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2025 Energy Predictions from the Energy Realities Podcast

What do you think will happen in 2025? Well, we know that in the US, President Trump has promised to cut consumer energy in half, but what is actually going to happen? What is also going to happen in the rest of the world? Do you think wind and solar will finally put the nail in the fossil fuel coffin? Buckle up as Irina Slav, David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, and Stu Turley discuss their 2025 energy predictions.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:10 – Introductions

02:39 – U.S. EV Industry Challenges

02:39 – Biden Administration’s LNG Permitting Pause

06:08 – Energy Policy Failures in Germany and UK

08:45 – Global Coal and Oil Demand Growth

13:54 – Canada’s Energy Policy Challenges (Carbon Tax, Emissions Cap)

18:05 – Russian Natural Gas Return to Europe

22:00 – Peak Demand Debate (Oil vs. Coal)

28:00 – Geopolitical Instability in the Middle East

31:03 – European Energy Crisis and Rising Costs

45:05 -Pushback on Climate Disclosures (Middle East)

54:39 – Reallocation of Green Energy Funds in the U.S.

Irina Slav

International Author writing about energy, mining, and geopolitical issues. Bulgaria

David Blackmon

Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.

Tammy Nemeth

Energy Consulting Specialist

Stuart Turley

President, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host

2025 Energy Predictions from the Energy Realities Podcast

Tammy Nemeth [00:00:10] Hello everybody. From the Energy Realities podcast. Welcome for our End of year special. We hope everybody had a fabulous Christmas and didn’t get into too many arguments and fights with family over the holidays. You never know these days. Today we have our amazing panel. We have Irina Slav from Bulgaria who writes for Oilprice.com and has an amazing Substack which is Irina Slav on Energy dot Substack. Is that right? Okay. And welcome, Irina. Then we’ve got Stu Turley, the amazing Stu Turley with the sandstone group who does energy Newsbeat. Stu, do you have a substack?

Stuart Turley [00:00:59] I do. It is the energynewsbeat.substack.com.

Tammy Nemeth [00:01:04] Awesome. Great help. We hope you had a great Christmas. And we’re looking forward to all this. And then we’ve got David Blackmon, the op ed writer extraordinaire, who writes for lots of different publications and has a great substack. David, what’s your substack?

David Blackmon [00:01:24] It is energy transition absurdities.

Tammy Nemeth [00:01:29] Yes. Yes. There’s like an endless supply of material for energy, absurdities, and I’m sure it’ll get worse in the in the year to come. And then there is myself, Tammy Nemeth. I have a substack at The Nemeth Report.substack.com as well as my website. The Nemeth report.com where all of my different things are all on there. So today we are going to talk about well, I think we should probably review a little bit of what the highlights were of 2024 and then offer our amazing crystal ball gazing for 2025 energy predictions. So guys, should we do a little bit of a review or do you want to go straight into predictions?

David Blackmon [00:02:16] Yeah, no, I think a review is great.

Irina Slav [00:02:18] Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:02:20] Okay. So how about we do like our top three or something of 2024? Would that be okay?

Irina Slav [00:02:27] Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:02:27] You bet.

Tammy Nemeth [00:02:28] All right. Okay. So, Irina, what do you think? David was nodding first. Maybe we should go with David. David, what’s your top three?

David Blackmon [00:02:39] Okay I’ll go. so, I mean, I think for in the United States, we’ll just put it that way. In the United States, the top three were the ongoing collapse of our electric vehicle manufacturing sector in this country. Every company trying to make electric vehicles in America other than Tesla is in serious financial trouble, at least in the business segments. You know, at Ford, GM, Stellantis are all bleeding billions of dollars every year with no real end in sight to that because flattening demand for electric vehicles in this country. Rivian was bailed out by was it Volvo or Toyota that bailed them out? Volvo, I believe, with a $5.8 billion infusion of money to save them from bankruptcy, Fisker went into bankruptcy. Canoo a a business van maker that never really got off the ground is about to go into bankruptcy, and all the rest are in severe financial difficulty. The pure play every company. So that’s, you know, one big story this year. Second big story was the Biden administration’s pause on LNG permitting, I think got more attention than anything else in all the stupidity and and really just false justifications for that abjectly false science and and the need for this study that Dory had already conducted in 2022. And they fooled around for 11 months and then finally released a revised version of it in December, that that was just a farce, led by Jennifer Granholm, probably the worst, most inept energy secretary ever to hold that job. Thank God she’s going to be gone in 22 days. And we’ll have a real energy secretary named Chris right, to take her place. The third story, I think, in the United States, third big story was the rapid growth of solar build out of solar and the slowing of the wind business. At the same time, wind new wind installations onshore slowed to barely a trickle as local communities fight back against them. The offshore wind buildout in the northeast that was such a pet project of the Biden administration is an abject failure and probably is going to go away due to the policies in the next administration. And I’m really looking forward to the collapse of that segment because it’s incredibly destructive, killed all manner of whales and other marine mammals. We all know it. And it still continues to litter the beaches along the shoreline of Nantucket Island due to the blades, the gigantic 300 foot long blade that collapsed off of one of the turbines and just released all these particles of fiberglass and other dangerous materials into the ocean. And it’s it’s a mess created by an administration that had no idea really what it was doing other than wasting money. And thank God it’s almost over.

