The Downright Upright Show with Philip Anthony
Oct 19, 2026 · 50 min · 11 segments
Host Philip Anthony is joined for an interview with candidate for Minnesota State Senate in District 54, Rick Olson
Philip AnthonyHost
We're going to go back to something that I want to talk about with you that I don't think you've mentioned but I want to hear your views on, the environment.
So – What will you do and enable the rest of the senators in your caucus to do about the environment, whether it be green jobs, eliminating PFAS, solar energy, clean water, all these things? What do you plan on doing about that?
Well, Mike, one of the things that I hate worse about how we're leaving our society or what a world for our kids is climate change.
And I've been a speaker for Global Minnesota with their Great Decisions program for many years now.
So – but my thinking on the solar panels has evolved somewhat because I was a big proponent of solar panels on roofs.
And with the energy credits and so forth, I did a huge spreadsheet, calculated it out and yes, it made economic sense for me to do it.
But ultimately, it boils down that it really made sense for people who could afford to do it.
So now I'm really hugely pro-solar, but I think it really needs to be at the utility scale because instead of paying $0.06 per kilowatt to produce it, now it's only about $0.02 per kilowatt at the utility scale.
And if we want to have low-cost electricity, we do it at the lowest-cost source where we generate that.
And with batteries coming on, we'll also be able to have reliability because people want not only low-cost, but they want to make sure when they turn the switch on, they get electricity.
We're going to go back to something that I want to talk about with you that I don't think you've mentioned but I want to hear your views on, the environment.
So – What will you do and enable the rest of the senators in your caucus to do about the environment, whether it be green jobs, eliminating PFAS, solar energy, clean water, all these things? What do you plan on doing about that?
Well, Mike, one of the things that I hate worse about how we're leaving our society or what a world for our kids is climate change.
And I've been a speaker for Global Minnesota with their Great Decisions program for many years now.
So – but my thinking on the solar panels has evolved somewhat because I was a big proponent of solar panels on roofs.
And with the energy credits and so forth, I did a huge spreadsheet, calculated it out and yes, it made economic sense for me to do it.
But ultimately, it boils down that it really made sense for people who could afford to do it.
So now I'm really hugely pro-solar, but I think it really needs to be at the utility scale because instead of paying $0.06 per kilowatt to produce it, now it's only about $0.02 per kilowatt at the utility scale.
And if we want to have low-cost electricity, we do it at the lowest-cost source where we generate that.
And with batteries coming on, we'll also be able to have reliability because people want not only low-cost, but they want to make sure when they turn the switch on, they get electricity.
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