[[{“value”:”
Robert Bryce stops by the Energy News Beat and The Energy Question podcasts to discuss the energy crisis, blackouts, and their causes in Spain. This is a huge warning sign for the grid operators and hopefully a wake-up call. Join Robert, David Blackmon, and Stu Turley as we discuss the financial causes and impacts of this historic blackout.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:01 – Introductions
01:36 – Cause of Spain’s Blackout
03:16 – Media Spin & Denial
05:27 – Pre-Warnings Ignored
08:31 – Comparison to Texas Blackouts
10:32 – Grid Stability Concerns in the US
12:37 – Microgrids and Energy Inequality
15:02 – Media Coverage Shifts
19:22 – Cybersecurity & Grid Hardware
22:00 – Transformer Shortage
25:13 – US Energy Policy & Nuclear Hope
28:16 – Global Nuclear Trends
30:04 – Germany’s Ideological Influence
32:50 – California as a National Risk
39:54 – Oil Demand Reality
41:02 – Nuclear as Only Viable Zero-Carbon Path
42:29 – Manufacturing & LNG Fleet Gaps
45:22 – Nuclear Bipartisanship Required
48:40 – Floating Nuclear as Export Model
53:06 – SMRs: Sizzle vs. Stake
56:27 – Closing Remarks
Stuart Turley [00:00:21] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy Impacts with David Blackmon. My name’s Stu Turley, president, CEO of the Sandstone Group for the Energy Newsbeat Podcast. We have got a joint session of podcaster hosts. We’ve got a great podcast today, Uh, uh, filling in here with Robert Bryce, Robert Bryce is a sub-stat author podcast, guru movie producer, and one of my heroes. How are you today? Robert
Robert Bryce [00:00:54] Uh, you know, Stu, if I does any better, I’d have to be twins. I think is the old line. So yes, all good. My friend.
Stuart Turley [00:01:01] And David, how are you? Are you ready to rumble today?
David Blackmon [00:01:05] Oh man, I’m so happy I can hardly stand to be in the same room with myself.
Stuart Turley [00:01:10] You and Eeyore, I love you, I love Eeyores. And everything that you’ve got going on but we’ve got an important topic and Robert we need your insight on what’s going on on what happened when the lights went out in Spain and your substack article was absolutely phenomenal give us what you think is going on
Robert Bryce [00:01:36] Well, I think it’s pretty simple. And, you know, but before I get to my explanation, let’s recall that the Spanish government, and particularly the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, they are very, they are working hard to, you know, say, oh, it’s don’t blame our solar, don’t-blame-wind. You know, I’m working on another follow-up piece. And, the gist of it is, when in doubt, deny. You know? Oh, no, it is not us. And there is a massive amount of narrative, a massive of money that’s at stake here. To continue this myth that Spain or any other country can rely, you know, make their electric grid rely solely on wind and solar. It’s just not true. So the timing of this is obviously very, it’s completely embarrassing for the Spanish government. And they’re promising a full investigation. Well, come on. They know by now what happened, but they don’t want to talk about it. And the reality is that about almost exactly, what is it, 72 hours ago on Monday? The Spanish grid collapsed because they had a sudden halt in the amount of solar generation that they were counting on. And that tripped a bunch of other, because it’s inverter-based capacity, tripped a bunch other generation offline and you had 55 million people suddenly plunged into darkness. People stranded on trains, on the subways, people walking because the traffic lights weren’t working. It was just utter chaos. So it’s clear. And I think. And David has already written about this, but yes, we can blame solar for Spain’s blackout. No doubt about it, despite all the spin coming from all these, you know, alt-energy proponents and politicians.
David Blackmon [00:03:16] Yeah, Reuters is fully in on the narrative, right? I mean, their headline is…
Robert Bryce [00:03:20] Reuters article, that was, that was a gym.
David Blackmon [00:03:23] Don’t blame renewables for Spain and Portugal blackouts. You get to the second line and it says the second, second sentence in the article says, well, it’s, it’s really due to how, uh, renewables are managed on the Spanish grid. Well, what’s the difference? There’s no difference. I know you pile renewables into a grid, the less stable it becomes, I mean, and harder to manage it becomes. You know, it’s
Robert Bryce [00:03:50] When somehow the grid and somehow the panels aren’t the grid No, it all it’s all of a piece but i’ll but remember even I i’m citing that piece in Reuters because that is just You know just but it’s hilarious because it goes on to say while the drop in an output is quote Unclear a collapse in spain’s solar power system was certainly involved Gee, you think oh man, you must work for Reuters. This is like a steel trap mine for the obvious But then it goes on, the possible contributor, that was the phrase to the collapse was, wait for it, the lack of so-called grid inertia as a result of the relatively small share of nuclear and fossil generation in Spain’s power mix.
David Blackmon [00:04:33] I mean, we knew that Monday afternoon.
Robert Bryce [00:04:36] I know!
David Blackmon [00:04:37] We knew that Monday afternoon at about five o’clock central time. Yeah. So here we are. It’s Thursday and they’re, they’re going to do an investigation. Yeah. They knew Monday night what the problem.
Robert Bryce [00:04:49] Of course.
Stuart Turley [00:04:50] Oh, sorry. Javier put this out on X. We knew this as soon as it was happening. He’s a Bloomberg author, Cool Cat, and he put out 60% what you can’t have a mix like probably R had on his on his X. Solar uh plus or minus 78% of your grid. Physics. And fiscal responsibility on the grid is required. Anything less results in blackouts, and that’s what we had.
