it is going to take data.

It is going to take research.

We need to be able to respond quickly.

What I appreciated, Senator Koch mentioned the work that the Senator has done to the task force on the interim session.

We were able to move some legislation through with that.

But also the work that we did with -- that we're working on with electric vehicles.

We need an infrastructure.

That came out of study and data and while maybe the legislation isn't perfect yet, we're trying to get it there for all Hoosiers.

It is going to be fortunate that we have infrastructure for electric vehicles.

>> I should point out, yeah, the task force's priority this time around is a little different.

It deals with electric and electricity distribution and electric vehicles perhaps more than the initial two-year study Criminals and you've watched the issues.

You've seen things studied.

You've contributed to many of the studies.

I was taken to a comment that you made last summer.

It is ground zero here in Indiana and with respect to energy.

Who knows where the crazy train is going.

Is it crazy train?

So if is it powered by the renewable source of energy?

>> There's a lot of reasons that it is a crazy train and we're ground zero in Indiana.

First of all, we're retiring an enormous amount of coal capacity in Indiana that needs to be replaced with something.

Second, we have the largest two regional transitional organizations in the country that intersect our states which allows Indiana markets to sell energy to a large portion of the country and allows Indiana to access energy from a large portion of the country, as well as the expansive pipeline network that traverses the state.

We are keep in the energy conversation with respect to generation and transmission here in the state.

We'll see where it goes.

>> Peter Schubert, a lot of university centers and policy groups don't get a lot of time in the spotlight.

You seem to be in the right place at the right time as Indiana moves forward with the transition.

And your group which is looking at renewables.

Do you feel like in the eye of the storm?

>> When I first started ten years ago, the Senator said university research is good.

Let's turn it into jobs and revenues.

I take that very seriously.

We have 43 research members in the Indianapolis and Bloomington Campus.

Our goal is to get the technologies out of the university labs and start creating labs and start creating the benefits come to the Hoosiers that we serve.

>> Are you seeing benefits yet?

You are not partisan.

You have the perspective the more 30,000 foot are they making progress already as a state?

>> As the two centers mentioned, we're looking into using abandoned coal mines as the hoer reservation for the pump storage hydro.

The Bloomington-based company got a SBIR, a small business integrateed grant.

It looks good.

We're waiting to hear if we get the phase two which is to create a small-scale demo and turn this into a business that Indiana can do at home first and export to the neighbors on all sides.

>> Eric Koch, we often hear the general assembly say we're not here to pick winners and losers This is a state that appreciates the market.

Business forces will dictate what direction we move as a state.

We've overseen two of the largest fertilities in the state.

They are retiring the fossil fuels.

That was just an announcement earlier this month.

Why not just sit back and let the market take us that direction?

>> Well, because in Indiana the electricity sector is regulated We're a vertically, integra sysd municipals operate largely outside of that.

We are a regulated system.

Our five investor-owned utilities produce what are called integrated resource plans.

Which is every three years.

That's sort of there looking ahead and their vision for the future.

A lot of stakeholders, including organizations like Kerwin, have the opportunity to participate in the stakeholders process.

We watch very closely the integrated resource plans that are being produced by the utilities.

That gives us some early on information about where they think they are headed.

Those evolve overtime.

They are iterative in nature.

They are a pretty good glimpse, at least what the companies think the future looks like.

>> You know, it was two years ago there was a -- I know people didn't like the word moratorium The brakes were put on the move for utilities that wanted to go retire their fossil fuel plants The general assembly said, wait, did that make sense?

Is this something that the general assembly is interceding where it doesn't need to?

>> I think when it comes to moving us towards carbon neutrality, it is going to be all hands on deck.

We need to do it as quickly as we can.

That's going to take some serious effort.

What I appreciate is I know all Americans saw what happened to Texas last year.

We are fortunate in Indiana to have a completely different system.

We do have regulation.

However Texas doesn't exist in a vacuum It impacts electricity and energy across the entire grid.

So what we've been able to do is really look at that study, learn from it, and I think one of the issues that we can look at it how do we bring all Hoosiers in the table to want to move us towards carbon neutrality?

Moving and these are aspects when it comes to residential use we can be part of the solution.

I want to see us moving in that direction as well.

>> You've had a couple of bills certainly dealing with net metering that would have extended the life expectancy and perhaps given it and renewed popularity.

Neither bill got a hearing.

It was the same for republics who had offered similar legislations.

Let me ask you this.

There's sort of three -- this is a gross oversimplification.

There's three ways to move.

The metering feeds into the notion of individual, home, or community-based generation.

Whether that's rooftop solar panels, whether that's, you know, somebody puts up the wind turbine in his or her backyard.

That's where the net metering comes in.

If I generate additional power, I can sell it back to the grid and recoop my investment.

Another option is the wholesale -- the large ute farms.

It was mentioned earlier, nuclear possibility.

What of those three do you like Are you going to go for option four?

What do you see as the right course here?

>> We like the first two options.

We're not fans of small reactors for nuclear power.

We believe we're going to need large-scale utility renewable projects.

