[[{“value”:”
Irina Slav
International Author writing about energy, mining, and geopolitical issues. Bulgaria
David Blackmon
Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.
Tammy Nemeth
Energy Consulting Specialist
Stuart Turley
President, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host
Climate Policies
Stuart Turley [00:00:13] All right, We’re here.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:15] We’re here. Hello, everybody. Good day to David Blackmon in Texas. David, how are you today?
David Blackmon [00:00:22] I’m just wonderful everywhere except LinkedIn, where I’ve been banned, apparently. This week.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:28] Gosh. My gosh. I can’t wait to hear more about it.
David Blackmon [00:00:31] No idea why.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:33] Good morning or good afternoon, Irina. How are you today?
Irina Slav [00:00:36] I’m great, thank you. It’s the first day of school. It’s one of the first real days of olds and some really, really happy. There’s finally my kind of weather. Yeah. I’m sorry if I disappoint anyone, but Autumn is really normal this year.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:53] Excellent. Excellent. And we. We’ve got Stu Turley here today. Where are you today, Stu?
Stuart Turley [00:01:03] I’m still in an undisclosed location up here in Oklahoma. So you got a load?
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:08] Awesome.
Stuart Turley [00:01:09] All right.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:11] And I’m Tammy Nemeth, and I’m in an undisclosed location in Canada. And next week, I’ll be back in the UK. I don’t know what I’m going to be coming back to, but. My gosh. We have lots to talk about today, about climate policies, energy policies, and welcome to the energy realities. Okay. So today, let’s go straight to David. David, what do you have to say about climate policies that are getting you bad on LinkedIn?
David Blackmon [00:01:41] Well, you know, it’s just amazing to me. I posted a video out there yesterday of some climate pro just stop all protesters over in Europe somewhere, almost getting run over by a BMW. Guy got mad and tried to drive away and it was in Italy. That’s right. And, you know, the thing was going pretty viral. So I assume someone complained to the people at LinkedIn about it and they’ve suspended me. I’m supposed to get an answer from them within 24 to 48 hours. I kind of doubt that they’re going to get back to me. So I’m going to have to figure out the problem when this happens to you is, is that there’s no one to contact, right? I mean, they don’t have any real customer support and you can’t call anyone and I can’t log in, so I can’t get in touch with my body through LinkedIn. So I don’t even know how to contact anyone. So to all my friends on LinkedIn who are watching this, complain to them about this, okay, on my behalf, because I can’t contact anybody, so I need help anyway on climate policy. Obviously, everything that’s happening right now in this energy transition is driven by climate policy. I mean, and it’s it’s it’s all forced. This transition is forced. The only people who really want to do any of it are the rent seekers who are trying to get rich off the government subsidies. And many of them are mounting corporations that do not have sound business models. We’ve had dozens, maybe hundreds of bankruptcies already declared in the United States from companies like these. And there will be dozens, if not hundreds more Because of this. The same thing is happening in Europe. It’s all over the Western world. There’s no reason to be doing this. It’s nonsense. Everyone knows it’s nonsense. But, you know, a lot of people are going to get rich doing all this stuff. So and it’s all driven by climate policy. And frankly, you know, I think we have a problem in the United States with this upcoming elections integrity, largely driven by the zeal to protect the climate subsidies that are in effect right now because there’s trillions of dollars at stake. And that’s a that’s a powerful motivator. So I’m very concerned about the integrity of this upcoming election. And it’s mainly due to to the climate alarm industry and how how fervent it is in its beliefs. And so, you know, I just think for the time being, everything’s going to be driven in the energy space by these climate policies, the subsidies that were put in place by the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill. And for the next 5 or 6 years, that’s what’s going to be driving investment in the energy space in the United States.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:34] Right. That sort of distorted investment because the government is putting so much on one side of the scale not letting companies do what they need to do. Iryna, what do you think is going on in Europe? I mean, Ursula von der Leyen’s trying to put together whatever her team is. I heard Teri Breton.
