David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, Irina Slav, and Stu Turley are discussing Kilmageld, carbon, rebates, and market updates on the Baltimore Bridge’s impact on energy. Ask Questions of the team LIVE.
Critical Links:
https://irinaslav.substack.com/
https://theenergynewsbeat.substack.com/
Highlights of the Podcast
01:56 – Klimageld
03:36 – The Canadian carbon tax
06:39 – The environment minister in Canada
09:46 – In the upcoming elections
12:26 – The Bank of Canada
13:30 – One of the biggest distortions
14:25 – Changing the way the elections are conducted
19:45 – EU hits roadblocks in reaching Green milestone as elections loom
20:54 – Hydrogen industry pleads for easier path to US tax credits
25:30 – Why Gasoline Prices are rising faster than usual this year
27:57 – What are the energy impacts from the Port of Baltimore closure?
34:02 – Twenty U.S, oil and gas trade groups unite against Biden’s ‘misguided’ methane fee
40:20 – Janet Yellen warns China against clean energy dumping
42:32 – The the China EV issue is very fascinating
44:22 – A couple of things about EVs
47:22 – The government bought the pipeline, The cost has ballooned
The Podcast Hosts for The Energy Realities
Energy Consulting Specialist
Stuart Turley
President, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host
Blubrry Podcast:
Sponsorships are available or get your own corporate brand produced by Sandstone Media.
David Blackmon LinkedIn
The Crude Truth with Rey Trevino
Rey Trevino LinkedIn
Energy Transition Weekly Conversation
David Blackmon LinkedIn
Irina Slav LinkedIn
Energy Realities – Kilmageld – Carbon Taxes and Rebates – April 1st
Stuart Turley [00:00:00] Been to roll here. Hello, everybody. Welcome. It is actually, we are live from the white House. Oh, it is April Fool’s Day. So, hey, welcome to the Energy Realities podcast. We have an outstanding show for you today. And we have first up around the corner, Tammy Nemeth with the the Nemeth Report. Tammy, welcome. And you’re from the UK this morning, right?
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:27] Yeah I’m in the UK today.
Stuart Turley [00:00:29] Oh, and you’re not traveling very far. So then we have Irina Slav. She is an energy expert. Authoress, authoress. And she is in Bulgaria. How are you this morning? Right. Like you were. Yeah, I’ll tell you. I got to have some more coffee here this morning. And then we have the David Blackmon. I mean, David is a contributing forbes author, Substack author. The. He’s busy about town. And I think. David, welcome. How are you today?
David Blacmon [00:01:01] Oh, I’m just thrilled to be here, man. I’ve been up since 230 this morning. It’s terrible.
Stuart Turley [00:01:05] Well, I guess, you know, Irina and Tammy and I had, paid for somebody to stock you this past weekend on on your, sugar rush. So with that, let’s go ahead and bring in your sugar rush when you are hiding your own Easter eggs. Let’s play this here. This is David Blacmon.
David Blacmon [00:01:25] It does look like me. Does.
David Blacmon [00:01:33] After eating all those jelly beans that my grandkids brought in those plastic eggs.
Stuart Turley [00:01:39] Oh, man. All right, so with that let’s go ahead and TF show for today. And we’ve got, Klimageld. I can’t say this. I sound like Scooby Doo when I try to say this, but what are we talking about? Carbon tax rebate.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:56] Klimageld.
Stuart Turley [00:01:56] Giggled and. All right, first up.
David Blacmon [00:02:00] Is that a German word? Wait a second, wait a second. Is that a German word?
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:04] That’s a German word. Yeah. It’s. So if I can just provide a little bit of context there. When the Socialist Party, the SPD was, running in their campaign, they say one of their platform principles was Klima geld. And that is basically a carbon tax rebate for the citizens. And in the coalition that they’re in, they said they would bring it in and they haven’t brought it in yet. And so there was a question, I think, last year in the, in the German parliament asking, when are we going to get our Klimageld? And the German government said, not yet, not yet. No. Not yet. Well they already. Yeah. And yeah, they gave a subsidy cut already or whatever. There was a six and a half cent per kilowatt hour surcharge that every German, utility payer had to pay in order to pay for the subsidies to wind and solar over a 20 year period. And they lifted that in 2022. And when that with the Ukraine attack and whatnot. And so they’re like, well, we’ve already given you a whole bunch of money and whatnot. So that’s where we’re at right now, where they’re still demanding, especially the environmental groups want. Well, various groups want the Klimageld.
David Blacmon [00:03:21] Yeah. The environmentalist groups that are made up mainly of upper middle class people who can afford it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:03:27] Right. Well, and the reason that I sort of talked about this suggested this topic was that today is April 1st. And, the Canadian carbon tax increases 23% today. And so.
David Blacmon [00:03:39] Wow
Tammy Nemeth [00:03:41] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:03:42] So 23%.
