Patrick Robbins

But but no, that is the the million dollar question.

And I could give the very long version or I could give the very short version.

But I think that maybe I'll start just by talking a little bit about how the electric grid works.

I feel like that's important to talk about before we get to, you know, how we got into the kind of quagmire that we're in now.

So to your listeners who may be already familiar with this, apologies to go.

Apologies for going over any kind of remedial stuff.

But I want to offer a quick.

breakdown of how the electric grid works and what exactly it is, what we talk about when we're talking about the electric grid.

So the electric grid is broken down fundamentally into three separate parts.

There's the generation side of the grid, the infrastructure that generates electric power.

There is the transmission side of the grid where that power is transported from the sources of generation to the sites of consumption.

And then there's the distribution grid, which is the wires that go into our homes and businesses after the power has been downgraded to a voltage that is safe for our homes.

Those three different parts of the grid are sometimes owned by the same company in some cases.

Here in New York, that is not the case.

We do not have a vertically integrated grid.

We have different entities owning those different separate parts of the grid and also with different kind of regulatory bodies and regulatory procedures governing the behavior of those different parts of the grid.

You know, the first power station in the country was actually built here in New York in 1882.

And, you know, for a long time, electricity was really something only for wealthier customers.

And municipal and city governments began exploring how to build public distribution lines.

And that was really a rallying cry for a lot of local governments across the country around the turn of the century.