Tammy Nemeth [00:06:02] Okay. Those are great. They were on my list. Irina, what are your top three?

Irina Slav [00:06:08] Thanks for giving me time to collect myself. Well, first of all, this was the year when Wayne’s completely took over the oil market. Sure, I said algorithms. Everyone fixated on China. I swear to 90% of all oil news reports began with concern about Chinese demand. So the oil market is completely being ruled by software and people who make predictions based on software models. Even though global inventories are declining and OPEC plus its continuing to withhold supply, and I think the hopes for non-OPEC output growth, overoptimistic and this might you know, this might be revealed next year. But that’s that’s one of the most important thing I noticed this year. The other big story for me was Germany and its energy policies, because we saw what happens when you’re being stupid with your energy. I actually turned the other day on electricity maps where Germany was getting its energy. It was the wind was blowing that day, so it was generating quite a lot of electricity from wind. And the but the biggest source of electricity that day was from coal lignite. Coal. Yeah. So Germany was pretty brown. Yeah. Yeah. And the third and I won’t say the UK is the same as Germany, we have these two countries that really showed us how the energy transition was working. But actually, the third story would be the complete breakdown of the transition narrative because as we we had been talking about, we would have been predicting it this year. We so the first really big cracks in the narrative. I mean, coal demand was at a record, oil demand continued growing despite China’s record EV sales and all that. And yeah, that’s just it’s not working. The transition is not working. And we saw this really, really clearly this year.

Tammy Nemeth [00:08:45] Excellent. Yeah, I think those those are like the, the constant themes that we talk about is the, the energy transition that isn’t at least the way central planners are thinking about it. Stu, what do you what are your top three takeaways from 2024?

Stuart Turley [00:09:04] I think David and Irina did a great job on on those. I want to add the Chevron deference in the U.S. because that is allowing the United States to step away from the deep state over the overreach. Yeah. Do what?

David Blackmon [00:09:22] Right. That is a great catch.

Stuart Turley [00:09:25] That is. Well, you got to leave something for me, David. And so the other thing is that both the is Irina did say that the I think the big story is not only that the world is waking up and saying, I don’t mind and EV, don’t force it down my throat. Don’t force me to do this. And so you have Germany, New York, New Jersey, California, the U.K., just as you all talked about, fiscal responsibility is failing. And so that is the other major story is the fiscal responsibility of bad energy policies. And we’re going to see more and more of that coming out. Is that with no natural gas, I’m going to also add up the energy. The further along, the more money that is invested in wind and solar means more fossil fuels will be used. Call it Turley’s law if you want. It is now again proven again true for this year. I’m going through the numbers again and the more money spent on renewable energy means more fossil fuels will be used and the demand for oil is not there yet. Peak oil demand is not done yet.

Tammy Nemeth [00:10:57] Excellent. Okay. So coming up last. I get to try to fill in the blanks. Everything. Right. So I’m going to segue way into the oil. Hasn’t we haven’t reached peak oil yet and we haven’t reached peak oil yet either, which is also linked to what Iryna was saying. And I think this is one of the biggest stories is that coal has refused to die. You know all this beyond coal, we’re going to stop coal, all this. And yet here, coal numbers are huge, especially in China, India and parts of Asia that, you know, natural gas is it for for countries like India or Pakistan and other Asian countries. Natural gas is is expensive to come by and coal is domestic and and easier to develop reliable and and then this links to this to it how I would reinforce what Iryna said about shifting narratives you know last week or yeah last week we talked about energy co-existence, this new narrative that it’s about energy addition and using what’s the best fit for your for your regional market versus, you know, the central planners telling you it must be this, it must be that where everything is through mandate rather than what actually works. So I think those two are really important to the core one and this the shifting narrative. And then I think I too had on my list the the Europe and UK, I would call them energy transition woes. So I’m not going to go into details about the RD dust realization, but that has been a big story this past year. But I would throw a little bit over to Canada and this year the big story near the end is been a cap or a federal cap on oil and gas emissions in Canada, which is ludicrous. Then the ever increasing carbon tax, they also announced their clean electricity regulations that would basically ban any kind of fossil fuel on the grid. Then they had this ridiculous plastics registry that nobody’s talking about where companies are responsible for registering their plastic and where it goes, how it’s recycled, and it’s ridiculous. And then the my number three story would be the sustainability disclosure standards. In Europe and Canada, these are taking hold. And I think European companies are going to be in big trouble trying to comply. The burden financially and just in how you do it is extreme and very costly. So for industries that are already under attack from high energy prices and lots of regulation, here is one more to add to the mix and make things more difficult.

Stuart Turley [00:13:54] Tammy, I loved what Cutter did when they said that you want us to go ahead and do scope one. Scope two and scope three. No. Have a great day. And that’s going to be a real problem

David Blackmon [00:14:11] The industry would do the same thing. Then it would be an enormous problem.

Tammy Nemeth [00:14:15] For sure. Yeah. And I think that that would be one of my predictions for the next year is, is the fallout from that and what will happen. But we can go into that. So. What did Robert say there?.

Stuart Turley [00:14:30] I don’t know if we want that or not. Okay.

David Blackmon [00:14:42] Yeah. Tune in to the video at some point.

Stuart Turley [00:14:44] That’s right.