Tammy Nemeth [00:03:45] Yeah. So they, they and they give a subsidy supposedly to some people, not everybody. Some people based on I don’t know what income if you’re a retired person or whatever then you get a carbon tax rebate check. But people are they’re saying, oh, more people get more money back.
David Blacmon [00:04:03] And yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:04] It’s they don’t because it’s interesting. If I could just add one thing in Canada with the carbon tax, it gets charged on your utility bill. And depending on which province you’re in, it gets charged differently because some provinces have their own system or something, but they charge the goods and services tax, which is the federal sales tax on top of it.
David Blacmon [00:04:25] Oh, sure. Yeah. Of course.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:28] So you don’t get a rebate on that, but you get a rebate on the original, supposedly.
Stuart Turley [00:04:33] Tammy, your neck. Let’s go here. Is this what you were talking about on this? Right here?
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:40] Right. And so seven of the Canadian premiers wrote the Prime minister and said, can you just stop increasing it? Right. Let this kind of can we just not have another increase because they increase every year by 23% until at at 2030, it’ll be $170 a tonne or something, some ridiculous number. I think right now it’s at 85, it increased to 85 or something. So the seven premiers said, can we stop it? And Prime Minister wrote back and said, no, if you want to stop it, give a different alternative. And I was like, okay, whatever. And so then, the federal prime minister. Leader of the opposition put a motion forward in the House to end, to stop the carbon price tax increase. And every party except the conservatives voted against it. So we have the liberals, which are socialist lite. We have the full socialists, the New Democrat Party, the Greens, of course, and the Bloc Quebecois, which is a French separatist party. They all voted against that motion. So they all want the carbon tax. And so the, the, the newest push is that, economists have been pressured in Canada, academic ones, to sign an open letter supporting a carbon tax. So I think they’re up to 2 or 300 economists who have signed this letter saying that, yeah, carbon taxes are great. Well, with a university job, I guess they don’t have to worry so much about paying it.
Stuart Turley [00:06:19] Wow. Now, there was a video. There was a cat on there. That was the. Tammy, I’m not sure how much of this you. I’ll just bring it up here, but let you try three more politically, this.
Video Narrator [00:06:34] Expensive environment minister, Stephen Gilbert.
Tammy Nemeth [00:06:37] Okay, so Stephen Guilbeault, who’s the the environment minister in Canada, he is also the former. He used to be involved in Greenpeace, and then he helped set up an offshoot of Greenpeace, a Quebec version called equator. And he was the head of equity for a long time before he was sort of parachuted into, a position with the Liberal Party. And, one of the things that he did when he was an activist was he scaled the CN tower. He was, he was charged with criminal activity, whatever they call it nowadays. He also scaled the premier of Alberta’s house and installed solar panels, or tried to install solar panels without permission and intimidated the wife and all this kind of thing and got put in jail for for that. And so this is the same guy who’s telling the premier of Saskatchewan he’s being, he’s acting in a criminal way, which is hilarious. But so, yeah, that’s Steven Guilbeault there. And, and he’s a bit of a interesting character.
Video Narrator [00:07:39] Bo Guilbeault had been quoted in February saying the federal government would no longer invest in new roads. He subsequently corrected himself to say he meant there would be no federal money for a car tunnel in Quebec, but his political opponents were not going to let him off that easy.
Video voice 1 [00:07:56] So this seems to be a war on cars, that this has been the plan all along. And so what what Minister Guilbeault did was, was just say the quiet Part out loud.
Video voice 2 [00:08:04] My comments were specifically related to the project in Quebec.
Video Narrator [00:08:08] Guilbeault is a favorite target of conservatives because he is the chief evangelist for the carbon tax.
Video voice 3 [00:08:14] So if you don’t understand how. The carbon tax. Affects road infrastructure, I can’t help you, but I have a question for you. Is there anything that you would Do to. Walk back you personally? Would you walk back? In any case, the 23% carbon tax Increase in April.
Video Narrator [00:08:29] Guilbeault would only defend the carbon tax in French.
Video voice 2 [00:08:32] In.
Video Reporter [00:08:35] The US while the carbon tax does go up April 1st, so does the rebate paid to most Canadians. Meanwhile, a new report came out Thursday to give Guilbeault and the liberals a bit of cover over carbon pricing. The Canadian Climate Institute said that the fuel surcharge, the carbon tax paid by consumers, will indeed play an important role in getting Canada to net zero emissions. But the institute said industrial carbon pricing systems on large emitters that’s what’s in place in Alberta, will make the single biggest contribution to cutting emissions.
Stuart Turley [00:09:11] Wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:09:13] So the Canadian Climate Institute is an organization set up by the federal government, and it’s filled with a lot of activists. So, you know, I’m when I hear these supportive statements from organizations that were either established by the federal government, get a lot of money from federal government, also get a lot of money from foundations that have a vested interest in pursuing this agenda. It kind of throws into question the credibility, I think.
David Blacmon [00:09:42] Tammy gave me.
Irina Slav [00:09:44] Kind of. Yeah.
