New Mexico has in the past benefited from its vast reserves of fossil fuels. The state has received massive amounts in taxes from the corporations that have mined those very resources. The state government has even managed to benefit as public opinion and policy has shifted in a more environmentally friendly direction. In 2019, the Energy Transition Act was passed and since then New Mexico has been investing more in clean energy. Some though, have asked whether or not New Mexicans have actually benefited from any of the money coming in.
The clear answer is that they have. The presence of so much industry does a lot to create jobs in the state for a great many people. Not just jobs like working at an oil derrick or a solar panel manufacturer, but secondary jobs such as road construction and restaurants. The amount of secondary and tertiary jobs the energy sector has created just by being there is in all honesty impossible to quantify.
The tax revenue brought in also helps by giving the state money to improve its infrastructure, building new roads, repairing old ones, as well as programs to help the poor. Since clean energy has begun to take over, New Mexicans get the additional benefit of cleaner air and the associated improvements to overall health.
However, that doesn’t mean that it is all sunshine and roses. While that shift in energy production has led to many positive benefits for the state’s residents, it has created a couple of downsides as well. One of them is displacement.
As most know, wind farms and solar take up massive amounts of land. It takes thousands of acres of either to generate what a fossil plant or especially a nuclear plant can do with a dozen or so. That isn’t to say that the land can’t be reclaimed to an extent. Cattle can graze around windmills and shorter grasses at least can grow around a solar farm. And of course, New Mexico has plenty of desert to place these renewable power generators in, making the impact on the locals relatively small.
However, some still have lost access to land because of the construction and the additional infrastructure that is needed to get the material out to those remote sites. Also, let’s be honest, not everyone likes the site of those windmills or the solar panels reflecting all that sun. That means the locals have to deal with loss of land, and loss of peace and tranquility that they had previously taken for granted.
And this brings us to the real problem we’d like to focus on here. Whether it’s fossil fuels, or wind and solar, no one has bothered asking the locals what they think about everything going on. What kind of power do they want? Would they rather have the windmills along the roads or the smokestacks in the cities? Or maybe they would rather have nuclear. As things currently stand, the state just makes deals with the energy companies with nothing more than lip service to the will of the citizens. They offer tax breaks and companies come. Sometimes it’s hard to see where the government stops and the company starts.
Instead, wouldn’t it be better to ask the people what sort of power they’d like to have? What kind of trade offs do they want to make since they are the ones most affected by them? Do they want an obstructed view and cleaner air, or dirty air but no loss of trails to explore? Or good views, clean air, but a slight risk of a significant accident?
Naturally one might be concerned that the average person isn’t equipped to make those decisions. All right, equip them. Take the time to actually educate people without talking down to them. Give them the data and treat them like people capable of making decisions on their own. Show people the data, the good, the bad, and the ugly of all the options. Once they have that data, they could actually make an informed decision and from there, they could let the state government and companies work out the particulars.
What’s your data worth?
New Mexico has in the past benefited from its vast reserves of fossil fuels. The state has received massive amounts in taxes from the corporations that have mined those very resources.
Announcer (00:07):
Welcome to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:24):
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to TARTLE Cast on this beautiful Thursday here in sunny New Mexico. We have an interesting article here. You all know that we like to focus on the big seven. This is a local one that is a very... has a great effect on the culture and the economy of New Mexico. So we want to talk about it because all the data has shown that it makes sense to move away from the sort of oil and gas sector. It's not really helping our planet.
Jason Rigby (00:53):
Yeah. And I know Alex, especially whenever you look at New Mexico, and we've talked about this for another episode, New Mexico gets primarily most of its money, number one, from oil and gas companies and then, number two, the labs and government.
Alexander McCaig (01:08):
Yeah. It gets its money from the tax revenue on that oil and gas.
Jason Rigby (01:13):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (01:13):
So it's not even... They're not oil and gas companies that are local to New Mexico. They're actually outside companies, and we don't even get really the revenue here as like a public service. We just get the tax benefit that comes from it. So it's only a small portion of the profits that these people are reaping from.