Robert Bryce [00:05:27] Well, and he has reported, and so has the Telegraph. And this, to me, is really interesting. And David and I, I’m sure we’ll get to this Ristad report that came out Tuesday morning. But on Tuesday, the Telegraph in Britain reported that, in fact, Red Electrica, which is publicly traded on the Spanish Stock Exchange, warned the National Securities Market Commission, CNMV, in Spain, that here are the key lines. There’s short-term risk of generation, quote, disconnections due to the high penetration of renewables. And there’s more. It says the high penetration of renewable generation without the necessary technical capabilities in place to keep them operating properly in the event of a disturbance can cause power generation outages which could be severe. Yeah. And I mean, this is two months ago. And then of course, David, you know, you and I’ve both written about this. It was only what 10 days ago that they were bragging. Oh, look, we’re getting 100% of our electricity from. Wind and solar and how let’s pat ourselves on the back and now they have this I mean
David Blackmon [00:06:30] I mean, even that was misleading, right? Because they, you know, they were really, they were getting a hundred percent of their own domestic generation from solar and wind, but they’re getting all this electricity coming in from France that’s generated by nuclear, right. Which is what was keeping the inertia on the system. When you had all these non-spinning sources, you know, being the only live generation on the Spanish grid. So the way they communicated that was completely misleading to the public and everyone else.
Robert Bryce [00:07:02] But again, it’s this in service of the narrative. And there’s so much about this now that we see over and over, whether it’s here in the US, with big media outlets refusing to cover anything about land use conflicts, which is something I want to talk about in Spain as well. But this narrative that the future has to be wind and solar, and that because they’re renewable, they’re automatically good. But as my friend Jesse Ossibel has memorably said, wind and solar may be renewable, but they are not green. And so what we’re seeing in Spain now, and again, the other part of the narrative here that’s important is that the Spanish government is now expecting some $60 billion to be spent on Spain’s grid between now and 2030. And remember that it was just last year, Sanchez’s government updated their, what do they call it, the National Energy and Climate Plan that says, it calls for renewables to be making up 81% of the electricity on the Spanish grid by 2030. That’s just in five years. I mean And so there is a lot at stake here that is more than just this blackout. Now, this is about the entire narrative of the socialist led government. And I also just, you know, remind you on Tuesday, not only did he say renewables aren’t to be to blame. Oh, it was the nuclear plants didn’t work very well either, he’s claiming. So not only are they not only they saying, oh, renewables are to blame, they’re crapping all over nuclear. And I just thought, man, you know, this was all about spin now.
David Blackmon [00:08:31] Well, I mean, in every source was dropping off the grid, right? I mean once you lose inertia, they’ve got automatic shutdown processes that are just automated that are going to shut these plants down because if they stay up in a, in a when the, when the grid loses inertia, then they can be damaged, their own hardware is going to be damaged if they don’t shut down. So yes, nuclear dropped off gas dropped off, but that wasn’t the reason for the blackout. That was a by-product of the black out. You know, anyway, it’s, but it’s just like, and I wrote about this this morning, Robert, it’s like the wake of Yuri. Winter storm, Yuri comes into Texas, February 21, freezes up a lot of the gas, freezes all the solar, all the wind. Wind and solar are the first to drop off the system. It causes a crisis in generation supply. Gas drops off because the transportation shuts down. And then coal starts to drop off. It’s a domino effect. And we were two minutes away from losing the whole grid for a month. I mean, literally it was that close. So Texas has implemented all these reforms now to winterize all the gas plants and the transportation system. And they’re continuing to implement new reforms in this session designed to strengthen the grid. But at the same time, We were already overloaded with wind capacity. Now we’re overloading the grid with solar. Over half of our generation capacity in Texas now is wind and solar combined. Now running at 20 to 25% efficiency. So it’s not half the daily generation, but I believe, and I’m getting very concerned that despite the good performance of the grid, the last two winters and summers, we’re gonna end up overloading it just like Spain has done with these renewables. And in a few years. We’re going to be in an unstable situation again in Texas. And I wonder if you share those concerns or am I off base about that?
Robert Bryce [00:10:32] You know, I don’t know, David, I think that their concern is obviously warranted in particular because the amount of new capacity that or new demand that ERCOT is projecting, I mean, some of the numbers they’re talking about are just, you know, almost comical, you know, like what, 50, 60 gigawatts of new demand, I’ve forgotten the exact numbers. 2035, yeah. Yeah, something like that. I mean they’re just very, very large numbers and data centers, you they’re building five gigawatts of data center capacity in Abilene. I’d step back and say, not just in Texas, but I think, and Winter Storm Urey showed this, but I more broadly, the concern that I have for the United States as a whole, the grid as a hole in the continental US, is an over-reliance on natural gas. Now, I’m pro-natural gas, but we, in 24, we set a new record. Last year we set new record 43.3% of all the generation in the US came from natural gas-fired power plants. Well, that’s great on a day like today, May 1st, and it’s sunny and warm, and we’re only using a little bit of gas. But during times of crisis, as we saw in Winter Storm Urie and during Winter Storm Elliott, when the gas grid in New York City almost failed, and that would have been a catastrophic failure. Tens of thousands of people would have died, you would have seen real estate damage, building damages in New York that would have been calculated at tens of billions of dollars. We’re becoming too dependent on gas as a fuel for both electricity and heating. And FERC and NERC have warned about this repeatedly of the overlap between the two systems, but they’re managed separately. So, you know, in terms of an energy security concern, that is one that’s at the top of my list.
David Blackmon [00:12:07] Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. It’s dangerous to become over-reliant on any single power source in an integrated grid. There’s no doubt about that. That’s why I think, frankly, we were probably gonna end up having to build more coal plants in the United States before too much longer. I really do. I think it’s gonna come down to that because of the timelines in nuclear and natural gas. And, you know, I mean, it’s just coal is there, it’s available, and it’s very easy to build one.