David Blackmon [00:04:54] Really? I didn’t hear that. Wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:57] yeah, She’s mad. She’s still be in the back.
Irina Slav [00:05:02] Yeah. Threaten X and Elon Musk. And he didn’t consult anybody when he did. What happened? He outlined policies that I think we’re going to get more of the same. I mean, she had she has said as much regardless of big energy geopolitics. She’s not going to change anything unless somebody makes her change it. And I don’t see this happening. But seeing as the UK just postponed its ban on internal combustion engine cars, sort of sort of is going to allow hybrid cars. It was it is a headline from the Telegraph. I think we’re in for some reconsiderations of these plans they have in place because these plans are not going to materialize. Just recently, the Greek prime minister sent a letter to the commission. Telling them that there’s basically deficits of electricity in southeastern Europe. And what is the European Union going to do about it? Because they assumed that the Ukraine will keep exporting electricity to the European Union at the rates before 2020, which is hilarious as far as assumptions go. And I even remember one of our former prime ministers, his government lasted about nine months or something. He was actually very proud of himself because he struck a deal with Zelensky to have even more Ukrainian electricity going to Blugaria.
Tammy Nemeth [00:06:44] My gosh.
Irina Slav [00:06:44] And that’s.
David Blackmon [00:06:45] Not. About a reliable supplier.
Irina Slav [00:06:48] Yeah. And instead, this is actually pretty serious because we are exporting electricity and there’s not enough for us.
Stuart Turley [00:06:59] Wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:07:01] My. Gosh.
Irina Slav [00:07:02] What happened? You know, I remember back in I think it was 2022 or 2023, Norway was exporting so much gas and electricity to the European Union that it had to raise prices, lower wages. Yeah. Which is not the way to go. So is this what we’ve been talking about for a very long time? Really? Because they don’t politicians, that is because they don’t plan well. They will start running into walls of reality one after the other. I think this is what we’re going to see.
Tammy Nemeth [00:07:40] So, Irina, is that because of the interconnectors that Bulgaria has commitments to be exporting and therefore they can’t keep it for their own your own internal use? Is that why.
Irina Slav [00:07:51] We do have commitments that I think all of the countries in the region have certain commitments. But now that these exports from the Ukraine are gone. The situation I understand from this letter by the Greek prime minister is becoming dire. And actually, he’s urging for more interconnectors, for a more interconnected grid in Europe, which to me is pure madness, because when you have these interconnectors, you have commitments. And if you’re generating utilities that don’t have the capacity to satisfy the domestic market and fulfill their export obligations, we have a crisis. And a lot of them have a label. Yeah, I don’t think the answer to Europe’s great security is more interconnectors. I mean, look at Germany. Germany would be sucking in electricity from everyone if it could.
Tammy Nemeth [00:08:54] If it could for sure. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:08:57] Like California in the United States is doing anyway.
Tammy Nemeth [00:09:00] Exactly. Because California just sucks it in from all over. They won’t permit any other natural gas power plants or, you know, for their own domestic production. And instead they’re just sucking it out of everybody else. And honestly, that’s what the the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has been telling the western Canadian provinces that don’t have a lot of hydro. They’re like, he said, just build more interconnectors. You can get your electricity from Quebec. It’s like Quebec doesn’t even have enough for itself and for the stuff that it’s exporting right now. And then you would have to build these massive power lines. How many thousands of kilometers that connect Quebec to Saskatchewan, for example? So instead, they’re promoting these North-South interconnectors so that the Scotland won’t use its own coal, but will get coal power or natural gas power from North Dakota. I mean, it makes makes no sense. But in their little climate calculus, apparently that’s okay as long as it’s not within your boundaries. So, Stu, what’s your take on the different climate and energy policies that are confronting us in the energy reality space?