Alexander McCaig (01:30):
But we're making a transition here. There's up in the northwestern corner of the state of New Mexico, we have the San Juan Generating Plant, which is up by Farmington a little bit or Shiprock. It's on the border of Colorado. And this thing lets off a lot of pollutants, and they're looking to decommission it as much as possible. But there needs to be something that'll go in place of that to account for that energy, right? The sort of growth here in the state that's going to... It's going to need that to sustain itself on.
Alexander McCaig (02:02):
So what we find is that this new sort of climate action that New Mexico is taking is about this Energy Transition Act that it signed in 2019. So what they want to do is they want to invest in clean energy jobs and infrastructure, and we have abundant amounts of wind and sunlight here.
Jason Rigby (02:23):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (02:24):
A ridiculous amount, just an insane, insane amount. We have a constant westerly wind that blows across the state, and it's always sunny, always blue skies. So in terms of our current technology with solar panels, solar technology, solar farms, and wind turbines and wind farms, it's a perfect setup for it.
Alexander McCaig (02:42):
Now, from the economic sense, yes, this does seem like a good idea for these jobs that are coming in here, but what about... They talk about in this article here, and it may be a little politically driven, about climate justice. So it's great that you have climate action, but what about the people that are directly affected within this area, right?
Jason Rigby (03:02):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (03:03):
I understand that you guys want to decommission this stuff, and you also get certain federal tax credits for having this green infrastructure. But what about the people you're planning to put it on this specific land? Do they want this here? How do they want it? Have you actually asked or spoken to those people that are going to be using this energy directly? And no, they haven't. This has only been reviewed strictly in an economic sense, right? And how are they supposed to know that this deal that was signed, is it really going to help them out, or is it going to be another one of those ones that only goes back to those oil and gas companies? Does that make sense?
Jason Rigby (03:35):
Yeah. When you look at New Mexico, we're bad in a lot of things, and I'm not saying that in a mean way. I'm just saying when you look at the data and you look at statistics, and I'm encouraged by this because I think we have the ability in this state to be an example.
Alexander McCaig (03:55):
You know what it reminds me of? Africa.
Jason Rigby (03:57):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (03:59):
Africa is resource rich, lots of land, a lot of foreign corporations coming in there and just raking it for everything it has. It has old, deep, rich cultures. We've got the same thing here, the same exact thing. You see the same thing is happening. And it's to the benefit of these corporations to keep the state poor.
Jason Rigby (04:17):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (04:17):
Right? So it's easier for them to rake from it. But as we know, you can only keep it so poor for so long, especially with the influx of Amazon, Facebook, Netflix coming in here to New Mexico, the space programs.
Jason Rigby (04:30):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (04:31):
The cost of labor is going to change. Real estate prices are going to go up. There's going to be more jobs. The economic structure will change. So that benefit won't last much longer for what they've essentially been abusing for quite some time.
Jason Rigby (04:44):
So whenever you look at shareholders, you look at CEOs, you look at these utility companies coming in and saying, "Okay, this is our concern, not the local."
Alexander McCaig (04:57):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (04:57):
Because on our big seven, number six is corporate transparency.
Alexander McCaig (05:01):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (05:01):
And I see this, especially when it comes to energy companies. I know they're trying to put profit first, but when you start... When an energy company turns around and says, "Let's put the environment first and then see how we can create a profit from that," that new dynamic would be interesting. And then to put your data together and say, "Would somebody pay a little bit more? Would a collective pay a little bit more for electricity?"
Alexander McCaig (05:25):
Ask them.
Jason Rigby (05:26):
Yes, exactly.
Alexander McCaig (05:27):
All you've got to do is ask them. And they have a quote here that says... A report from the Democracy Collaborative's Next System Project explains that, "Democratizing the energy sector seeks not only to solve climate change, but also to address entrenched systemic inequalities." And they state here, "Inequalities that have left most of our communities dependent on the decision-making of utilities." This is what we talk about all the time with TARTLE, especially with your data and the things that affect you on a global scale. People with the resources are deciding for you.