Stuart Turley [00:12:37] Huge issue that we’re talking about right now and that is the energy policies of net zero that Secretary Wright has been talking about and and dead on right. David you are phenomenally right and I applaud you and Robert as always you are beyond right. Here’s where it really concerns me and you take a look at microgrid technology as far as in Abilene Texas. That new Stargate data center that’s going in is huge. It has its own natural gas power plant that is going to be dedicated to it and not attaching to the grid. This is bringing in, it would support 90,000 homes for natural gas. So if you’re bringing up your comment on natural gas, too much reliance on natural gass, we’re going to be busting up the grid into those that can afford it and those that can’t afford it. And if you can afford, it you’re going to have your own dedicated microgrid. But what about that supply going to that and how that plays in? This is going to complicate the issue Hugely.
Robert Bryce [00:13:54] I agree and this you know, the ability of big tech to effectively secede from the grid, you know We haven’t seen this before I mean at this Balkanization of the grid and this is gonna be a key issue for FERC and FERC has already been has intervened and talked about some of this with the Amazon’s plan to use I believe it’s Amazon where they were going to use the all the Commandeer all the power commandeer they’re gonna buy all power from Susquehanna So this brings a lot of issues around fairness, around cost sharing. And remember, all of this is happening at the same time in the United States when, not just in Texas, but across the country, there are projections for massive increases in electricity demand. Now, will that materialize? We will see, because do we have, as one woman at NRG put it during Sierra Week, we need more transformers, turbines, and people. And without those, we can’t build this massive amount of capacity. Sora. A lot of things are coming together in the United States, but Europe and this blackout in Spain and, of course, California and Australia also, they provide clear warning signs to the U.S. Don’t do what we’re doing.
David Blackmon [00:15:02] Yeah, GE-Vernova, though, is, you know, we’ve had this problem with backlogging in turbines. Well, GE Vernova is actually ramping up their capability to produce more quickly. One power company, I forget which one, just was able to secure a dozen of them here to be delivered by the end of 2025. So that’s a really good sign in that regard. Back to Spain and Portugal. I forgot what I was going to ask. Oh, so here’s one thing I’ve noticed about the coverage today is, yeah, the Reuters piece was comical, but I also noticed that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are playing the story very straight. They’re obviously not on board with the narrative that we can’t blame renewables or they would already be, you know, going down that road. I mean the Wall Street Journal was among the very worst in the propaganda post jury. And we’re not seeing it from them this time. And neither are we seeing it at the New York Times, at least not yet. So that’s very telling to me. And it’s very, I find it really interesting that the entire media is not out in force with this narrative like they were, you know, after Yuri. I mean, I know you all remember. After Yuri, we were like voices in the wilderness trying to counteract that propaganda. It was unbelievable, the volume.
Robert Bryce [00:16:33] No, I agree, but you also see on Twitter and some of these other places, other outlets, oh, don’t, it’s too early. I mean, I had one guy after I published my piece on Monday, I landed in Washington. I had an event there and speaking engagement and I landed about noon and I got to the hotel and I saw what was happening. I thought, I need to write a piece. And I wrote a piece in about three hours and posted it and followed David, you’d beat me to it. But it was so important to be topical and to be on it right away. And I got an email since kind of nasty gram from some guy I’ve kind of known. Oh well you should wait until the corpse is cold before you make any decisions and all these other ones who are you know claiming oh you’re too quick to make a decision too quick to make judgment well what is the news business for you know oh we’re just supposed to wait oh we just gonna wait and we’re gonna depend on the spanish government to tell us what they think it is no damn it no hell no they’re obviously trying to obscure what it is they’re trying to secure because there’s so much money at stake and This is why… The government doesn’t want to admit what went wrong, even though it’s obvious that they must have very clear understanding of at least an inkling. Well, yeah. And David, you and I saw the Ristad Energy Report that came out on Tuesday morning. And I read it when I was in DC. And I was thinking, ah, here. Now, there’s a really good analysis. And I’ll just read you the key part here. They talk about the system starting to collapse around 1230 noon on Monday. And within minutes, the intense fluctuations led to a complete collapse of the Spanish mainland’s electricity transmission grid. High solar generation also contributed to initial grid fluctuation as solar accounted for around 29% of Spain’s total generation at the time of the event, making the system more sensitive to voltage instability. Last line, France’s nuclear fleet, France’s Nuclear Fleet, however, provided steady baseload generation throughout the event. Giving it the ability to respond swiftly once interconnectors were re-engaged. So, I mean, those few lines, I think, are the best analysis I’ve seen yet. And Ristad doesn’t have any reason to spin this. They’ve got a reason to be very presperative.
David Blackmon [00:18:43] Yeah, I mean, they’re very pro-renewable in an energy transition, you know, they’re not some company that’s, that’s a fossil fuel mouthpiece. They’re, they are very much very balanced with their stuff. So I was really glad to see that analysis. The, uh, one LinkedIn user, I don’t know who this is. It doesn’t identify them as try to provide a link to an FT story. There is an FT Story out there. That’s also very balanced. Um, and then that’s probably what that’s to, I’m not sure. But yeah, the FT has a nice story out with a lot of detail, similar, really similar to Robertson-Rystad’s analysis.
Stuart Turley [00:19:22] One of the things that I’ve seen about all the reporting going on is also the possibility of a cyber attack. And I don’t think this is necessarily a cyberattack, but it brings up the question of the availability of SCADA and equipment in the direction for the EU that they’re going in right now. The Biden administration put back into the United States grid. 490 major grid interconnect components that the Trump administration out and they are allegedly available to be remotely controlled by China, the manufacturer. And as the EU starts going more green and putting more reliance in the trade block with China based off of the new tariffs and stuff, the grid components that the EU and interconnects, energy security starts at home. Robert, what would you tell them, you know, and say, hey, wait a minute, energy security start at home, are the grid interconnects a part of the problem in Europe?