Tammy Nemeth [00:14:45] Right. Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:14:47] But you know, but Tammy, we’ve got India just had the largest solar farm in Irene. And I were laughing about this just before the show. And that is wind and waves happen on the ocean. No, we’re waiting for it. It’s amazing. Why would you do this? This is India’s largest solar farm and it’s destroyed. Okay. Now, how much money I want to add. How much money was wasted in fiscal irresponsibility on that bed? How bout the waste panels? Now that those are more toxic and I’ve seen reports that solar panel waste is more toxic than the nuke. All of the nuclear fleets combined in the world.

Tammy Nemeth [00:15:49] So I’m wondering if that was a World Bank or IMF funded project.

Irina Slav [00:15:54] Yeah. Maybe it’s also 41 billion that got.

Stuart Turley [00:15:59] They’re missing, what, $40 billion?

Irina Slav [00:16:02] The World Bank was 1 billion in clean tech finance. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:16:06] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:16:07] Oops.

Irina Slav [00:16:08] Sorry.

Tammy Nemeth [00:16:08] Maybe it’s there. I don’t know. But you’re right about the pollution. So, you know, they’re worried about microplastics and all that kind of stuff. So when those are breaking down in the water, what is that doing to the sea life? And then if people are fishing there, what are they going to be ingesting from from the fish? So, yeah, not good.

Irina Slav [00:16:29] Yeah. But the important thing is the European Union broke new rules for bottle caps. That’s what’s important.

Tammy Nemeth [00:16:39] Yeah. EU And they’re amazing directives.

Irina Slav [00:16:43] Yeah. Yeah. And they’ve got universal USB standard. Yeah. You did this? Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:16:55] This is the Nord Stream two blow up. Was that January last year?

David Blackmon [00:17:00] No. In April or May. 2022

Stuart Turley [00:17:05] 2022. Okay.

David Blackmon [00:17:07] It’s just a few months after the invasion of Ukraine. Yeah. Might have been in June that year anyway.

Irina Slav [00:17:15] He also.

Tammy Nemeth [00:17:16] After the after the peace talks were scuttled? Maybe.

David Blackmon [00:17:20] Yeah, maybe so. Yeah. Sure. Yes, of course.

Irina Slav [00:17:24] It’s been a while since it happened, and we still don’t know who did it.

David Blackmon [00:17:29] Yeah. They had to scuttle the peace talks before it could blow up the pipeline. I mean.

Tammy Nemeth [00:17:34] That’s right. There’s no going back, right? You burn the boat, there’s.

David Blackmon [00:17:38] No going Back.

Tammy Nemeth [00:17:40] Which. Which is interesting for the predictions. So that’s a nice segue into what our top five predictions are for 2025. And if people don’t have five, if you want to settle for three, that’s okay. So we’ll go in a bit of reverse order. So, Stu, we’ll start with you. What what are some of your top predictions for 2025? As we’re gaze in the crystal ball?

Stuart Turley [00:18:05] Mike Gaze into the crystal ball. I’ve already failed or I’ve missed a few dates as of now because I figured that Germany after Chancellor Schulz. I see nothing. Chancellor Schulz. That was a joke. Sorry, that was a very bad joke. But he has had three calls asking for Russian natural reaction. Natural gas again. And there is a story out there saying that now the Slovak president is calling that he may have on his crystal ball for 2025 that an American company would buy the remains of the Nord Stream project. And if you think about it, if you get it pennies on the dollar, you have one of them is still there. You have GAAP, you can have cash flow immediately to repair the other ones and you’re off and running. I predicted that we would see rush cheap Russian natural gas flowing already but Zelensky’s Ukraine pass through is going to set to expire on Wednesday and that is going to be a major problem. And for the Ukrainian people, it’s going to relegate Ukraine to fourth world status. As far as an energy can, country is it is 5% of their GDP as a country. And if you’re a poor war torn country, you need to have revenues rolling through. It is stupid to let that thing stop.

Irina Slav [00:19:43] Yeah, but look at what those billions that the Biden administration is throwing out the Ukraine. I mean, these are hundreds of billions. There.

Stuart Turley [00:19:52] But that’s going to and.

Irina Slav [00:19:53] They theoretically

Stuart Turley [00:19:56] That would be one is that I think the Russian natural gas will be flowing again in 2025. And I think that cheap Russian natural gas is going to be you’re going to have Germany, you’re going to have all of the other countries either take cheap Russian natural gas or regime changes will happen. So there’s one of them. I think we will we will not see peak coal. And I think Iryna nailed it in pink. Peak oil is not done yet. We are going to be seeing a push back. You’re seeing a failure of the EV markets. Now, take a look at the news last week with Japan’s automakers, all three big ones looking to merge. You’re going to see them try to survive and it is realigning even though you have the EV markets. Irina Slav, this wonderful, brilliant woman, wrote an article on this on why even with the EVs that are doing well, oil demand is still there. That was a great article.

Irina Slav [00:21:06] Thank you. That is was just stating the obvious. You know, I always feel really uncomfortable when I’m stating the obvious. It is out there for everyone to see and I’m getting this reaction as if it’s some great revelation. It’s not. It’s like saying the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Stuart Turley [00:21:30] I’m going to write these down. I’ve got mine written down and I’m I’m going to be more precise, precise, precise. I can’t even talk. How can I be precise? And so, yes, we’ll have these out in an article.

David Blackmon [00:21:46] Yeah. And

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:47] Cornelia. Has a great.