David Blacmon [00:09:45] Yeah. So in the upcoming elections, I keep seeing polls that, Trudeau is is badly trailing Poilievre in public opinion polls. But. Is it a case because of the parliamentary system? Unless the Conservative Party is able to win a pure majority. In the Parliament. There’s every chance that Trudeau could get 20% of the votes and still, continue to reign. If.
Tammy Nemeth [00:10:18] He only has 32% of the vote right now, then that’s what he got, right?
David Blacmon [00:10:24] Yeah. And you have these other parties as his coalition. So even if he only gets 25%, it’s time say that you still end up having another term as prime minister, didn’t he? Or is he turned?
Tammy Nemeth [00:10:36] I don’t know, there’s, there’s no term limit. So it’s like, definitely he could form another coalition. And it all depends on the distribution of the seats because, you know, like it’s sort of like the United States where you have certain areas, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, that have a lot of seats. And then when you get out west, there’s not as many seats. And so even though we might get 90% of the vote in Western Canada or some, you know, ridiculously high number, that only translates into, you know, not the same number of seats that you would get in Ontario and Quebec or whatever. So I think the other issue with, with any upcoming election is that the federal government has just put in, tabled legislation that’s going to change our election system, and I’m not really sure I haven’t looked through it yet, but I’ve heard some, other commentators who are quite concerned about the changes that are being proposed. But I don’t want to say too much about it because I haven’t read it yet, but it could be concerning.
Irina Slav [00:11:38] But, there’s so many people in those most populated provinces that want their life to get more expensive.
Tammy Nemeth [00:11:48] Well, that’s the thing, right? I mean, it depends on on who you talk to and and how how it’s framed. Right. Because on the one hand, there’s the very clear indication that the carbon tax makes everything more expensive because it’s charged on everything. So if all of your energy is now 30% higher and that goes into transportation, into processing, into just keeping the lights on in, say, a supermarket or whatever, all of those things get amplified throughout the economy, but they only talk about it being implemented in one place. And so the Bank of Canada, which has produced these sort of assessment numbers about the cost of the carbon tax, or its impact on inflation, the number is incredibly low because they only take into account it being applied once. But if you see that it’s being applied at every point throughout your economic chain, it’s it it increases like like compound interest. So for a bank to not be able to take into account what it would essentially is like compound interest throughout the economy. I don’t think they’re doing Canadians a service at all.
David Blacmon [00:13:06] My goodness.
Tammy Nemeth [00:13:08] But they want to bring it globally.
David Blacmon [00:13:11] Right. Exactly. And it’s the the goal, of course, is to make energy more expensive and to force you to live smaller lives and conserve and do with less energy. That’s what the goal of the goal is. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:13:25] And then they put that money into a pot so they can choose winners and losers. And I think that’s one of the biggest distortions out there, is that you now have government deciding which company ought to succeed and which companies ought to be penalized. And that is not a market or democratic based system as far as I’m concerned.
Irina Slav [00:13:47] Know at all.
Tammy Nemeth [00:13:49] But so one of the reasons, if I can just want to add one thing, one of the reasons why I think they can’t remove it is because Canada is leading this group, this voluntary group, in order to implement a global carbon tax. So how could they possibly lead a group that’s trying to push every other country in the world to do this? How could they lead that if they ended up having to scrap scrap it ourselves? Right. So right from a from an ego perspective, I think it would be very difficult for the Canadian government to back down now that they just have to double down.
David Blacmon [00:14:24] Well, I have to say that, changing the, the the way the elections are conducted, a proposal like that shouldn’t surprise anyone, because that’s just the next step here is to, you know, when we we’ve been optimistic, I think that the people would push back in, in the Western world against these policies. Right. And, we’ve seen elections in Europe, in other parts of the world that, where democracy is, is rather still pure, like in Argentina, where you have a real democracy, a pure democracy, then the people can rise up and change the government. But where you have these very complex systems. With a majority that is, focused on maintaining control. It’s not surprising that their next step will become to change the way the elections are conducted in America. We’ve had all these things like, like vote harvesting and and mail in ballots that literally change the way the votes are counted. Yeah, right. And as as Lenin always said. Or maybe it was Stalin. It doesn’t really matter who who votes. What matters is who counts the votes. Yeah. Who’s counting? And, you know, we saw in in the Netherlands where you had the Conservative Party technically win the election but can’t form a coalition in the parliament to actually form a government. And so these are these are potentialities that these folks on the far left have thought of and have planned for. And so it doesn’t really surprise me that that Trudeau’s party is trying to change, literally change the way the elections are conducted.
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:16] Well, and it’s quite shocking because I have friends who sometimes work at polling stations when there’s an election. And you you could only vote in the at the booth, wherever that it’s said so on your polling card. And they want to change that so you can vote anywhere in the riding. So you know, how are they going to cross-reference that afterwards and say, if someone were to be nefarious and vote in 3 or 4 different polling stations in their riding? How are you going to cross-reference and remove those extra votes or something? I mean, it just opens and then they want to add in more Mail-In voting and stuff like that, and, and over so that it’s not one day, but it’s like a week of voting. I mean, this is bad. And from what I’ve read.