Robert Bryce [00:20:36] Well, you know, it’s an interesting question, you know, and I’m not going to present myself as an expert on the European grid or all the interconnections there. I think what the the the near term issues think if we we can look at I think of Spain and what’s going on there, as well as Australia as well, as California has been and Britain, Germany, you know, these are obvious examples of what not to follow. But as we need more power in the United States, and we’re increasing this, the. Our dependence on the electric grid for a whole lot of things, whether it’s heat pumps or, you know, EVs I think are going to be not a big player necessarily in terms of that new demand. But how do we build it out? And where do we get the transformers? And are we going to have enough people? These are the things that are concerning to me because as I travel, I hear it over and over again. You know, we don’t have enough people. We don’t have enough welders. We have electricians, steam fitters, pipe fitters. We need these skilled trades to build out this capacity. But also, the transformer issue is one that still is going to be one that’s going to be very difficult to solve because we can’t ramp up that capacity for high-power transformers for these pad-mounted transformers, this takes time. And so this may be one of the things that slows the rollout of the expansion of the grid in the United States. I’m observing that and making that as an observation. This is going be one the breaks on this expansion of grid, both here in the U.S. I think, in Europe as well.
David Blackmon [00:22:00] One of the tools the president has available, we saw him use it during COVID, is to declare an emergency and invoke the Defense Production Act, right? Which he could theoretically do where transformers are concerned. The question is gonna be, that basically enables him to clear the way permitting-wise for those kinds of bureaucratic holdups for companies who want to make those things to come here and do it. Are there companies that want to come into the U.S.? And become manufacturers of these kinds of transformers. And I just don’t know if those companies are out there or not.
Robert Bryce [00:22:38] Well, and also, let me be clear, I’m not a Republican, I’m a Democrat, I am disgusted. But these terrorists are throwing a ton of uncertainty into all manufacturing. Yes. Whether it’s copper or steel or in these transformers, goes and knows, grain-oriented electrical steel, non-oriented electric steel, these commodities are key to the production of Transformers. We depend on a lot of imports for those. And look at another part of the energy sector LNG export facilities. Some of those projects are going to be delayed, perhaps even halted, because of the uncertainty of these tariffs, because of of raw materials, steel and aluminum, in particular, that are needed to build them. So this is only adding to the uncertainty in the economy these days. And uh… It’s something that I don’t know, it’s historic as I see it, the amount of uncertainty we’re seeing with Russia, Ukraine, energy supplies into Europe, tariffs, commodity prices, all of this is the falling price of oil, falling price on natural gas. We’re living in interesting times.
David Blackmon [00:23:47] Yeah, so interesting, just aside, I’m interviewing the chief operating officer at Woodside this afternoon about their new LNG facility they’re planning in South Louisiana. I’m going to ask him that question about, you know, their concerns about the tariffs and related to steel and aluminum in particular, and just see if they’re anticipating that being a roadblock to, or at least a delay in construction of that thing. Unfortunately, that won’t be a podcast, so I’ll just have to write about it.
Stuart Turley [00:24:22] You know, Robert, what you you talk about is energy policies. You mentioned in one single breath, critical minerals, manufacturing, everything else. And I feel so comfortable with our pick for Secretary of Energy. Holy smokes, Batman. Chris Wright is absolutely a rock star. Doug Burgum was leading the Secretary of energy and Lee Zeldin. What a trifecta of incredible leaders that we have. This is a huge problem that we need to get in front of and we want to have you in there and have a call with them and try to say, here’s what we do, because Chris Wright, they’re all rock stars in their own right.
Robert Bryce [00:25:13] Well, I’m a big fan of Chris’s, and I’m very pleased about that pick. To me, it’s the one of all of Trump’s picks that I think is just really important. And I would say why, you asked me why, well, he’s a humanist. He’s an energy humanist, and he understands the importance of energy to people fundamentally and how important it is. And I was in Washington, I met with a few people there, some in the administration, some in Senate, and they asked me, well what would you do if you had one priority? For the federal government and for the Trump administration on the energy side. I would say, you know, you’re every oil and gas industry They’re gonna be fine. They’ve always been fine Focus on nuclear power if we need to have federal government involvement in nuclear But that’s a heavy lift and they have to solve not just a couple of things You have to address the capital the capital issue the regulatory issue the fuel supply and the waste and they Have to address all of them I really, if I had one hope for this administration on the energy front, that’s it. I think a lot of these other things are gonna happen, but that nuclear is just gonna need its strong governmental support. And I’ve heard some positive noises, but I’d like to hear more.
Stuart Turley [00:26:23] Well, you know, we only have two authorized new nuclear applications right now in the United States. One’s the Abilene Christian salt, molten salt reactor, and I don’t know what the other one is off the top of my head. We need nuclear badly, but we’re decades away. You had mentioned the natural gas, and if you’re a businessman wanting to know where to put a new power plant for AI. You got to look to the pipelines. In 2024, Texas was the only one in the country that had five new pipelines go in. So it’s either the Marcellus or it’s Texas where you’re going to want to put an AI data center in here. Right now in the United States for natural gas, we have a maximum of planned, operating, and rolling 4,263 megawatts of natural gas. Power plants, but in under construction, pre-construction, and announced is 2,262. That’s a huge growth of natural gas power plants that we’ve got in the United States coming online.
Robert Bryce [00:27:39] Yeah, I agree. And when you look at the maps of where data center capacity is going to be built, the first is Virginia, and particularly around Dulles Airport, I think 30 gigawatts, and Texas is second. One quick point, and I just looked up, so Natura has, NRC has given Natura a construction permit for their project at Abilene Christian, but they don’t have a reactor design permit. You know as I understand there are no projects under there some of these projects are moving dirt and good for them But they still don’t have a design the reactor permit has not been issued
Stuart Turley [00:28:16] Wow, we are behind the curve here.
David Blackmon [00:28:19] Way behind the curve way way behind it. We’re behind Canada on nuclear
Robert Bryce [00:28:25] Yeah, it’s interesting, you know, you mentioned Chris Wright. I think he was in Poland earlier this week because Poland is going to build AP 1000s. I need to double check that. But that’s just.
Stuart Turley [00:28:37] The contract before tuning to Polish American-built reactors. It’s pretty huge.