David Blackmon [00:21:48] Prediction of a piece at Forbes every year, every January. So I’ll be putting mine in a Forbes column.

Irina Slav [00:21:54] Great. Then I’m going

David Blackmon [00:21:55] A different one for The Daily Caller this week, too. So.

Tammy Nemeth [00:22:00] Okay. So, David, then what what are your predictions if you’re going to give us a little preview? Well, I heard Daily Caller and Forbes.

David Blackmon [00:22:13] So, you know, I’m going to start with some obvious thing. So Donald Trump will pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord on his first day in office, January 20th. It’s something he’s promised to do. He will follow through on that. So that’s one. Second is has to do with the active rig count in the United States, which has dropped fairly dramatically for three consecutive years. It fell by about 15% in 2020 to about 16% in 2023 and about 12% this year. I’m going to predict it’s going to kind of flatten out in 2024 or 2025, but will still end up decreasing by something around 5 to 10% somewhere in there. And that’s mainly going to be due to soft commodity prices. Okay. For both oil and natural gas will continue. We’ve got an oversupplied market today. It’s going to continue to be oversupplied. And so the rig count is going to continue to drop. That said, in the United States, because the industry’s become so efficient at increasing return rates out of each new shale well, they drill with their advancing technologies with more sophisticated frac fluids, with longer laterals in these big shale areas. They’re going to continue to increase overall U.S. production of both oil and natural gas. And so it seems counterintuitive, but it’s happened for three years in a row. It’s going to continue to happen. And and so that also plays into the the the prevailing wisdom, which I think is fading at this point, finally, that the Trump administration’s going to bring back the whole drill, baby drill thing. We saw in his first term when both the Permian Basin and the DG Basin up in Denver and the Bakken were all in their drilling boom phases. That drill, baby, drill philosophy resulted in the huge drilling boom during those four years. That’s not going to happen this time because all these shale plays have become more mature. They’re now in their development phase, you know, which is just the natural progression of any oil and gas play area. And so even though the policies are going to be more favorable for oil and gas, you’re not going to see a big drilling boom. You’ll see more drilling on federal lands during 2025 because the Trump administration will go back to holding regular Leigh Sales that have been held up for completely ridiculous and absurd reason, reasons by the Interior Department and Secretary Deb Haaland and the Biden administration. That will end. You’ll also see increased production from the U.S. offshore for the same reasons we’re going to start doing Leigh Sales again, issuing permits again. Trump will also issue the rescind the Biden permitting pause order on LNG infrastructure, the most unjustified policy action other than the cancellation of Keystone XL that the Biden administration engaged in. Just really stupid, counterproductive policy. And what else was I going to predict? I think we all need to think about this. And it’s not I’m not making a prediction here, but I think it’s becoming a legitimate question globally whether we’re going to achieve which will we achieve first peak oil or peak coal. And I think it’s a legitimate question because of the need for developing nations to have affordable, reliable, 24 seven power generation to develop their economies and rise out of squalor. I think coal demand is going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future, just as oil probably is going to continue to rise for some additional years. And I you know, two years ago I said, well, we’re going to reach peak coal long before we reach peak oil. Now, I think it’s a legitimate question and something to watch in the coming years whether we get to peak oil before we get to peak coal. And that’s, again, counterintuitive given this whole fake energy transition we’re supposedly engaged in. But it’s it’s it’s become a legitimate question now. Then the other thing I wanted to just also emphasize here is that the industry in the US is an exception. To the rule and Europe are exceptions to the global rule that EV industries are expanding pretty rapidly. Every adoption is expanding pretty rapidly in China, in Indonesia and in these other Pacific Rim areas of the world. And I suspect the adoption will speed up in developing nations before it makes any sort of a recovery in the United States, in Europe. And that’s a trend that I think we’ll see continue to develop here in 2025. So those are the main ones I wanted to emphasize here.

Tammy Nemeth [00:27:37] Those are all fantastic. David, thank you. I’m I’m curious about the the adoption one in Southeast Asia. I wonder if this is just a a premature blip on there, because I’m thinking about what happens when those batteries stop working five years from now. And what then happens to those vehicles?

David Blackmon [00:28:00] I do, too. I do, too. And that’s always going to be a problem that the EV industry. Just doesn’t seem capable of addressing. And, you know, when people realize you go buy a Tesla, it’s wonderful. They’re beautiful cars and you think, well, this is cool. I paid 100 grand for it. That’s it. And then, you know, three years later, you’ve got about 60,000 miles on the car and you got to spend 20, $25,000 replacing the battery. That’s going to be a severe limiter, you know, in most parts of the world. And I just question whether governments can continue to sustain these subsidies into perpetuity, because that’s the only way governments are trying to resolve that issue for the movie industry, since the industry can’t do it itself. But for the time being, you know, I think these flat lining of demand in the US and Europe is kind of an exception to the global rule that deserves watching here in the coming years.

Tammy Nemeth [00:29:00] Good point. Irina, what what’s your predictions for 2025?