David Blacmon [00:17:03] But we vote for a month in America now, you know?
Tammy Nemeth [00:17:06] Yeah. Like really.
David Blacmon [00:17:08] It’s almost impossible to police the Mail-In ballots. And when you allow people to just vote anywhere. Yeah. You’re right. I mean, it makes it virtually impossible to police multiple voting. And and that’s the goal. I mean, that’s that’s the reason why they make those proposals.
Tammy Nemeth [00:17:24] Well, how do they do it in Bulgaria, Irina? How do they do their voting?
Irina Slav [00:17:28] Oh, we vote, you know, personally, we show up at the polling station and vote either by machine or by paper.
David Blacmon [00:17:37] You have to have an I.D..
Irina Slav [00:17:39] Yeah, you have to have an I.D.. The ID is compared to a list of names who have people who are registered for voting in this place. There was some scandal about machine voting because the machines apparently could be. I’m not sure I understand this because I. I voted, with the machine, and it’s, you know, it spits out, a note that says what party I voted for. But apparently you can manipulate them. Maybe, you know, vote a lot more times. From, I don’t know, on behalf of dead people or something, I don’t know, I don’t understand any of this, but we do vote, personally. Yeah, that problem is very low turnout.
Tammy Nemeth [00:18:26] Yeah. Yeah, it’s the same in the UK. In the UK, there’s no machines. You just go with, you get a piece of paper and you go in and you mark your X, but you have to show up. You have a but you have a polling card. You have to show up to the station that says that you’re supposed to go to. And then they check your card, you show ID and they mark you as having, you know.
Irina Slav [00:18:51] You just have to.
Tammy Nemeth [00:18:52] Go off kind of thing, which like, why can’t. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with doing it that way?
Irina Slav [00:18:58] Too much hassle.
Tammy Nemeth [00:19:00] I don’t know.
Stuart Turley [00:19:05] Tammy, was this your other one? Have you already, covered that? I yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:19:10] I covered them both, so.
Stuart Turley [00:19:11] Okay, great. And then rolling over here before we get banned and shut down because of racist comments from David Blackmon. I’m sorry. Did I just say that out loud? Well, right. Well, you know, voter ID is racist, according to David Blackmon. Okay, so we have Irina Slav over in Bulgaria isn’t. No it’s not. I agree with you. It’s a joke. David. Good morning. Okay. We have a Irina, and you’ve got two story great stories here.
Irina Slav [00:19:41] Yeah. The latest from the transition EU hits roadblocks in reaching Green milestone. As elections loom. The problem of the EU is it cannot build all the wind and solar. It has to build fast enough to hit its own targets. They, you know that recognizing that it is impossible, it is physically impossible to do it. But they’re hopeful it can be done. Yeah. I don’t know how. You know the climate commissioner by the name of Bob Kay. He as long as they do a bit of homework, you know, member states should just do a bit of homework and find a way to build all this new capacity. How? We don’t know. But there’s the there’s a good chance that we’ll still hit that, emission reduction targets of 55% from 1990 or something by 2030. Yeah. Good luck to them. Until they answer the how positive the question. It’s not happening. I mean, even Germany can hit its own targets. And then we have more pain from the, the hydrogen industry, the green hydrogen industry in the United States, because apparently a lot of projects cannot qualify for the the biggest, the fattest subsidy. Because it is so ridiculous. It basically there’s a subsidy stipulation. It says you need to produce your green hydrogen from wind and solar only. But we are not going to say these directly. The the requirements they’ve put in place includes, the following. So the, the hydrogen, the green hydrogen must be produced from, energy sources in the same area as the electrolysis plants. Okay. Should be produced locally. It must be produced, from what was it, energy sources that are producing the electricity around the same time as the green hydrogen is produced.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:02] Oh my God. Oh my gosh.
Irina Slav [00:22:06] Yeah. Yeah. And what was the third one? Let me just check. Oh, and they have to prove all this proof. Oh, yes, they have to. And it has to come from, from sources that were recently built. So you can’t use nuclear power from a plant that was built 30 years ago. And all this has to be proved. Which obviously cannot happen. And there are some companies who want to that want to produce green hydrogen by using nuclear or, landfill gas, biogas, which I think should be fine, but it’s not.
Stuart Turley [00:22:46] You know, I mean, a.
Irina Slav [00:22:47] Little restrictive regime obviously aimed at encouraging more wind and solar.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:52] Wind and solar.
Irina Slav [00:22:53] But that comes a point where you know somebody is going to do their homework, unlike EU member states, because that’s an impossible. I’m not going to drop the investment plans for green hydrogen. If they’re not getting the top subsidy, there will need to spend a lot of money. Yeah. And return is not guaranteed. So yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:23:18] You know, Irina.