We believe the energy markets are moving towards the distribution side and away from transmission.

We believe strongly in policies and incentive that encourage customers to generate their own energy which provides enormous value to the grid by delaying or even preventing exorbitant spending on the power plants and significant infrastructure to deliver that power.

We believe in the energy system that everybody can participate in the energy economy which drives down cost for consumers statewide, puts money in the pockets of everyday Hoosiers, puts money in the pockets for everyday day.

We would like to see the system that balances between utility scale and recognizes the value of customer-sided, locally owned that provides enormous benefits to everybody and reduces cost to all users.

>> How important is the notion we're all in this together?

If that means putting up the solar panel on the roof.

It is not going to get in the same place that's the huge facility would in terms of renewables?

>> We have to look at different levels.

There's residential, commercial, industrial, and utility scale.

At the utility scale, the wind and solar are cheaper on a per kilowatt hour basis compared to new coal or new natural gas.

As you mentioned earlier, they are not dispatchable.

That's why the pump storage is so important.

Because that allows us to have grid-scale storage to increase the percentage of renewables in our portfolio and still provide the reliability for the manufacturing state like Indiana.

>> You know, it seems sometime there might be conflicting messages.

We talk about the individual buy-in and rooftop solar panels.

There's legislation that seems to be moving along that would, for instance, bar homeowners associations from saying you can't have these.

They would still have some say.

It would basically clear a path for individuals to erect those types of things.

As I mention earlier, you see the net metering legislation all of it, as far as I know not a single bill got the hearing.

Maybe rooftop isn't important.

Is there a conflicting message there?

>> First of all, I think I've got to really underscore the fact that in the whole discussion of the energy transition, we can't Louisiana sight overreliability.

Dr. Schubert said often it is not dispatchable.

We need to be ultimately back up by 24/7 on demand, base load power, and build from there.

This summer the task force is going to look at distributed generation as a whole.

Net metering is one small piece of that.

There are lots of different kinds of distributed generation.

And a year or two ago FERQ issued FERQ order 222 which was fundamental in the way of policy and regulation.

This year we authorize the state regulatory commission to start rulemaking based on the FERQ order 222.

So we can have onramps for all distribute types of distributed generation.

Not just net metering, but many other different forms.

>> So we talk about rooftop and -- that's my term the conflicting messages.

I'm not trying to put words in anybody's mouth.

That moved from the individual scale to the utility scale.

There might seem to be some conflicting messages as well.

We saw the push last session and this session to have uniform siting standards for wind farms and solar farms so that it is -- the NIMBY, not in my backyard situation isn't going to run squarely into the push to become a renewable energy state.

It didn't work last year.

This year it was going to be voluntary.

There would be financial incentives attached if your community wanted to be solar or wind ready, I think, was the term, you would get perhaps some money.

The legislation is still alive.

Now the financial incentives have been taken out.

Again which is it?

Are we encouraging people to do that or not?

>> Industrial-ized renewable installations are absolutely a direction that we need to be headed in for Indiana.

It is a job creator.

It makes sure that we're moving towards that carbon neutrality.

But last session the bill that we considered and ended up not getting through was one that made it more of a mandatory state regulated rules around the larger regulations.

This year we are incentivizing.

That's an important piece in this.

Getting all Hoosiers to participate, to engage, to know not just in how we're generating electricity, but consumption.

Making sure we're feeling we're a part of this.

And the bill that we're now working on to make sure that it does get through is one that is incentivizeing and giving local communities and a say in the direction and empowering how they are moving their own community and state towards carbon neutrality.

>> No one would be forced to embrace that if their constituents didn't want to.

I guess I thought I was under the impression that -- at least never say never in the general assembly until you adjourn.

The financial incentives were out, in part, because nobody knew where the funding was coming from.

Regardless we've seen again the large scale utes moving the direction.

How important is it to have incentives?

Whether it is dealing with siding or the economic incentive?

Is this something where just let the trends continue?

In your view?

>> I think wind and solar and the communities that are being resistant to the development for one reason or another.

I think the incentives were now you have a carrot because the carrot if you don't have the insent I haves in the bill.

What's the motivation for those communities that might be looking.

We had t of people showing Indiana was fourth in the country in terms of development, renewable projects behind California, Texas, and New York.

We're an enormous opportunity to be a huge player and participate in the energy transition.

We should do all we can to take advantage of that for the benefit of local economies, state economies, and customers.

>> Are we poised to be a huge player?

How do you address the concerns of people?

I'm guessing Senator Koch hearing from some of the folks.

That's from people who say coal and fossil fuels.

Here today and gone tomorrow.

What do you tell people?

>> We see this in the students.

We see that in businesses that want to move to Indiana and set up the headquarters here.

They are looking for a better portfolio than they had traditionally.

Indiana had a history of being a leader and risk avers.

But it is a balance that seems to be the character of Hoosiers in my opinion.

I think we've got really great research happening.

We have a lot of entrepreneurs working on the technologies.

My hope is that the general assembly can come together to help pave the way for these things to move forward at the right pace so we have people who look at Indiana as a place to live, work, and have fun.