Irina Slav [00:29:05] Well, okay, I’ll I’ll try to come up with more than two. I think I could now four stages chronologically, Europe will freeze in January and then we will freeze from literally cold or it will freeze when it is its electricity bills because this deal is ending. Zelensky made it clear then Fulton had enough and said, okay, we’re not giving you gas. So there will be no gas. It wasn’t a lot of gas going through that pipeline, but it was enough to make everyone nervous now that it’s expiring so that there would be American LNG, But the price will match the demand. So maybe they won’t freeze literally, but there will be trouble, financial trouble. And then going forward, bills will only get higher because of the amazing energy policies that all these governments are pursuing. I also predict some serious, even more serious trouble for European carmakers unless the state planners let go of their necks, you know, which will happen, although it might. You know, I’m trying to to maintain the balance between what I want to happen and what I think could reasonably happen. And to be honest, I showed that in the UK the planners from the some governments would would let go, you know, that would agree to some form of compromise. But they’re not. They’re being surprisingly stubborn. And I’m afraid this could happen in the European Union as well, which spells serious trouble for carmakers. I’m not even sure Volkswagen reached an agreement with its employees. So did it. This,.

David Blackmon [00:31:03] I don’t think, not yet.

Tammy Nemeth [00:31:04] I don’t know.

Irina Slav [00:31:05] Yeah, not there. There’ll be trouble in European comic. Maybe in a few years will. We’ll see some of the big ones collapse. Because What was it? You tell me? Who said that? That have to get. No, it was dead. It’s alright. They have to keep subsidizing all this. Yeah. And they can’t keep subsidizing it because they need to subsidize wind and solar more because they want more wind and solar. And it’s not happening without more money. You cannot have money for everything. Even with a printing press. So that’s nothing. I think we could we could have a breakout in oil prices because nobody knows where Chinese demand will go. And of course, all the mainstream media are biased to downplaying any increase in demand and talking about EVs. And they keep forgetting that, I repeat, because it bears repeating that this year. So Chinese EV sales represent more than 50% around or a little bit more than 50% of total car sales for several months in a row. Demand for oil continue to grow. It is really frustrating how nobody pays attention to this. So I would say sometime next year when oil prices will jump and everyone will be extremely surprised because prediction for OPEC is not going to roll back its cuts. They can’t do this unless they decide to, you know, roll the dice on flooding the market with oil, which I don’t think they will. They could afford it five years ago. I’m not sure they can afford it right now because they’re trying to fund their own energy transition efforts. It is just hilarious. And the great thing about a potential increase in oil prices, a price rally would be that the transition will get even more expensive. And I love the idea of this. I will celebrate the collapse of the whole thing, which is nice. And also called Simmons will break another record next year.

David Blackmon [00:33:30] Yes, it will.

Tammy Nemeth [00:33:31] Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that kind of is linked to what Patrick’s Patrick Devine’s comments where he was talking about between developing new e-vehicles and replacing batteries, the rare earth metal market should skyrocket. Right? So if you if you’re you’re mandating this direction and it requires all these materials and there is, you know, all this competition for the same batch of materials and new ones aren’t necessarily coming online. And a certain country, namely China, controls most of that supply chain. The prices will increase and the benefits will accrue to China for, you know, this creates geopolitical issues potentially. So, yeah, absolutely. Bang on with with those predictions. I mean, there’ll be I’ll be curious to see how how all that turns out in the new year.

Irina Slav [00:34:29] I think we’ll see soon enough. Some of them. Some of these.

Tammy Nemeth [00:34:31] Yeah, for sure. Especially the January freezing.

Irina Slav [00:34:34] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:34:37] The countries that do not have dumped natural gas will fail. I’m going to just say that as point blank as I can if you do not, because in the United States and in other countries, nuclear takes too long. And we need we’re going to in Texas, we’re going to be doubling our grid demand in the next five years. We can’t even spell nuclear. I mean, our past president and, you know, nuclear, we can’t say can’t spell nuclear without having that done. So countries like Germany, when they can’t get natural gas. My prediction is countries adopt natural gas will be fiscally sound. Those that don’t want.

Irina Slav [00:35:27] Or coal. We have lots of coal.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:29] Coal? Yeah. Especially for reliable power that’s controllable and isn’t necessarily dependent on foreign sources, whereas natural gas, it’s great for the United States or Canada that has a lot of natural gas. And so therefore it’s not much of a security risk. But if you’re exporting ships are.

Stuart Turley [00:35:50] Well, for for Africa, I’ve spoken to a lot of African leaders and infuriates me that we have the World Economic Forum in the World Economic Monetary Fund trying to fund renewable energy. When we have all the natural gas, you could possibly burn clean natural gas in Africa and we could set up so that we could export clean burning technology for those power plants and have goods and services made in Africa and really elevate them out to a much better environment.

Tammy Nemeth [00:36:29] and it would be could help just stop toil, as Jasper says, you know.

Stuart Turley [00:36:34] Does speaking of that.

Tammy Nemeth [00:36:36] Help improve agricultural practices and and remove some of the the harsh physical labor and mechanize it? There’s nothing wrong with mechanization. You know, as much as people. It’s industrial farming. Well, that’s actually what makes it more efficient and takes the strain off people.

Stuart Turley [00:36:53] Do you feel if if these just stop oil clowns glue their hand to a a road that it should be cut off or. Well, let me. Sure. David was laughing at this the other day. Let’s show this.

David Blackmon [00:37:08] I just will get

Stuart Turley [00:37:13] Now.

Tammy Nemeth [00:37:14] Why are they being so gentle?