Tammy Nemeth [00:23:19] Can’t use nuclear. Really?
Irina Slav [00:23:21] No. no
Stuart Turley [00:23:23] After I saw the story. And what, you’re bringing this up, and I don’t know why, I think Google was listening to our conversation, but all of a sudden, all these hydrogen stories started coming out across my screen and everything else. And the one thing that really got me tickled that, Irina was the fact that they now say hydrogen airplanes and they had designs that were coming up for hydrogen. I’m sorry. The Hindenburg happened for a reason. Right. And they had hydrogen planes in the main center of the entire thing of the plane was a very densely compacted hydrogen storage bomb. Excuse me. Storage tank? In the middle of this thing. Why would you want to sit on top of a hydrogen bomb and pretend it’s green? I’m not. I’m not going to be flying on that thing. The technology was horrible.
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:22] Sorry. Well, you know, it’s kind of like communism, right? They just didn’t do it right the last time.
Irina Slav [00:24:27] Of course. Yeah. We’re going to do it better now. Yeah yeah yeah.
David Blacmon [00:24:31] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:32] Well, I guess hydrogen better this time. It won’t explode quite as badly.
Irina Slav [00:24:36] Yeah, it’s not so school anymore.
Stuart Turley [00:24:39] I, I actually am a hydrogen fan from a, techno technology standpoint. I love the idea, but implementation of hydrogen is tough and expensive. David, I think you’ve got some ones coming around the corner here.
David Blacmon [00:24:57] These are not mine.
Stuart Turley [00:24:58] Oh, they’re not.
David Blacmon [00:24:59] They’re yours. These are yours. Do.
Stuart Turley [00:25:02] I knew that. Which one are you? Is that yours?
David Blacmon [00:25:09] That is not mine. Wait wait wait. Go back.
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:14] Oh yeah. Yeah. Because it had the the port. Yeah. It has the.
David Blacmon [00:25:17] Energy and pics from the port.
Stuart Turley [00:25:20] You had too much sugar because I thought these were yours. Nope.
David Blacmon [00:25:26] I like, talk about, I mean, I if one of mine was, to talk about gas prices and. Okay, rising and they’re going to keep rising because because we’re doing the change over from winter balloons to summer blends right now. And a lot of the refining capacity is going offline for periodic maintenance, as it does every spring to get ready for the summer driving season. This always happens in the United States, but mainly it’s because oil prices keep going up and they’re going up because supplies is, not adequate to meet demand and everybody knows it. A lot of that has to do with the OPEC plus cuts. Some of it has to do with suddenly falling overall oil production in the United States. Shale patch. Finally, the dropping rig count appears to be catching up with the ability of the industry to maintain overall production. We’re not drilling enough wells, enough new wells to make up for the decline rate in the wells that are already producing. And so, the EIA is projecting that January’s production will be significantly down from December’s. And, there’s no telling where that goes this year. But if the United States ends up losing half a million barrels a day, this year in overall production, instead of increasing by another half million, that’s a million barrels a day difference in the global market. And that either has to be made up by, spare capacity and OPEC plus. And there’s only a few countries in OPEC plus that have spare capacity to add, or we’re going to have a really big price increase the second half of the year because they.
Irina Slav [00:27:10] Have to want it.
David Blacmon [00:27:11] Right? That’s right. They have to want it. And you know, OPEC plus says its goal is to maintain Brant at 80 or above right now. but it’s at 87 and nobody’s increasing production to try to calm that down. Right. So, I think we’re going to have, pretty high gas prices this summer in the United States. Summer driving season will kick in in mid-May. And that means, a lot of additional demand. It’s going to put a lot of additional stress on refiners here in the United States. Yeah. And, frankly, I think we could have $5 a gallon gasoline prices again in the United States this summer. So everybody better buckle up and get ready. The Baltimore thing. You know, my commentary on that was just that. In the wake of that, you know. Of course, I mean, it’s everybody’s, feeling terrible for the people of Baltimore and the people at that port. A lot of jobs are going to be lost as, the ship traffic is remains blocked by that collapsed bridge. It’s a terrible event, and it’s going to have major economic impacts up and down the East Coast of the United States. It’s also going to mess up some supply chains, across the, the, the breadth of the country as well. But, in the wake of that, I went out and found the data on what are the biggest ports in the United States, because everybody kept talking about how Baltimore is the second most active port on the East Coast with which it is. But when you look at the country as a whole, it’s only the 17th most active port in terms of total tonnage going in and out of it. And most of the biggest ports are along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana, particularly Houston, Corpus Christi, and what they call the port of Louisiana, which is really several port ports that are clustered together near the mouth of the Mississippi River. And, you know, that just points out how vital, the oil trade is globally, because the ports of Corpus Christi and Houston, when you add up the total tonnage going out of Houston, Corpus Christi, at the Port of Louisiana, it’s more than every non Texas Louisiana port on that list combined. Okay. Just those three ports and most of it going in and out of Houston in Corpus Christi is crude oil imports and exports. Whereas the Port of Louisiana is is staging area for about 90% of the offshore oil and gas drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s where all those ships are staged. All that equipment goes back and forth. All that traffic goes in and out of that port. And what it points to is just emphasizes again, the fact and, you know, I’m sure most of the audience for this podcast knows that already that oil is the most traded commodity on the face of the earth and has been for 120 years, and will continue to be probably for another 100 years from today. And and none of those ships could go in and out of Baltimore or New York. Somebody made the point when I posted that on my Substack. Well, you know, but that’s oil traffic. It’s not container traffic. And my point was, well, now that container traffic is going to go anywhere without oil, right? Because all those ships are powered by diesel. And it just points out to the vital nature of, of the oil trade globally and how it just powers the whole economy. And that’s my preaching this for today.