>> Eric Koch, we talked earlier One of you mentioned the nuclear reactors.

That's gotten a lot of attention.

I guess just by the nature.

We read about wind We read about solar.

Nuclear.

We haven't had interest in that since marble hill discontinued the project in 1984.

How realistic is the push to bring modular, nuclear reactors to the State of Indiana.

>> That was my bill.

It passed strongly out of both houses.

It is going to be on the way to the govern.

These were underground units.

This is not the dome and tower.

>> A third of the size or less from what we would all imagine or less than that.

>> Or even smaller.

What we like about it, it checks a lot of different boxes.

It gives us the 24/7 baseloop power.

It is clean and dispatchable.

So it checks a lot of the different policy boxes.

So we work toward what we hope to build as an all-of-the-above energy strategy that's going to be an important part of it over the course of the next decade.

>> As I looked at the bill as it moved through, most of the noes were democrats who were uncomfortable.

Why is that?

Do you think?

Safety concerns?

>> You know, I think it did have some bipartisan support.

>> It did.

It was not right down the line.

>> As I recall, there was concerns about financing.

And so those were, you know, very sincere concerns that we trust that the commission will be able to work out before it approves any petitions.

>> All right.

Concerns?

>> My concern is one.

It was just hearing from my constituents is here's one area that we should spend a little bit more time studying.

We didn't have a chance to talk about this in the 21st century energy task force.

There's currently not one other state that has up and running.

There's other programs.

They have -- or projects rather that have tried to get off of the ground.

But they've been more than double the cost.

That expense is on the backs of great payers.

And it's been extended and actually getting started.

It is costing more.

It's been delayed in actually finishing the project.

Rate payers are paying for this.

There's actually no finished project.

For Indiana to -- you know, we can put it -- nuclear waste in whatever big, small, you know, container.

But at the end of the day, it is still a nuclear waste.

It is still going to be around four years -- thousands of years we need to have a plan and it needs further study.

Those were my concerns.

>> I know that critics have pointed to South Carolina and Georgia where projects have bloomed and they have had to bear the front of it.

What's your concern about nuclear?

>> Our concern about the bill is we have customers.

The nuclear industry talks a good game, they haven't delivered much.

This is the technology that's not commercially available.

We're not even sure how much it is going to cost yet.

The idea that we're going to put rate payers on the hook to pay for these things while they are being developed, permitted, licensed, designs, and exacerbate the affordability crisis is a bridge too far.

We need to protect the Indiana consumers from the potential costover.

Furthermore we know they aren't going to be available until the early 2030s Why are we doing in?

Let the industry and utilities prove they are cost effective and safe before we put them on the hook for the costs.

>> Last word.

We're almost out of time.

It would have to be a short word.

Fast forward 10-20 years from now.

You'll all join me again.

I'll be here to ask the same questions.

Tell me what Indiana's energy makeup looks like at this point.

>> It will be diverse.

It will have a mix of base load and distributed generation.

It will be storage.

We'll have ports for people to charge their electric vehicles as well as to refuel their hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

We'll have cars flying through the air.

We'll have people happy.

We'll be growing food and be the breadbasket of the United States and the cross roads of the nation.

>> All right.

Put it on your calendar.

We'll be back there in ten years and see how accurate your assessment is.

Thank you for weighing in with your thoughts.

Again, my guests have been • Republican Senator Eric Koch of Bedford • Democratic Senator Shelli Yoder of Bloomington • Kerwin Olson, executive director of the Citizens Action Coalition •and Peter Schubert, director of the Lugar Center for Renewable Energy at IUPUI.

Time now for our weekly conversation with Indiana Lawmakers analyst Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of the newsletter Indiana Legislative Insight, part of Hannah News Service.

We covered a lot of territory.

What did we not cover in the roundtable?

>> One of the things that certainly going to react and play a part.

What's been interesting the session is to follow the carbon Senator Koch -- Senator Koch quest tradition Senator Koch quest tradition project.

We have gone from a situation that you have using others on the land.

And then having the sequestration and the kind of compensation for perceived problems.

It's really become an interesting situation The house defeated one of the blls related to it.

The complications in particular from pressure from the Indiana Farm Bureau.

It was a bridge too far for some.

On top of that now you've got one of the companies that's involved in us wanting to produce hydrogen as a power source from some of the carbon.

That becomes an additional complication.

This is really growing in terms of the scope of the whole effort.

>> Before it was just about dealing with the by-product of energy generation.

Now in theory it could become energy generation.

Ed, anything else?

We're in the final stretch here Only a few weeks to two.

Lively week.

Things are picking up.

>> A crazy session in terms of all kinds of issues with committee hearings.

We've seen lengthy committee hearings and all kinds of issues.

One big situation that happened this week on Wednesday was a nine-hour hearing on the firearms bill that we discussed last week that has become one of the wildest hearings in more than 30 years at the legislature.

>> That's just a taste.

We'll be seeing more coming down the pipeline here as we round out the session.

Ed, as always, apprecia your insight.

Government regulations.

Unwelcome barriers to economic development or essential guardrails to affect the public How the general assembly will