Robert Bryce [00:28:45] Yeah, yeah. And so that, yeah, they’re going to use here it is, it’s three Westinghouse AP 1000s in northern Poland, schedule for operation beginning in 2033, 2037, 2038. So, you know, to me, that’s really important. And of course, it makes sense that they would do it in Poland, because Poland has a long history with Russia, and all of it’s bad, and they rely on Russian gas for anything. So, but I I think that that… Canada, yes, I think so. But I would bet on Europe, the French Poles, maybe Estonia, those places, because they have natural gas prices are three times what they are here in the US. So I think we’re going to see the deployment of new nuclear in Europe far, far sooner than we will in the U.S. Or even in Canada.
Stuart Turley [00:29:32] What do you guys think?
David Blackmon [00:29:33] Andrew Patterson.
David Blackmon [00:29:36] Well, Andrew Patterson just has a good comment here. The central problem in Europe is the EC pushed by Germany behind the scenes as forced EU members with carrots and sticks over the last decade to install more wind and solar, driven by an ideological policy of more renewables so that Germany could accommodate Green Party factions within eight or ten of their state level government coalitions. Yeah, I don’t doubt that at all. I’m sure that’s exactly right.
Robert Bryce [00:30:04] But the Green Party got their butt kicked in the latest elections, and so I think with AFD, the rise of the AFD and more practical politics in Germany, that could change. Now, I’m not, I have very little sympathy for the Germans. They’ve driven their economy into the dish, You know, but even still, you know, they it seems it appears that energy realism is peeking through the curtain here and that we could see more rational energy policy out of Germany. Britain, I think, is hopeless.
Stuart Turley [00:30:41] Energy Realism, Is it like anything like climate hypocrisy?
Robert Bryce [00:30:43] Energy realism is energy humanism. That’s one of my lines. We need energy realism because energy realism is Energy Humanism. We have to be very real and very clear and sober about our energy and power policies because they affect people and so much of, You know, motivates me is the regressive. Effect that all of these policies have on the poor in the middle class All of these carbon policies screw the poor and the middle-class every one of them and that’s why you see gavin newsom We haven’t talked much about california how quickly gavin newsome is is peddling his bicycle away from all these insane Climate policies. Oh, we should maybe keep those refineries open. Oh gee, I think mr Governor again, whatever would you may why would you ever think that?
Stuart Turley [00:31:37] I just interviewed Mike Umbro and Ronald Stein yesterday before yesterday and they’re now producing it. What a great combo on those two guys. Governor Newsom should be run out of town and just dropped off. He should be put in the Tijuana sewage pit and just letting sower in that.
Robert Bryce [00:31:57] That’s gross!
Stuart Turley [00:31:59] That’s exactly how I feel
Stuart Turley [00:32:02] Ron Stein has made a great point California is now a national security risk based off of Gavin Newsom’s energy policies and Mike Umbrough said that we will see at a baseline based off of these last two refineries closing that we’ll see $8 gasoline at the minimum I mean, this is a minimum. And so this is a national security risk. They’re importing oil from sanctioned countries. They import 75% of their oil from foreign countries. This is a disaster.
Robert Bryce [00:32:50] I don’t know which is worse the Germans or the Brits or the Californians or maybe even the Australians they’re all in a race to prove how you know how what bad energy policy they can implement. I just did a quick search there are 31 million registered motor vehicles in California and what maybe 30 million of them run on gasoline diesel fuel etc. You know so again And these practical politics are eventually going to, you know, intrude. But there’s these ideological hurdles. And I think I would say here in the US, the Democratic Party is gonna have to get, I think ahead about 28, why Gavin Newsom is doing all this, he wants to run for president. Yes. But the Democratic party, and I say this not as a partisan statement, they have their head so far up their arse when it comes to energy policy. I don’t think they’re electable because any Republican running against them will say, well, look what they’re doing. They wanna raise your energy prices.
David Blackmon [00:33:45] And the other thing about california people need to understand when those those gas prices go up to eight dollars that means diesels eight or nine dollars and seventy percent of the imported goods and including food and clothes and everything you buy in any store come into the ports of long beach in los angeles and then all those big trucks and trains that run on diesel have to pay those fuel prices in californian to take that stuff off the ships into the interior of the country, so it raises prices. For everybody in the whole country when California goes this way. And it’s why it’s a national security problem because it’s an energy security problem.
Stuart Turley [00:34:25] And they’re the largest use of jet fuel that Ronald Stein was pointing out. And it’s just unbelievable the amount of, they’re in the fifth world, California is the fifth largest economy in the world if compared by its own. And when you sit back and take a look at it, if you’re going to fix inflation, you’ve got to fix California. And I don’t know that we can do that without getting the election integrity fixed in California.
Robert Bryce [00:34:56] Yeah, I’d rather talk about something that’s optimistic. I think California is going to be just that. I mean, I say that with no joy. I mean it’s just the vast bureaucracy in California. Remember, all these EV mandates and the rest of it, they weren’t passed by the California Assembly. They were passed by by the bureaucracy. And that is the other part of this. And I think that if we zoom out from California and their EV mandates and whether Congress is going you know, override some of these. The way the federal government has deferred to California over the past few decades on policy. I think the question is, how is, to what extent will the federal then big foot these net zero policies at the state and local levels? Because that’s the other big political issue that is gonna have to be dealt with in the near term and over the long term in terms of climate policy in the US.
Stuart Turley [00:35:51] I’m sorry guys, I’m just rifling through some of these and David, as you see some of these comments in here, please bring them up. These are fantastic comments from folks.
David Blackmon [00:36:05] I love this from Patrick Devine, all the rational people leaving California pretty much only the Newsom groupies are still there. They’re a big part of it, yes.
Robert Bryce [00:36:19] And they’re moving to Austin, and that’s the problem, is that they’re moving to Texas and they’re bringing their politics with them, but.