Stuart Turley [00:37:15] Should we. Should we just hand them a saw and let them chew on their own hand.

Irina Slav [00:37:20] Watching school patiently?

Stuart Turley [00:37:22] Yeah. There’s no pain involved here. Now, watch this next one. I think this guy should have been an NBA player because he has the most beautiful fake hand. He cries out for momma when the policeman pulls Zambo. Watch this one. Wait for it. Mama.

Irina Slav [00:37:56] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:37:58] I love that cop like yeah yeah yeah.

Irina Slav [00:37:59] he’s the new Cristiano Ronaldo.

Tammy Nemeth [00:38:04] Exactly.

Irina Slav [00:38:05] He’s just wincing as Ronaldo is.

Stuart Turley [00:38:11] I love that cop. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:38:13] That was brilliant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So for my predictions, I’m going to start with a geopolitical. And that would be Syria and the Middle East. I think that there will be some new troubles there with Islamic terrorism and that the oil and gas flows could be jeopardized or be put into question. It’s it’s unclear what role Turkey’s going to play in all of that since there was a really great substack that Roger Pielke Jr had linked to the other day where they were talking about the just that that entire situation in Syria and how Turkey had been angling to be this hub for natural gas flows from the Middle East into Europe and how Syria had been a bit of a thorn in the side for that. So it will be interesting to see how how that all works out because Qatar wanted to put this pipeline that would run through Syria, this massive natural gas field that that they have access to. That’s that’s not really very developed at this point. And to run that gas through pipe by pipeline through Syria into Europe. So that’ll be interesting. And related to that. My second prediction will be that the Middle East pushback on climate disclosures and exports to the EU could fuel more resistance maybe from European countries who feel overwhelmed by this new regulatory burden. It would be nice, like we said earlier, if American companies and Canadian companies would also push back on this. But, you know, maybe it takes a country like Qatar to just say no, but that will influence the behavior of others in resisting these things. And then I think that the EU and the European Commission, they will do this. They will continue with their ongoing undermining of candidates, representatives and parties that aren’t 100% behind the net zero transition. And you see that with what’s been going on in Romania, what’s been happening to some extent in Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, in France and now Germany. So I’ll be it’ll be curious to see if the alternative for Deutschland party will actually be banned or if it’s if they can’t get that legislation passed or whatever before the election. What the EU is going to do, what shenanigans will come up with it? Will they be some new fake or whatever reports that they’re somehow backed by terrorism or something? It remains to be seen, but I think the EU and the EEC will continue with their subtle and not so subtle undermining of parties and and representatives. They don’t agree with them. Yeah. And then I think for my number two is, is that there will be higher energy and higher food prices for the EU and the UK, which could lead to civil unrest and government clampdowns on citizens because of, you know, through digital censorship or banking or whatever. Because in the UK there the farmers are ramping up to do further protests at the end of the month to maybe even start blocking supermarket warehouses to try and get the public’s attention on the different policy changes that this Labor government has brought in. Partially taxation. But there’s also a lot of new rules that are coming in and wanting to use up farm land for solar and wind installations and whatnot. So that’ll be interesting. So my number one prediction, which is linked to what Patrick saying here, if America’s economy is unleashed through less regulation, through lower taxes, through increased energy production with reliable and affordable power, then the progressive movement’s net zero transition, especially as it’s identified in the EU and UK, all of that will be in jeopardy. So, you know, all bets are off, right? And so then look for all sorts of lawfare, different kinds of litigation, whether it’s internationally or federally or even statewide in the United States, to slow it down or to stop it altogether, all with the intent to undermine the dynamism of the American economy. Because if you if you don’t have to follow all of this intense regulatory and taxation burden that EU companies have to face and they can set up shop in the United States. They will do it. And we’ve already seen like the chemical firms shifting to China or shifting to the United States where they can make a profit. And, you know, if America gets back to this idea that making profits isn’t bad and that it actually helps people, helps the economy. You know, that kind of thing, then all bets are off. So my number one prediction will be that if Trump is able to do the changes that he wants to do, it’ll upset the whole apple cart.

David Blackmon [00:43:52] Yeah. And cautioned everyone about that. That’s not going to be an immediate thing. It’s going to take time to roll back some of these more pernicious efforts by the Biden administration. And so give it a year or two and see where we are.

Stuart Turley [00:44:08] The Biden administration is laying landmines right now, and they have undercut they have done some horrific things to the world. I’ll just say that right now. They are fantastic.

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:24] Yeah. Well, and I would like to throw a wild card in there and that and that’s the Russia Ukraine issue. And I know Stew had some comments on that, but I keep thinking, let’s say that they the Russian Ukraine war settled. When Trump gets in, what’s going to be the fallout in terms of Russia’s relationship with Europe? Right now, they’ve seized assets and bank accounts and are redistributing it to Ukraine as some kind of reparations to rebuild or whatever. What happens to that? Will the you know, will Russians be removed from whatever blacklist they’ve been put on? Right.

Irina Slav [00:45:05] Sanctions as we speak.

Stuart Turley [00:45:08] Right. I know I’ll go out on a landman just say if you don’t use cheap Russian natural gas, you will fail as a fiscal responsible country. Period. There’s nothing that will change that. You can’t. Let’s take France. France has not. They don’t have the money to rebuild their nuclear fleet fleet. They’re charging Germany extra for that money to rebuild their nuclear fleet. Germany is going to be they are going to survive. Yeah, but Germany’s going to just go right into fourth world status.