Stuart Turley [00:30:56] There’s a couple key points in that Baltimore, article in there. And that is coal. It’s the number one export for the port. Out of there in India, is the number one, in 2023. For, there’s now the pricing has not gone.
David Blacmon [00:31:17] India is the number one importer from U.S..
Stuart Turley [00:31:19] Yes, from from that amount of coal. And Egypt was in there, and Canada was also in there as well too. So, when you take Canada. You got, yo. Oh, Canada. You know, I really want to go to hockey games and stuff, you know? And I don’t know how to sing the Canadian. Oh, Canada. That’s all I can sing is just. Okay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:31:45] That’s almost all Canadians can sing as well.
Stuart Turley [00:31:48] That’s like going to Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State football game. Nobody knows the fight song of our university except. Oh, is you okay now? But you take a look at, coking coal or metallurgical metallurgical coal or steam coal. There’s the two different kinds that are in there. I just read an article that was amazing about the bridge itself and the impact for the tax. I believe it was Irina and others have brought this up. Is that that bridge covers, and access for propane, for gasoline, for diesel, for everything else that is now having to be rerouted and going around. So that bridge is very critical. So it’s going to be interesting. And then and we had another bridge hit this weekend in, Oklahoma. Yeah, yeah. Go figure that out. And, you gotta you gotta love it. Don’t drive over bridges without looking. Both both both ways. See if there’s a ship coming.
David Blacmon [00:32:59] Luckily, that bridge in Oklahoma was a concrete bridge. And one that cantilevered bridge. Like the key bridge in Baltimore. You know, that key bridge was a cantilever bridge that just collapsed as soon as a big object hit that one support column with the bridge going over that Oklahoma, like, was a pure concrete reinforced concrete bridge.
Stuart Turley [00:33:20] And don’t be, we are all resting assured because, Mayor Pete is on the job and they’re now missing the two minutes, right before the crash happened. And it’s only going to take several years for them to find out what happened. But they came out and said right after, within ten minutes of it hitting a go at nothing to see here. It’s not a terrorist attack. You know. Yeah. All right.
David Blacmon [00:33:50] Three years to investigate that.
Stuart Turley [00:33:52] Yeah. Let’s go to the next one’s here. Let’s go here. So, this story I found pretty interesting on this, 20 U.S, oil and gas trade groups unite against Biden’s misguided methane fee. I’ll tell you what. The full list is, on the in the article. It is nice to see that a, oil and gas executives are standing up, and the trade associations, the API. They all do great job. And they they all have to get out there and, really stand up for folks this tax, this is a quote. This tax on American energy is a serious misstep that could jeopardize our nation’s energy advantage and weaken our energy security, said API. Senior vice president, policy. Dustin Meyer, do you know Dustin?
David Blacmon [00:34:53] I do not.
Stuart Turley [00:34:55] U.S. oil and gas is innovating throughout its operation to reduce natural methane emissions while meeting and growing energy demand. Yet this proposal creates an in, coherent, confusing regulatory regime that will only stifle technology and advancements and hamper energy development.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:15] Can you explain what the methane fee is for those who maybe aren’t aware?
Stuart Turley [00:35:21] The methane fee. I. It is coming in. So it’s going to be any producing company. Is going to be charged. And it’s a, it’s a tax is basically all it is for methane. It’s unbelievable.
David Blacmon [00:35:41] Methane.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:41] So if it’s leaking.
Stuart Turley [00:35:43] If it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:44] Isn’t leaking.
Stuart Turley [00:35:45] If it’s leaking or they’re, you know, you know, you you you they’re they’re now redirecting satellites over methane fields and they’re now saying if it’s a oil and gas, methane happens naturally. And so what they’re saying is the methane is going to be, now through technology and satellites saying you owe this amount, but it’s also going into scope one, scope two, and scope three. The regulatory process and where it’s going is just unbelievable.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:18] Right? Okay. So my understanding is that they they don’t have that many satellites up right now to do methane methane set, which is, a joint initiative with Environmental Defense Fund where they got $32 million to pay for a satellite. I don’t know, and a charity, a charity.
