Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And, and why? It's all about equipment availability at this time, and we know it can be done.

Um, and you know, I, you and I have talked about this before.

You know, you compare this with China right now, right? They've got the same demand challenge that we do for the same reasons, electrification, AI, data centers, and all that, and, you know, China's really built out everything.

Uh, but they've done it at scale, and they've done it intentionally.

... that people are worried about

Yeah.

So, you know, demand's increasing in a big way, and what is that demand bringing? So there's interest in the investment community.

Of course, we represent a lot of banks and financial institutions that are investing in energy infrastructure.

They're all here, just like they have been for the last few years, saying, "We've got a lot of capital to deploy, we see the opportunity, and there are buyers out there," right? So there are, there are investors, there are developers, there's a set of buyers out there to buy everything that gets done, and at the same time, we still have to build 15 New York Cities worth of new generation in four years.

So there's a viable market for this.

So you might say, "So where's the interest, and why do people need to come to the ACORE Policy Conference and all that?" The re- the, the interest in our conference is really around what's holding that up or what's preventing it, and there are a few things that fall into that, and we unpacked that over the last two days.

So one is permitting, right? We had two congressmen in, you mentioned that before, who came in and, uh, and talked yesterday about bipartisan, uh, policy, that aimed at getting to streamline permitting and what that would look like.

I mean, am I reading it right? Do you think that's right, that there's that kind of changing mood people are picking up on?

(laughs)

... it's the equivalent of 133 Oklahoma City's to the grid.

Either way you look at it, it's a lot of power.

It's more than we've ever built in that short period of time before.

So um, there's demand, and with that demand of course, there's a set of buyers out there that wanna, that wanna buy that power.

So with, with the demand and with the buyers, there are also a set of banks that, financial institutions, that want to invest in it.

Um, we looked at this worldwide 'cause this phenomenon is happening worldwide as well, and it's playing out in other countries.

Yeah.

What's really stood out for you in terms of the conversations you've been having? What are your big takeaways from this event?

Sure.

That, it's a great question, Ed.

I like to walk around and talk to people while we're here, and there are a lot of reasons why people come to these finance forum, you know, that include things that you'd expect, things like networking, the information that's there.

Is the information that we're putting out timely? Like the discussion, everybody wants to talk about the reconciliation bill and where's that going.

But I think as I walked around and you try to, you try to figure out right now at this point in time what really matters to people, the first thing that comes out is people are looking for opportunities to finance their projects.

So we've got, the thing that I keep hearing is we've got a lot of the right people that are here for them to talk to, which is really interesting.

the United States' position in this market gets deteriorated, and then to build it back up is, you know, is, is difficult.

Is there a place where manufacturing is most exposed? Is it mo- mainly car manufacturing? Is it batteries? Like, where in the spectrum is the mo- is the most risk?

Anything that's impacted by the IRA is at risk with the House bill that's in there.

And I'll just say this, Amy.

Yes, the Democrats and Republicans, including the Trump administration in the first term and the Trump administration in the second term have prioritized reshoring manufacturing, building supply chains, and all that.

Trump administration is relying on tariffs to get there.

I mean, that's their incentive, if you will.

The issue with tar- if you get manufacturers in here and you talk to them, we have manufacturers who are members of ACORE, and you talk to them, what they'll tell you is tariffs don't provide the long-term incentive and certainty that they need to spend the millions, hundreds of millions, whatever, of dollars in capital that they need to deploy to build large-scale manufacturing in the United States.

Where is that on the table?

Ray, what do you think?

Now, Amy, you are, you are spot on.

Right? There is a narrative that if you look out over the last couple years, the positions that Republicans have taken on tax credits generally, and certainly on clean energy tax credits, that we could have wound up there.

I think it's important to really put what's going on here in context, right? For what's happening.

So, when you look at the drivers for this and what it's achieving, I think the place we need to start is, why do we need all this power built in the United States? Right? All this stuff that the IRA and the relative tax provisions have, uh, have been bringing, right? And the first thing is, demand is growing in the United States and, in fact, worldwide by massive amounts.

Let's put that in context.

A lot of folks in our industry like to talk about gigawatts, which very few people understand what the heck they are, right? When you look at the most recent forecast for 2030, only five year...

That seems reasonable." But what you, when you drill down into the details, or as Ray said, like kind of the misalignment of how these things are applied to different technologies that are deemed winners and losers, it quickly becomes evident that when you get into the details, it is functionally equivalent to repealing the vast majority of tax credits.