Stuart Turley [00:10:14] That’s a very good question, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to answer that, but let me go ahead and make a stab at it here. This is from an and I. I love this. He put this out on Twitter this morning. For our podcast listeners, I just want to read this one post from him. Quote, Fossil fuels share of total energy supply in 1973 was 87%. After spending trillions of dollars to reduce dependance on fossil fuels over 50 years. Global dependance on fossil fuels in 2022 was about 82%. Here’s the shocker. It increased in 2023 to 83.8%. So the Green New Deal is a wealth transfer program. And there’s two other things that really get me worked up when poor countries go to their jobs. We’ll talk about this later. But when poor countries go to the European Union or the international banks, they borrow money for renewable projects, which drives the price up to electricity for poor countries that can’t afford it. So therefore, they can make the wealthy countries more wealthy and the poorer countries more poorer. So it just drives me nuts.
Tammy Nemeth [00:11:44] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:11:45] That’s the whole project in a nutshell, though, isn’t it?
Stuart Turley [00:11:48] How was that answer?
Irina Slav [00:11:50] But I was thinking if interconnectors are so hot right now, what happens with green that is increasingly dependent on wind and solar? Because, you know, it’s all about that. Choosing it as a solution to the intermittency problem. That’s when solar generates at peak capacity. The excess could be fed into the grid and exported. But it’s everywhere. This drought in demand.
Tammy Nemeth [00:12:19] Exactly.
Irina Slav [00:12:20] It’s in one place. It’s not like in Bulgaria. We don’t use electricity around, not so much. But in Greece they use a lot of electricity at noon. Yeah, the dogs are pretty much I think I haven’t I haven’t seen any statistics, but based on what I know about people’s daily lives in general, it’s pretty consistent across geographies.
Tammy Nemeth [00:12:45] Yeah. No, and especially when you’re interconnectors are within similar time zones. Right? So then it’s.
Irina Slav [00:12:52] Exactly.
Tammy Nemeth [00:12:52] You’re going to be the same.
Irina Slav [00:12:55] As the Canada.
Tammy Nemeth [00:12:56] Yeah, right. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:12:57] Okay, good. I’ve got a great analogy to this related to winter storm Uri in Texas three years ago where, you know, we lost 300 lives in Texas because our grid blacked out for a week, basically. And and in the wake of all that, the apologists for renewable energy were saying, well, you know, the solution for the Texas grid is to interconnect and all these regional grids that that in neighboring states. Right. Yeah. Well think about it. And winter storm Uri, all the neighboring states were frozen to Texas. I mean, it didn’t just come down to Texas and freeze Texas. Arkansas was frozen. Louisiana was frozen. Oklahoma’s frozen. New Mexico was frozen. What the hell good would have done for us to have interconnectors into those other grids? I mean, they were down, too. So it’s just it’s it’s idiotic, but it’s it’s a narrative these apologists for renewable energy bring up when the when they are specifically identified as the proximate cause of a disaster, which they were during winter storm Uri as much as the media tried to ignore it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:03] Well, what I like. I know everything is going to talk about what her news article later, but I just want to kind of bring it in a little bit where it was about the case of Australia and they have all this renewable energy that they have to curtail. And the one guy was kind of lamenting, gosh, you know, we’re wasting it’s not very efficient. We’re wasting so much energy because we have to dump it. There’s not enough demand when we have all this production. And if only we could get rid of all this coal, it would be okay. And I think I will build all these batteries. And so then they have a little photo of some some industrial scale batteries. But where’s the efficiency in that? Because even if you have all those batteries, they discharge for the demand at any given point very quickly that you would need fields and fields of batteries supposedly to take in all that excess energy from wind and solar that you don’t want to waste. But then when you need it, it only lasts like five minutes. So it’s it’s not a solution. But it was quite funny to see it. Well, you know, it’s not very efficient. No kidding. No kidding. It’s not efficient. Thank you for waking up to that. But then the solution isn’t more of something that’s inefficient. But I also want to just bring in here. I think it was around 2014, 2015, the Chinese government was pitching the idea to the U.N. of an ultra high voltage inter global interconnection. That they would they would have all of these mega interconnects through across the ocean, whatever.