Jason Rigby (05:59):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:00):
You're the one living there. They're not. You should be telling them how you want them to interact in your environment in which you live in. You should be telling people how they can use your data through your own sovereign control over it.
Jason Rigby (06:12):
That makes sense. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (06:13):
If you want clean energy and specific jobs towards it and this is a price that you're demanding to do so, let them know.
Jason Rigby (06:18):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:19):
Okay. But right now, there is a disparity between these really deeply entrenched utility companies that have been around for history in this quasi-public sort of nature that essentially have the death grip over many states. These are the infrastructure holders. And to find out that a majority of our energy production here is actually owned by a large company out of Spain, so who really then owns the state of New Mexico?
Jason Rigby (06:44):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:45):
Is it run sovereign by those people that live within the state, or is it actually owned by the utility companies? Is it owned by the oil and gas guys that are laying pipeline on the side of I-25 that runs north to south here? That's what it is.
Jason Rigby (07:00):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (07:00):
Why are we giving up our resources to these people in a totally other country for them to have control and never ask us about or have... ask us for our say in our own living conditions here in the state?
Jason Rigby (07:11):
Yeah. And I think it's really important that we understand the role of TARTLE when it comes to utility companies and what we can do to help utility companies that may have that green focus, that may have that consciousness that says, "Yeah, we want to help."
Alexander McCaig (07:26):
We can help bridge their efforts and resources with the needs and wants of the people that are actually going to be using those resources.
Jason Rigby (07:33):
Yeah. And it's so simple to do. I mean, if you want to have a conversation with us, we'd be more than... If you're a utility company and you want to be able to speak to your customers and be able to ask these questions, to be able to gather this data and this information so that you can make informed decisions that are truthful and honest and that help the planet, how would they sign up?
Alexander McCaig (07:57):
They would go to tartle.com. They would click Get Started, and they would go through the workflow of signing up as a buyer of data. And not only are you going to get answers that are going to be beneficial to you and it's going to be more accepting to the people within that state, you're also helping economically incentivize people that are in very depressed areas, which is typically where you're going to build these things.
Jason Rigby (08:16):
Yeah. And we don't... The cool part about it is if you're a buyer and you're like, "Ah, I don't want to get hammered with all the sales stuff and all this. I'm worried about, you know," you can sign up, and we have people that will educate you in the process.
Alexander McCaig (08:29):
Here's what it is.
Jason Rigby (08:30):
But we have no salespeople. We want to-
Alexander McCaig (08:32):
There's no selling.
Jason Rigby (08:32):
We want to educate you and walk you through that process for you to be the hero of your data.
Alexander McCaig (08:39):
How do we sell a service that has no barrier to entry?
Jason Rigby (08:41):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (08:43):
All you can do is educate. And if you don't want to use it, your competitor is going to use it, and they're going to blow you out of the water.
Jason Rigby (08:49):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (08:49):
That's just as simple as that. It's not for us to define what is competitive nature for you. We're completely non-competitive. We open this up to the entire world for them to use.
Jason Rigby (09:00):
Yes, exactly, 100%.
Alexander McCaig (09:01):
Yeah, we're not going to pressure you on a sale.
Jason Rigby (09:02):
So New Mexico, we'd love to be able to... We're here. We're local.
Alexander McCaig (09:06):
Yep.
Jason Rigby (09:07):
We'd love to be able to work with you if you're a utility company, if you're a state agency, if you're a not-for-profit.
Alexander McCaig (09:11):
If you're a research center, if you're a hospital, anything of that, let's help people by helping them control their information and economically incentivize them to share it with you, so we can make better decisions and uplift the entire state.
Jason Rigby (09:23):
Yeah. And you can go onto the buyer tab, and then from there a data education. I don't want to say sales. What would you call it?
Alexander McCaig (09:34):
No, just data educators.
Jason Rigby (09:35):
Yeah. A data educator will get ahold of you and walk you through the whole process. It's that simple.
Alexander McCaig (09:39):
We've got teachers like our schools have.
Jason Rigby (09:40):
Yes.
Announcer (09:49):
Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and the source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