Stuart Turley [00:36:39] Charity.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:39] A satellite? Yeah, right. And there’s issues with calibration because, as you say it, it is naturally occurring and it mixes in with the atmosphere. And when they’re looking down with the satellite, it’s not like they can just say, okay, methane is not moving in this, in this space, right? I mean, it’s circulating through the atmosphere and whatnot. And so, I think I would want to know how they’re calibrating those satellites before trusting.
David Blacmon [00:37:07] So just to be clear, it’s not just done by satellite. I mean, there’s the lidar cameras that, EPA and state regulators have programs to, police, oil and gas production facilities and, storage facilities. And the fee, it’s it’s charged to each ton of methane. Now, I’m reading your, from, Baker Hostetler document on it. The charge applies to each metric ton of methane by which a facility exceeds a preset threshold. The charge is $900 a ton for 2020, for 1200 ton for 2025, and 1500 per ton thereafter. Okay. And that’s from every oil and gas production storage facility in the United States. And it’s going to be an enormous amount of money. It is a essentially a carbon tax on methane. It’s how it’s going to auction. And, it doesn’t make any sense. And it’s it’s just the camel’s nose under a tent for carbon tax. This was a tax. This tax was passed in the IRA. And so, you know, it’s crazy. This will be the first thing if Donald Trump is elected. This will be one of the few elements of the I.R.A. that will be repealed.
Tammy Nemeth [00:38:33] Can I put a plug in here for my podcast? I talked with Professors William Happer and, Professor William Van Vine Garden on last Monday and or Tuesday last week. In any event, they were talking about methane and what a non-issue it is. And so why? Why did they go after a gas that is like a rounding error in our atmosphere, right. And they keep saying, oh, it’s got this global warming potential, but it’s only if you’re comparing it molecule to molecule with carbon dioxide, which you know, is arguable, but what it’s it’s doing with the atmosphere and whatnot. But methane is really parts per billion. Parts per billion. There’s hardly.
David Blacmon [00:39:17] Rounding.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:18] Any methane out there. And so, you know, to be just accepting that we need to do something about methane, I think, is conceding a point that shouldn’t be conceded in the first place.
Stuart Turley [00:39:30] Yeah, I don’t get it.
David Blacmon [00:39:31] Yeah, but but of course it’s it’s all political. Everything’s political. And the reason you.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:38] To punish the industry.
David Blacmon [00:39:39] Just because you’re trying to punish methane, you’re trying to punish the industry that produces methane. You’re trying to marginalize methane so that you can encourage the building of more wind and solar and all these non-viable alternatives to it. So.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:55] Yeah. And also bad natural gas, right? Because if you get the public to believe that methane is bad and evil or whatever, then it’s much easier to convince them that, well, you shouldn’t be using natural gas then.
David Blacmon [00:40:09] Right.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:11] So.
David Blacmon [00:40:12] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:40:18] Let’s see here also, Secretary, this was something that you, China’s asked. Yeah, yeah, China was, the EU. Could you guys tell us what, the EU is going on with the EU and China and EVs?
Irina Slav [00:40:36] Because they’re investigating China for selling cheap EVs. That’s what’s happening. They can’t have competition because the carmakers need the market. So the EU is investigating.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:52] Yeah, but they’re still allowing.
Irina Slav [00:40:53] Them on the market. Do you?
Stuart Turley [00:40:56] Yeah. I’ve got this, video. Janet Yellen agreed to come on the podcast next Monday. And so this is the warm up video of her getting ready to come on next Monday. So buckle up everybody. This is Janet Yellen getting ready to come on the Energy Reality podcast. So let me get a good video started here. Here we go. Hello Secretary Yellen how are you this morning. Holy smokes I think the bear’s hair looks better than hers. I’m not sure.
David Blacmon [00:41:31] Where is that poor bear?
Stuart Turley [00:41:33] I don’t know. I felt so bad for him to accuse him of looking like Yellen. So I’m sorry, Mr. Bear.
Tammy Nemeth [00:41:40] Like a zoo.
Stuart Turley [00:41:41] Yeah. Oh, man. Captain poopy pants. All right, captain poopy pants. I have pants. All right. Anyway, so with that, let’s go back to, Irina. I think we got all your stories, David.
David Blacmon [00:42:02] I think we’ve gone through the stories here.
Stuart Turley [00:42:04] Yeah. We have. So what’s coming around the corner in in. Irina, what do you see in your stories or what’s coming around the corner for you?
Irina Slav [00:42:15] Well, I don’t know the. I decide what to write about based on what I read. Every day brings a surprise. You know, that’s the exciting news.
Stuart Turley [00:42:27] Well, Tammy, how about you? What do you see coming around this week?