Stuart Turley [00:15:40] So something else grabbed the Biden people to tear up.
David Blackmon [00:15:45] What would be the line loss percentage on exact voltage line that goes from San Francisco to Tokyo, a 100.
Tammy Nemeth [00:15:54] Year high. It’s too high.
David Blackmon [00:15:56] So it would only be near 98%, I guess. Okay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:00] Yeah, I mean, that’s ridiculous. But they had Steven Chu, the former secretary of energy, was part of this this team, and they kind of fell off the radar a little bit. But they were holding conferences in Vancouver and all over the place trying to get buy in from the different sort of electricity operators and whatnot around the world. And I think they were. Nothing really came of it. But I don’t know if there’s still that’s in the back of their mind is that we can have this global grid. And so at any given time, everything could be balanced out.
Stuart Turley [00:16:35] Don’t be.
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:35] Surprised at.
Stuart Turley [00:16:37] Any government to have a a a global interconnect system. In fact, the UK is absolutely nuts. I can say this to me because I’m sitting in either Texas and Oklahoma and it it is nuts that they’re that dependent on interconnects. Yeah, because you cannot trust other countries in the United States. We can’t even trust our own government.
David Blackmon [00:17:05] No, we.
Tammy Nemeth [00:17:06] Can’t. Neighbors. I mean, wow. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:17:09] No, but the Chinese like to do these super high voltage lines because they were building their utility scale wind and solar in locations far away from the population centers. Yeah, I’m writing about this a few years ago. Quite a few years ago, come to think of it. Yeah. And if all these could solve the containment problem. Last time heard there was still good sailing. A lot. Well, apparently even stupid high voltage transmission lines are not an optimal solution.
Tammy Nemeth [00:17:45] Exactly. And, you know, at least the Chinese are trying and they’re, you know, setting the lesson for everybody else, which we should learn and not emulate. And I think this is the problem as we see what’s going on in Germany. It’s a basket case. And every other countries like, that won’t happen here, let’s do it anyway.
David Blackmon [00:18:04] I mean.California’s. California’s. It is based based on the German grid. California has copied every mistake the German government has made on energy. And that’s why. Global Basket case.
Stuart Turley [00:18:17] Do you remember the Moore’s Law? Moore’s Law at Intel? Morgan Moore was one of the founders of Intel. And he put out there and said every two years, the number of the transistors will double in the Intel processors. And that law still has been holding on for all this time. And so that’s what the green activists want out of their policies. Is that kind of wrong? Well, I’ve come up with another one in that article that you want me to work on and I’m working on as part of this law. I’m not going to call it Turley’s law because that would mean that I think I’m actually a legend in my own mind. But what we’re seeing is the more governments force themselves to go renewable, the more fossil fuels we use. It is a very simple formula. The more stupidity in rehab and policies, the worse it is. It’s unbelievable.
David Blackmon [00:19:17] So, you know, I did an interview.
Stuart Turley [00:19:19] 18 months. Thank you, Tom.
David Blackmon [00:19:22] Yeah, I did an interview last Friday, I guess it was on NTD News in which I told the anchor that what’s happening to us and I think it’s a really viable point that we all should be making is we’re being forced to fund two power grids now in the United States and in Europe, where we’re being forced to fund this virtue signaling grid made up of wind and solar and the batteries that have a three hour cycle time and don’t really give you much benefit. Right. And then at the same time, for every gigawatt of of of generation they put in this virtue signaling grid, we have to add a full gigawatt of backup capacity, either natural gas, coal or nuclear. So we’re having to fund that, too. So we’re funding two different power grids, a virtue signaling grid and a reliability power grid. Right to keep the light actually keep the lights on. And this is not a sustainable model, and it’s going to bankrupt our countries if we don’t stop it soon because we can’t afford this. We’re all funding all of this with additional national debt. And and the United States this year is going to spend $1.2 trillion on interest on the national debt, which is more than our entire defense budget in the United.