Stuart Turley [00:36:28] Let’s not get into that one because speaking of horrific, I’ve got a video of the Republican-led Congress trying to write state policies now. So hang on, let’s just watch this little bit of a video here. This is Republican leadership in the Texas Congress. That is our government. This. I mean, when you sit back and think, people have moved into Austin, and this is what happened. If you get this far from here, you want to grab yourself a hammer? Now watch this, watch this.
Stuart Turley [00:37:46] This is me doing it,
Stuart Turley [00:37:54] If you’re moving to the great state of Texas, please leave your voting policy at the door. Do not bring it with you.
Robert Bryce [00:38:08] That’s that’s pretty funny. It’s almost it’s almost too painful to watch. Honestly, it’s like, oh, yeah, I’ve done too many of these things myself.
Stuart Turley [00:38:17] Net zero is a wealth transfer and solar energy policies based off of net zero.
Robert Bryce [00:38:28] Yeah And so i’m looking i’m just looking up back to california here for just a minute So I just pulled up the uh, this is the californian department of tax and fee administration, which I didn’t know there was such a thing but anyway, that’s where you get the fuel statistics and the the motor fuel This is the motor-fuel uh Net net taxable gasoline gallons including aviation gasoline So it’s been effectively flat since 2021 at about 13.4 billion gallons a year. So, you know, the reality is, you know, people love to hate oil and gas companies, but the economy runs on refined oil products. It’s just that you cannot deny that. And without a guy I knew he was in the in the railroad business a long time ago, he said, without transportation, there’s no commerce. Well, without oil, there’s not transportation. So if there’s oil, there is no And so, you know, it was just this you know, this is the reality that we’re facing. And it brings me back to, if I don’t indulge me just a second, takes me back to Spain where they’re crowing about all this renewable electricity and the rest of it. Well, what about oil? Their conception of oil continues a pace. What are you gonna do about that? So there’s just this myopia around fixation on solar and wind as these, you know end points for decarbonization when they’re really only a small part of the overall story.
David Blackmon [00:39:54] Very much so, yeah, yeah. And of course in the United States, a much bigger part of the story has been natural gas displacing coal, but now we’re on, as you mentioned, we’re the verge of becoming too over-reliant on natural gas. And that’s why we really do have this need in the united states to speed up the development of these modular nuclear reactors and nuclear in general. If you wanna get to zero, zero carbon energy, you’re gonna have to do nuclear. You’re just gonna have to. And I’m sorry, but that’s the way it’s going to be that the solutions we’re trying to subsidize into being right now are not viable. They’re not, they don’t comport with the laws of physics, okay, on a power grid. You can’t displace base load capacity with wind and solar, just can’t. You can do it to some extent, but you’re just not gonna get to zero. And… You know, even with nuclear, you’re probably not going to ever get to zero, but you can cut emissions pretty dramatically.
Stuart Turley [00:41:02] What do you see happening about the manufacturing capabilities coming around the corner with President Trump’s tariffs on shoring our new manufacturing? We lost what, 90,000 manufacturing shops in the United States, whatever the number was. It was an astronomical huge number. I believe it was 90,00 manufacturing shops we lost in the united states. Do you see those coming back in? Because shipbuilding is a huge part of this, because we can’t, Qatar has 70 LNG tankers, Japan has 30, there’s just a huge LNG. Secretary Chris Wright just said, we are gonna have LNG as our biggest national exporter and offsetter of the trade deficit. But we can guarantee, supplies because we don’t have a fleet. We have one LNG tanker flagged under the United States that holds about this much LNG. It can’t even make it to Hawaii. And so where do you see us going and getting all these manufacturing jobs back in? Because transportation may be commerce, but we got to have manufacturing which is reliant on natural gas, coal, and low-cost energy.
David Blackmon [00:42:29] Well, there’s no doubt that’s a big focus area for the administration, but it’s an enormous aircraft carrier to try to turn around in the middle of the ocean, you know. We’ve been shipping off our manufacturing facilities and jobs for 45 years. I mean, really since the late 70s, early 80s is when that, and it was a conscious decision by two different administrations, Carter and Reagan administrations to go down that road. And really, it all started in the Nixon years with the opening to China. And to bring it all back, you know, it means, it just means, God, I mean, billions and billions of dollars in new investments. It takes time. It takes a lot of people, a lot training of people to be capable of doing the jobs that are necessary. And you know it’s a years long project and the problem is we’re gonna have an election in 2028 and you might elect another Democrat and then it all stops.
Robert Bryce [00:43:27] Yeah, and this is one of the challenges, the key challenges for nuclear. And there was a comment that came up just a minute ago about the need for SMRs and nuclear. And I completely agree that we need that policy imperative, but we need a bipartisan approach to nuclear. And so a long time ago, I was in a guy I knew who worked at the Department of Energy at that time. His name is Vic Reese. And he said, well, the problem with nuclear is that you need you need stronger. You need strong government support. And you need it sustained, and the problem is that Republicans are pro-nuclear and anti-government, and Democrats are anti-nuclear and pro-governmental, because Democrats are nuclear and pro government involvement in that sector. And that’s going to be very difficult to make happen just because the party divide and the Democratic party, again, not saying this is a partisan observation, they’ve anti-nuclear system in the 1970s. And so, you know, they’ve had one positive mention in their party platform about nuclear since 1972, and that was in 2020. Not a single mention in the latest one in 2024. And none of the Democratic Party candidates talked about nuclear, I think with the exception of maybe what’s Senator Booker from New Jersey. But, you now, that is gonna be one of the key challenges here. And now, let me just say one other quick thing about this, there’s litigation now that’s pending. Texas is one of the lead plaintiffs against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, claiming that the NRC doesn’t have regulatory jurisdiction over nuclear power and nuclear power development. Now that could be really fascinating if you take away that regulatory oversight from Washington on the reactor design thing. That could be a game changer. There are a lot of things that have to happen there, but I’m absolutely bullish on long-term prospects for nuclear, but we have to get off the dime.