Tammy Nemeth [00:45:54] Well, it’s a it’s an interesting sort of a doormat of redistributing the wealth. Right. Because Germany has had this wealth and now France gets its share. Norway gets its share. Anybody that Germany’s buying energy from. They’re basically redistributing German wealth.

Stuart Turley [00:46:10] And Norway has natural gas.

Tammy Nemeth [00:46:14] Right. I mean, you make a point. You make this point about fiscal responsibility, but when ideology gets in the way, doesn’t fiscal responsibility is like second tier.

David Blackmon [00:46:27] Fiscal responsibility is an impediment to the goal. The goal is the collapse of these economies. That’s the goal. Yeah. And you know, and because that that makes it easier to implement a totalitarian state in these countries that’s that’s the whole goal of this entire energy transition project is to collapse these economies, implement totalitarian governments that the globalist can manage and have people living in our little small lives in fear and deprivation because the populations who are afraid and living in fear and deprivation are easier to control. And that’s that’s the overarching goal of this whole thing. It’s why we’re seeing Germany and the UK governments intentionally industrializing their economies and shipping all their emissions off to China and. You know, I mean, so it’s a feature of this whole thing. It’s not a glitch. So the guys like Mccrone Mccrone doesn’t care that they don’t have money to to rebuild their nuclear fleet. That’s part of his mission.

Irina Slav [00:47:35] Yeah. He may be out on the street before long, too, so.

David Blackmon [00:47:38] Well, maybe. Maybe. But he’s managed to survive, even though. Yeah. You know, last year’s election. And they are very creative at devising. Devising ways of holding onto their.

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:51] Yeah. Especially when they can do their quota on sanitaires. Right. And they do it in Germany. They do it in every country so that anybody who would even think of resisting, they get marginalized and no one will form a coalition. So. So my second wildcard, though, is somewhat related, and that is Energy fortress North America, because if we have a change of government in Canada, where energy security is really high on the list, including getting rid of carbon tax and all the other ridiculousness that has been the last nine years and Trump’s in power, then there’s a whole new vision for what North America could be with respect to energy production and maybe more reliable power supplies. I don’t know.

Stuart Turley [00:48:45] I mean, Trudeau is the governor of of Canada.

Tammy Nemeth [00:48:50] Well, he wouldn’t be there anymore.

Stuart Turley [00:48:54] If that was what Trump was trolling him with.

Tammy Nemeth [00:48:58] Yeah, I know, I know. But that the problem in Canada is somewhat similar to the EU in that there’s there’s currently five parties in in the parliament and the conservative one has about 35 to 37% of the vote. Trudeau’s party has about 32%. And then the NDP and the Greens in the Bloc have their various percentages that make up the rest. But the way the first past the post system works, you can get these these seats that barely win, but they still get that representation. And then you have what we have now with, with the Socialist NDP party, with the Socialist Lite Liberal Party forming a coalition to stop the Conservatives from from being in power. So there is a concern that unless there’s an overwhelming victory across the country, then it’ll be very difficult for the Conservatives to form power. We’ll just have another left wing coalition.

David Blackmon [00:49:58] yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:49:58] Not not a given.

Irina Slav [00:50:01] Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:50:02] Yeah. And then Patrick Patrick has a great comment there. Western Canada secede from the East and Trump becomes president of Western Canada.

David Blackmon [00:50:11] That’s my suggestion. I think Trump needs to stop talking about annexing Canada and just focus on Alberta.

Tammy Nemeth [00:50:19] Well, I mean, the problem is, let’s say if if the West seceded and then joined the United States as as a state or something, there’s no guarantee that four years from now it will be a reasonable president there and then be confronted with the same kinds of madness that you guys have been subjected to for the past four years.

David Blackmon [00:50:39] And there’s also the complication that Canada, you know, is is basically a what is it called, a protectorate of the United Kingdom.

Tammy Nemeth [00:50:51] No.

David Blackmon [00:50:52] What is the nature of its affiliation with the you know, I mean, the the king of England is also the king of Canada, right?

Tammy Nemeth [00:51:00] Yes. But that’s that’s based on our our Constitution and being a constitutional monarchy. So we’re still an independent country, even though we still have the Commonwealth allegiance to the United Kingdom.

Stuart Turley [00:51:19] Until you read the financial documents.

Tammy Nemeth [00:51:23] Yeah. Well, you know, there we have a bill that was passed after Quebec tried to separate twice where they formalized and legalized the process. So there is a process in place, if you wanted to separate that, that Western Canada could follow if that was their choice. But.

Stuart Turley [00:51:43] Kind a like Texas David, Texas is the only state that could legally secede from the union.

David Blackmon [00:51:50] Well, theoretically.

Irina Slav [00:51:51] I haven’t. You

David Blackmon [00:51:55] I’m sorry, What?

Irina Slav [00:51:57] Why haven’t you already

David Blackmon [00:51:59] The question that arises in my mind quite often, as you can imagine.

Irina Slav [00:52:04] Yeah. Yeah, probably.

David Blackmon [00:52:07] Parasites typically don’t care much for the health of their hosts. The lefty politicians are like that, too. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Tammy Nemeth [00:52:16] And Robert says Canada under Trudeau, where the beatings will continue until morale improves. Right.