Tammy Nemeth [00:20:42] Wow.
David Blackmon [00:20:43] This is not a sustainable situation and we have to stop it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:20:49] Okay. That is David rant for today.
David Blackmon [00:20:52] Yes, it is.
Tammy Nemeth [00:20:53] But you’re absolutely right. I mean, it’s they keep telling us that a renewable system and I use renewable with quotes here, you know, wind and solar, which is completely unreliable, that it’s cheaper. How is it cheaper if you have to build, if you have to duplicate, everything’s a duplication and it’s not even duplication is just so that you can keep the heat on and the lights on and everything else. So it’s like, why not skip the virtue signaling part and just have the reliable stuff? And even if you if people believe that, you know, we’re in dire a dire situation with CO2 emissions or something, then why not be building more nuclear? Why why drag your feet on nuclear? So, yeah, I mean, it makes no sense. And I think all we can do is keep repeating that the energy realities are that it’s more expensive, it’s not cheaper, and we need to make sure that we have stuff that’s reliable and secure and interconnects are not a way to keep it here.
Stuart Turley [00:21:55] You know.
Irina Slav [00:21:56] The other two elements that they’re making the backup generation more expensive with carbon taxes.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:02] That’s right.
Irina Slav [00:22:03] They’re more costly for generators to generate. And now we have the European Union thinking about methane taxes on imported LNG because this is such a marvelous idea on top of everything else. We’re just going to make everything so much cheaper. By the way, thanks to so-called renewables, negative prices on the European electricity market this year have reached a record, and this record will be broken next year because, you know, wind and solar and this is not bringing any electricity costs for consumers down.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:45] Big surprise. And then they say it’ll make it cheaper. No.
Irina Slav [00:22:49] It’s
Stuart Turley [00:22:51] Let me ask the panel this. Why do you think there’s such a hold on governments wanting to move to nuclear? I’ve got my theory, but I just want to see why do you think like in the U.S., we have zero big nuclear reactors. On on working. We have three approved that are the smaller reactors like David over in Abilene Christian But. I think I got my reason.
David Blackmon [00:23:23] I mean, the clear answer to me is that the nuclear power industry is not a client industry of the Democratic Party in the United States like wind and solar are. That’s why at its base, I’m sure there’s other reasons people can think of, but I’m at its base. That’s the reason.
Stuart Turley [00:23:40] my theory is. And so that. And speaking of oak. Oak Tex. Oak. Tex. Oka language. You know, half Oklahoma, half Texan. It would be because the nuclear industry in the United States is not as easy to graft steel or have kickbacks in because they’re such different kind of projects.
David Blackmon [00:24:05] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:05] I mean, why do you
Irina Slav [00:24:08] build? It costs a bit to build.
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:12] Okay, so you’re I really you’re you’re thinking is that there’s all this no dragging because it’s expensive.
Irina Slav [00:24:20] I think that’s deterrents for some sensible brains. If there are any. But I agree with David with the difference that we don’t have a Democratic Party in Europe. But, you know, if you’re on the green train, you stay on the green train. But then we have Italy. Italy’s now considering repeal of the ban on nuclear power. His government apparently is capable of thinking practically. So well. So what?
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:59] But, you know.
Irina Slav [00:25:01] Sorry. Nuclear would be a real, real competitor to wind and solar. I mean. Baseload generation.
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:09] Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:25:11] So very dangerous.