David Blackmon [00:45:22] I want to address one thing, Andrew Patterson comments. He says, not true, enough DEMs are sold on nuclear. The advance act passed with 8812 in the Senate, and that’s true. That’s true, I mean, there were enough Democrat senators to create that vote, but their party’s voter base still remains very anti-nuclear. And that’s going to be the real motivation in elections. So it’s going drive the party’s policy for years to come. But I was happy to see that vote in the Senate.
Robert Bryce [00:45:50] And that’s a fair point. But there’s a difference between saying we like it and then appropriating $3 or $4 billion for uranium enrichment, which is one of the next key points. And remember, last year, the Barrasso bill, it begins a prohibition on the importation of Russian nuclear fuel beginning in 2027. Well, we get about 25% of our nuclear fuel from the Russians. And it’s so unnecessary. We got uranium all over this country. The Canadians have uranium, the Australians have uranium. We can import the raw material and process it here and enrich it here. But again, this takes bipartisan, decadal support, pro-nuclear decadals support, and that we have to accept the need for nuclear policy as a national champion. We’re going to have to pick designs and companies that we like that have the right design and say, this is the one we’re going to develop and deploy, because this is one area of energy policy. You can’t just say, well, we’ll let the market decide. Well, no, you can’t just tell Bechtel or whoever, oh, go ahead, we trust you. No, it’s going to take robust government involvement on the enrichment side, particularly on the waste handling side.
Stuart Turley [00:47:04] One of the, this brings up energy as a service. And when Secretary Chris Wright was asked by President Trump while negotiations for the Ukraine-Russian war are going on, he says, Secretary Wright, would you mind managing a Russian nuclear power plant in Ukraine? And Secretary Wright goes, sure. I’ll be glad to. Hats off to him. I can’t read Russian. I can barely do a Putin imitation. Hey, you know, I can even do that. But we’re willing to go ahead and sit back and take a look. I think energy as an export service and these exporting these Westinghouses is critical if we exported clean coal technology and we looked at how many Coal plants are around the world. But let’s put scrubbers on them. Let’s put our clean, clean coal technology. Let’s putting exporting of nuclear reactors out. We’ve got how many nuclear naval ships running successfully for all these years. Our U.S. Military could put ship building and roll, I’m just hairballing this out here. But if you put nuclear reactors in ships owned by the U.S. Government and U. S. Military and modernize it with our merchant Marines and put Marines on those ships and sell those ships with a contract, that’s a business model.
Robert Bryce [00:48:40] Well, and Ross Adam is already doing that. They deployed a nuclear barge in Pivik in Siberia. It’s already there and working.
Stuart Turley [00:48:48] They have six nuclear reactor icebreakers that are in beautiful shape and have been running for 15 years, but is that energy as a service is a really cool business model that I think the Trump administration, as long as you protect those nuclear reactors with the US merchant marines and buckle it down and ownership is in that because that’s what it’s going to take to lower emissions around the world. Because we can’t guarantee the supplies for the biggest Trump card that’s out there for managing our exports is LNG. Anybody could sanction the tanker fleet against us. Oh, oops, we’ve got a gigantic playbook problem here, guys. And that’s what I’m trying to at least bring the discussion point forward for this administration. They’re already working on the shipbuilding fleet. They’re already way three steps ahead of us, but I’m not hearing this as an open discussion out in the public. Does that make sense?
David Blackmon [00:49:54] Is nuclear technology advanced enough that states could take over regulation of them? I’m not sure I would want the TCEQ permitting nuclear plants in Texas. That’s just how
Stuart Turley [00:50:08] you want Hawaii
David Blackmon [00:50:12] Yeah, Hawaii, no, I don’t think.
Robert Bryce [00:50:13] Yeah and and that’s where this litigation really does open potentially a big can of worms in terms of that oversight and regulatory authority who’s going to do it. Let me just follow up on one of the points that Stuart made regarding the you know power ships and I think this is a very powerful it’s a very powerful robust idea and I’ve seen power ships at work myself I was in Beirut when we were working on our first documentary Juice How Electricity Explains the and these were power ships that were owned by the Turks. And they were deployed off the coast of Lebanon and were providing two to 400 megawatts, I think, but they were running on dirty fuel oil. So they were highly polluting. But you replace that, the power plant of big reciprocating engines running on dirt fuel and you replace them with nuclear reactors, that’s a really important concept and one that could be deployed. Remember, the world’s population is heavily concentrated on the coast. So… The Ross Adam has already done it. They proved the concept with this The project in in Siberia. I forgot the name of the ship, but it’s in Peevec is the is the city You know getting nuclear power ships and deploying them I mean it’s and and there are companies that are pursuing them Thorcon my a friend of mine is working with with Thorcon and just part of Thorcon And that’s one of their ideas and they’re working with the Indonesian government Bob Hargraves Robert Hargrave’s It’s a very sound idea. It has a potential commercial market that’s enormous. And the US, you’re right, I think could help lead that. But we’ve got to get off the dime. And I think what we’re seeing now is more support in general for nuclear power around the world in the West. And the U.S., as you said, Stu, we could lead or we can follow. And I we have the ability to lead, You know, there’s a lot of competition in this market. 51 companies now, according to my count, are now trying to market SMR. So somebody’s gotta prevail and get building the damn things.
David Blackmon [00:52:14] Yeah, we’ve got to get a model approved and get going.
Robert Bryce [00:52:16] Yeah,.
Stuart Turley [00:52:17] Yeah.
Robert Bryce [00:52:17] That’s scale.
David Blackmon [00:52:19] That’s scale, yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:52:20] At scale, I interviewed Jay Yu, the founder of Nano Nuclear Technology, and he’s a cool cat. I like the way that they’re going with their models and their but they’re, they’re up against the gun trying to get to the point of like you say, getting them done. I also interviewed the direct the CEO or the founder up Copenhagen Atomics on his thorium reactors on his modular reactors. Very great. His goal was by the end of this year to be able to start mass producing them in semi-sized reactors for exporting in controlled environments. That is where we need to get to.