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:31] Well, I think the the China EV issue is very fascinating because, like, for example, in the UK, they put a whole bunch of government money to set up, BMW mini EV plant in Oxford. And when the energy crisis hit in 2022, they said, oh, we can’t afford to stay here anymore because we have to use all renewable energy or whatever. So they said they continue producing petrol minis at the Oxford plant until 2030 or whatever the ban is, and they move the production line for the electric E, mini to China. And later this year, they’re going to start bringing in the Chinese made mini EVs into the the British and European market. So, you know, they can complain about Chinese EVs. They’re probably okay with it if China’s making European versions. They just don’t maybe want BYD, I don’t know. As long as the European manufacturers are still getting some kind of money out of it.
Stuart Turley [00:43:35] Tammy, I just got an exclusive note here. They’ve got a new test track coming out, for, this EV. Here we go. They’re just now rolling in. Check this out. They’re testing that new EV.
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:52] I hope it doesn’t explode in the water.
Stuart Turley [00:43:56] Oh, I don’t know. I’m gonna give him about a 10.5. What do you think. That was made.
David Blacmon [00:44:05] Him in the Olympics this.
Stuart Turley [00:44:06] Year. Oh no kidding. And he’s even walking away from that bad. Yeah. Holy smokes Tammy that was pretty cool.
Tammy Nemeth [00:44:14] That’s funny.
Stuart Turley [00:44:15] And, David, what do you got coming around the corner?
David Blacmon [00:44:18] Well, I want to. Oh, I want to close by just noting a couple of things about EVs. First, is that the, threat of China’s cheap EVs on the American market is what created the whole bloodbath controversy from President Trump’s remark a few weeks ago. And we all should. Well, take a look back and note how rapidly both the white House and its supporters in the news media dropped that subject because of of the blowback from the public for just exactly how stupid it was. The second thing I want to know is that I saw commercial over the weekend, from Buick. And Buick is introducing in this next model year, a new SUV. And guess what? It’s a gas powered SUV model. This is the first automaker I’ve seen introduce a new line of gas powered cars in several years. You know, because they’re supposed to be phasing all that out. Suddenly, Buick is introducing a new gas powered SUV to the market. I think that’s a very telling sign of what’s to come. The third thing I want to point out to everyone is that, Fisker. Announced on Friday it was cutting the price of its beautiful and their beautiful SUV, called the ocean, by 40% to avoid bankruptcy. In their desperation to avoid bankruptcy. They’re trying to clear their backlog of unsold cars. And so you can buy a car that last week would have cost you $62,000. You can buy it this week for $37,000. The only problem is that the company that made the car could be out of business before it makes the delivery, if you go ahead and buy one. So, I just I just think these these events are moving very rapidly in the whole EV market. And, we’re we’re in for a lot of change on that front as this year goes on.
Stuart Turley [00:46:29] I got to give a hand out to Toyota. You know, Toyota has been leading the what makes common sense to us. And that is, I’m all about a, hybrid. I like the idea of a hybrid technology grade. I pay a little bit more to get the extra, miles per gallon, and. And Toyota is really coming forward, and they’re the anti Tesla if you would. And they’re doing great.
David Blacmon [00:46:59] Yep.
Tammy Nemeth [00:47:01] Can I add one thing I know David had mentioned this on on his energy absurdity last week. But the other issue to be looking forward to is the oil pipeline coming, the the TMX pipeline that the government had to end up buying because, there’s this regulatory.
Irina Slav [00:47:20] Bottleneck.
Tammy Nemeth [00:47:20] No one wanted to keep it. So the government bought the pipeline. The cost has ballooned because the environmentalists have tried to stop it every step of the way, which of course inflated the cost by like, you know, ten times or whatever. So it’s finally almost done. They’re almost ready to start putting oil in there. I think they’re pressurizing the line. And they’re one of the prime markets for this. Oil is California. And this is coming from the oil sands. So all the Hollywood people who protested the Keystone XL pipeline because it would take oil sands oil down to the Gulf Coast to be refined for use either in America, North America, elsewhere, whatever. That was bad. But getting oil sands oil through a pipeline onto a tanker and down to the Port of Los Angeles or wherever it’s going to be refined, that’s okay. Apparently, I’m waiting to see Jane Fonda chain herself to the refinery or something.
Stuart Turley [00:48:24] You know, you can’t buy this kind of fun. And, yeah, I just I think it’s so wonderful that the heads are popping. Papa, Papa, Papa, papa. All over the West coast. I mean, this is something you can’t buy for entertainment.
David Blacmon [00:48:41] Yeah, that story is just priceless. It’s absolutely, positively love.
Stuart Turley [00:48:47] All right, well, with that, if you guys have any, Irina a you’re Irina Slav at, substack.com, is that correct? Yeah. And you’re the Nemeth report on where all podcaster done. Correct. Tammy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:03] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:49:05] All right. And Dave and boy, that was, glad you went all out on that answer. Yep. And then we got David Blackmon and Nesby, Blackmon substack.com. And I am on the energy news beat.com with that. Let’s have a great show and a great week. And we’ll have some more fun next week. Thanks, guys.
Irina Slav [00:49:26] Have a great week.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:28] Thank you. Bye.
Our Podcast Sponsor