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:13] My my sense for Italy, though I thought one of the reasons why they they had this they’d passed this legislation a long time ago to ban nuclear was because of seismic activity, because a lot of the different places where they had wanted to put it back in the 70s were actually in in a bat in bad spots where if there isn’t, you know, an actual earthquake, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen in Italy, you know, from the volcanoes or whatever. And so that was to me, my understanding was that that’s one of the reasons why they brought in that legislation. But if you’re a country excuse me, like Germany, Germany is not in a seismic area. They banned it. And that was purely because of the green movement, the green movement that sees, no, if there’s one spill, if there’s one drop of nuclear waste that hits the ground, everybody dies. And instead of talking about how how do we make sure that doesn’t happen, how do we protect it? There’s ways that you can solve that problem. And Japan has done an amazing job. You know, it took a nine point whatever earthquake to do damage. And it wasn’t even from the earthquake. It was the the generators that that backup the energy. So there’s there’s ways they could do around it. I think another issue maybe on why there’s this slow move with nuclear. Maybe they don’t have enough technicians. Maybe there’s not enough skilled people around who would be able to work in these facilities and build them, because my understanding is that when Poland, the previous government was going to build all of these ExoMars, the small modular reactors, the Polish government went to the tech schools and said, this is how many engineers we’re going to need, this is how many employees we’re going to need. You guys need to start training now, need to start putting people through the pipeline. So maybe that’s part of it. But I think Stew, Dave Iryna, you’re you’re right in the sense of there is like this there is to be a PR campaign and and maybe it is because they’re not there’s not enough groups getting kickbacks on. Well if I can use that negative term in.
David Blackmon [00:27:26] Yeah. You know, I mean our industry in the United States still hasn’t gotten past Three Mile Island in which no one was harmed in any way, shape or form. And that was 45 years ago now. And they still haven’t gotten past the PR hit from that.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:41] Yes. Thanks, Mark, for that Great, great point. He says Chernobyl had a big impact on EU politicians.
David Blackmon [00:27:47] Absolutely. How long ago was Chernobyl? 30 years ago. 28 years ago.
Irina Slav [00:27:51] Now? About 40 years ago. But please, we’re closer to the Ukraine than any of the countries that are crazy anti-nuclear. I had to drink iodine. You know, when we heard about it. And in Germany, some sheep died or something. And we were building a second nuclear power plant until recently. And the Romanians are building new nuclear power plants.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:21] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:28:22] There’s the power plant in Bulgaria.
Irina Slav [00:28:24] Afraid of death.
David Blackmon [00:28:25] And what has that second power plant been mothballed?
Irina Slav [00:28:30] Yup.
David Blackmon [00:28:32] Wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:33] No way.
Irina Slav [00:28:34] Government’s because it was Ros album that started building it, and then the government changed and we wanted the Americans to build it. But something happened. I think it was going to be too expensive. Now it’s sitting there.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:50] So this is about Russia. So they didn’t want Russia to be building in Bulgaria, so they just canceled the program and no one else will take it up.
Irina Slav [00:28:58] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:28:59] Holy smokes.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:01] Well, that sounds about right.
David Blackmon [00:29:02] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:29:04] But my point was that some European countries, the crazy ones, apparently not so scared of nuclear because we’ve had nuclear for decades. And despite Chernobyl, we didn’t turn paranoid because we know that nuclear is a reliable source of energy. And, you know, Bill was a result of, you know, human errors. Yeah. And it doesn’t happen every year or even every ten years. But when it happens, it’s disastrous. Yes. Always a plane crash. But how often do these happen? You know, air travel is considered the safest. Of travel?
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:48] Yeah, absolutely.
Irina Slav [00:29:50] You can’t have everything and, you know, risk nothing.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:54] Exactly. You know, it’s about risk management, right? And so if you put the proper controls in after and know how to clean up afterwards, if something really terrible happens. But I mean, some of the the new reactors are incredibly safe and all that. Exactly. Because the people are concerned about it. You know, there’s there’s ways to problem solve this stuff. Marchetti had a good point here where he says we had the Chinese involved in the U.K..
Irina Slav [00:30:23] And remember that?
Tammy Nemeth [00:30:25] Yeah. So the Chinese were involved and then the French were involved. And then, I don’t know, maybe that’ll get built sometime this decade. It’d be nice.
Irina Slav [00:30:34] Is it still getting builds? I mean, is construction ongoing? Hinkley Point, whatever?