Robert Bryce [00:53:06] I completely agree, but I’m just you know, I’m a reporter of my whole career. I’ve never had a real job I’ve seen press releases and I see pressure. I’m, just I drown in press releases on every day Nuclear technology. Oh, we’ve got a new idea, you know Okay, you, know I’m I love your press release build the damn things and get we get with it But is it the chicken is at the egg. Where are you gonna get the fuel? Do you need HALU do you need low-enriched uranium from where you know where are you going to source it? Who’s going to be the off taker, you know, and We’ve seen the data center boom result in a similar boom on different publicly traded SMRs, right? Like Oklo and New Scale. Their stock prices have shot up because of that promise. But I wonder how much is sizzle and how much has really staked here? We have to build and deploy. And also just this week, I think it was China announced they’re gonna build, they’ve added another 10 reactors to their queue of new nuclear reactors. The Chinese are getting our are very serious They’re building more nuclear capacity than any other country in the world More than half of all the nuclear capacity on the planet is being built in China Well, do we really want to see that technological lead to the Chinese particularly now? I don’t think we do
David Blackmon [00:54:23] think that’s right. But, you know, it goes to the continuity of government, right? China can do 20 year plans because the voters don’t have a say in it. America can’t necessarily do that because again, we may have a complete changeover in administrations again in just four years. And so it just makes it really hard for us to keep up in this particular part of societal development. democracy
Robert Bryce [00:54:48] That democracy is just a real problem, Blackmon. It’s a real It’s just getting in the way of…
David Blackmon [00:54:53] It’s the cheapest delivery
Stuart Turley [00:54:56] Can’t survive a midterm. You know, you sit back and think about the midterm and then they robbed the strategic oil reserve and now it’s going to be decimated. I saw a report that there’s a lot of them that have been possibly damaged, that it’s gonna take years to undo the damage from the Biden administration. We’ve got about two minutes. Robert, how do people find you?
Robert Bryce [00:55:21] Well, I’m easy to find on the Google. As you mentioned earlier, I am on Substack. My handle there is RobertBryce.substack.com. That’s where I’m writing almost exclusively these days. I did have a piece in the New York Post a couple weeks ago. But I love Substack, and I know David’s on Substack. And it’s just an amazing platform to be able to write what I want, when I want how I want with the graphics I want. I find it just incredibly powerful. And now in my decrepitude here that I can. Have that freedom to publish as I like. But I’ve done two documentaries, JuiceTheSeries.com, JuiceTheMovie.com. Our docu-series, Tyson Culver directed, five-part docu series, each is about 20 minutes long. JuiceThe Series.com We’ve had over three million views on that on YouTube. It’s free. And what else do I do? Oh yeah, I do a little public speaking and I was a podcaster. I gave up the podcast is not as energetic as you guys. But yeah, I’m incredibly lucky to do what I do. That’s my what I do. It’s my purpose and my passion. I love this stuff and I know you all do as well.
David Blackmon [00:56:27] We do, absolutely. Yeah, well, I’m at Substack, too, but I want to endorse Robert’s video series, that 20-minute videos. It’s fantastic. One of the best documentaries on energy you’re ever going to watch. Go watch it. Juice, the series. I’m DavidBlackmon.substack. Come see me. Would love to see you over there.
Stuart Turley [00:56:50] And I’m at energynewsbeat.co we got about 100,000 people a day on the site right now. And we’ve got entered the energynewsbeat.substack Robert guys, we are going to be over 18.5 million transcripts of my podcast read this year. We’re on track to bust through a lot of readers, 2 million downloads this year, we’re on track to bus through that probably the 2.4 million on the on the podcast. So. It’s great guests that make the huge difference because I’m too stupid to think of this on my own.
Robert Bryce [00:57:27] But you’re but look at that handsome face though you you know you make up for it with that that magnitude of your pokertude there
David Blackmon [00:57:35] I just want to close by agreeing with Patrick Devine. This was a great discussion. Thank you, Robert.
Robert Bryce [00:57:42] It’s my pleasure, gentlemen, and let us all be thankful that we don’t live in Spain.
David Blackmon [00:57:49] Exactly. I was there six months ago. I’m glad I wasn’t there Monday.
Stuart Turley [00:57:54] Hey, Robert, you know, you’re you’ve got a backup generator at your house. I doubled it and I’ve got two. So I’ll see I’ll see you and raise you a generator.
Robert Bryce [00:58:05] Can I tell the quick story about how my wife and I agreed on this? We were blacked out during winter storm Uri and last year I met a guy I liked. He was a contractor and he had a deal with Jenarac and he’s installs him. That’s his business. And so he gave me a pretty good price. It was like $15,000, 22 kilowatt Jenarach and all in. He gave me a deal and so I went to my wife Lauren. We’re going to be married 39 years in June. And I said, well, darling, I kind of want to get this. I think I do want to give this back up generator. And she says, well how much is it? I said $15,000. She said, I don’t want to spend $15000 on a stupid ass generator. Why don’t we spend that and we could go to Europe. We could do something else. I said yeah, I agree with you, darling. You know, I love you. OK, yeah, yeah. And then she says but if we have a blackout and we don’t have the generac, you’re going to blame me. So now we have generac. That’s how marriage works.
Stuart Turley [00:59:04] I will learn how you did that, but that’s why I have two.
Robert Bryce [00:59:12] Nice. Exactly. All right. We’ll see you guys. That’s funny.
David Blackmon [00:59:15] All right, thanks, everybody. All right.
Robert Bryce [00:59:19] Ciao!
The post Why the Lights Went Out in Spain, Portugal and France appeared first on Energy News Beat.
“}]]
Energy News Beat