David Blackmon [00:52:25] Hey, can I throw out another wild card since we were talking about wild cards? Yes. I read the other day that the Biden administration is going to end with about $500 billion in the treasury of dedicated funds from all these big, massive spending bills. And a big chunk of that relates to all these green energy subsidy provisions in the IRA. And and there was a $160 Billion in the infrastructure bill, too. And my view is, I think it’s a wild card that you’re going to see the Trump administration using all sorts of executive branch means to reallocate a bunch of that subsidy money to other purposes, including funding the building of the border wall along the southern border, because the Energy Department and an EPA and the Interior Department have kind of been, you know, jointly in charge of distributing all these moneys, grants and everything. So all these non-viable business startups that are all going to go bankrupt and they’ve been very slow about it. And so there’s an awful lot of money, half $1 trillion that has yet to be allocated to any specific purpose. And I suspect you’re going to see the Trump administration go about reallocating a bunch of that stuff to purposes outside of what the legislation says. And they did that. Everyone, remember, if you’re scoffing at that, remember that Trump reallocated four point something billion dollars from the Pentagon budget to finance the border wall in his first administration. So, yes, there is a means of doing this. And I suspect there’s going to be a highly dedicated effort related to this half trillion dollars.

Tammy Nemeth [00:54:27] Yeah, that’s. That’s an interesting prospect. You think that they could use it to pay the debt, but that’s not going to happen.

Stuart Turley [00:54:34] That would be.

Tammy Nemeth [00:54:36] By the way, Volkswagen and its employees reached an agreement on December 20th.

David Blackmon [00:54:43] They did. Okay.

Tammy Nemeth [00:54:44] Yeah, according to AP and. I don’t know. It’s they’ll be slashing manufacturing capacity and the employees are taking a bit of a pay cut and they will shed jobs through early retirement.

Irina Slav [00:55:03] That’s not going to solve their problem. They can’t sell enough of the kinds that governments.

Tammy Nemeth [00:55:10] They’re being mandated.

Irina Slav [00:55:11] Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:55:12] You’re right.

Tammy Nemeth [00:55:17] Yeah, I’m looking. Did you see Patrick’s comment? The last one there? Trump could cut D.O.D. DEI funding and divert the money to restart the border wall.

Stuart Turley [00:55:28] Oh snap

Irina Slav [00:55:30] Idea.

Tammy Nemeth [00:55:31] Yeah. should be looking at, I’m sure.

David Blackmon [00:55:35] Yeah. Yeah. Yes, definitely. Let’s see, David, just curious. Have you ever attended the North American Prospect Expo in Houston? Just wondered whether it would be beneficial for someone like myself, them working regulatory? Yes, it’s definitely useful. Travis Travis, Al Nape is a wonderful conference. One of the premier energy related conferences held each year. Stu and I and Rt Trevino had a whole booth at the last Nape conference doing podcasts and stuff from the floor there. But it has a terrific agenda, presentations and speakers that is always well worth taking in. I’ve spoken at that three times I think, in the past, but I’ve kind of retired myself from going to those things, but I highly recommend Nape it’s one of the few I would highly recommend.

Stuart Turley [00:56:34] Yeah, unfortunately, I’ll be there. And we did, I think, 35 to 40 podcast at that booth. That was fun. Everything from DoomBerg and everybody wanted to line up to see the chicken in the green chicken. And David wrangled him in, so that was good.

David Blackmon [00:56:55] Yeah. RT interviewed George P Bush on the floor of Nape.

Tammy Nemeth [00:57:00] My gosh. My God. Okay. Well, I think that’s it for our predictions. Do we have stories we want to cover really quickly or.

David Blackmon [00:57:10] We have a minute and a half? Maybe we should do better, actually. Yeah. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:57:16] Why don’t we do that next week? But, you know, Irina, this is what the room energy policy thinks that green energy is, you know, And they sit back and we have green energy. This is what the left thinks. It is happening,

Irina Slav [00:57:33] Least because of transition.

Stuart Turley [00:57:35] Right.

Tammy Nemeth [00:57:38] Gas. No

Stuart Turley [00:57:40] But this is where they believe and they’re mind.

Irina Slav [00:57:45] Vegetarian is.

Stuart Turley [00:57:46] Right. And here’s what actually happens during the energy transition. This is the energy transition. In reality.

David Blackmon [00:57:55] In reality.

Stuart Turley [00:57:57] Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:58:03] So just imagine if that was.

Stuart Turley [00:58:10] Those is the energy transition. Okay, obviously. Okay. Do you want to pay more for electricity? No, wait a minute. No, I don’t want to pay more. Do you want to wait four hours? Charge your car. No, no, no, no. So that our journey is the contrast between what the left thinks the energy transition is. And here’s what the actual transition is. They don’t want to pay for it, but they want somebody else’s money to pay for it. I love Robert. We’re going to have a great new year.

David Blackmon [00:58:49] Robert. Happy New Year.

Tammy Nemeth [00:58:50] Happy New Year.

Stuart Turley [00:58:52] All right. With that, we are going to have a great year guys.

David Blackmon [00:58:57] Thank you all. This is

Stuart Turley [00:58:58] See you next week.

Tammy Nemeth [00:58:59] Thank you to everybody.

Irina Slav [00:59:01] Yeah, and have a happy New Year.