Tammy Nemeth [00:30:40] Yeah, I think so. I’m not sure. And it’s. Yeah. So. So Mark has another point here. He says. I mean, I agree, but the progressives will not engage. It’s easier to virtue signal.
David Blackmon [00:30:56] More politically beneficial to. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:30:58] Yeah. One last thing before we move on to the headlines. Someone had sent a tweet. It was or whatever it is on X and where they were pulling out excerpts from the court case of that energy company that’s suing Greenpeace. And you to circulate? Yeah, I’ll circulate a link to you guys to read the the the brief that was filed because it really highlights how the environmental groups have been sort of weaponizing the rhetoric and doing these kind of fake false grassroots things in order to stymie development and whatnot. So I just put a thing out there. I’ll put a link to everybody and maybe we could chat a little bit about it next week or something. But it’s priceless. What they’re saying is absolutely true and it’s priceless.
Stuart Turley [00:31:51] Well.
Tammy Nemeth [00:31:53] Gayle has a point here. She said Canada should be moving on the building of nuclear plants. Yes, And it’s going like walking through molasses. Yep. The Saskatchewan government is a they they have they’ve nationalized power generation for, I don’t know, 80 years or 70 years or whatever. And they just recently created a crown corporation called Sask Nuclear. So they now have a state owned nuclear energy company, I guess, and they’re partnering with Bruce Power in Ontario to explore building small modular reactors in Saskatchewan. And what’s interesting is Saskatchewan has the best uranium in the world. It’s like the highest quality and easy, like there’s a lot of uranium in the in the ground. Right. Okay. Let’s go on to our news of the week, the stories of the week.
David Blackmon [00:32:57] Boy. Here we go.
Tammy Nemeth [00:33:00] Okay. Can I do my last? Well, could we do?
Stuart Turley [00:33:07] I put this here for you. I saw this and I was thinking of you. For our podcast listeners, there is a bunch of elderly ladies that are in love in a zodiac trying to sneak into the UK and it says pensioners making sure they won’t freeze this winter. That is all on me, Tammy. So don’t don’t be mad at me. I thought of that.
Tammy Nemeth [00:33:33] That’s funny. Well, I think the government had a payment in the UK for retired people to help pay for the increased cost of heating and energy. And they the parliament voted it away. So now all the pensioners are going to freeze this winter.
Stuart Turley [00:33:53] That’s. I’m sorry. I love Captain Poopy Pants. Yeah, I bet you’re very sorry. Okay. There we go. Here’s Irina’s.
Irina Slav [00:34:04] Okay, so Australia wasting record amounts of renewable energy as share of wind and solar source. The heck, I don’t know. The sup. Having all the lead of this story was that it’s a good thing. I read the story twice. I think it could be because English is my second language, but I could not understand how it is a good thing except. In the first few paragraphs, the author reported that at one point New South Wales produced as much solar power as its coal plants at one point. So was that a suggestion that they can turn off the coal power generation? Because at some point solar would produce so much power that it could offset the loss? At one point I can stop repeating this.
Stuart Turley [00:35:15] At one point.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:17] I thought at the end,.
Irina Slav [00:35:19] It’s great that so much is being wasted off, curtailed because it means they’re producing so much power which they can use, which is lovely, where the batteries come in. Which is inefficient. And really, who cares? It’s actually not a good thing that you’re wasting electricity that you could be using, but you can’t really use it because there’s no demand for it. And I can’t wait for the moment when some people in decision making positions realize that electricity is strictly on demand. If there’s no demand and there is supply, you have to check it. Because batteries are expensive, batteries are inefficient, as you said, Tommy, However huge you make them. That will need to be really huge. And this means hugely expensive, which means the electricity they we lose will also be hugely expensive. And what happens if you can’t recharge them before you need them again?
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:33] And how long do they last? Because if you’re if you’re pulling if you’re charging, charging, charging, and then you pull it out and then maybe you don’t use at all, there’s there’s issues with the longevity of those batteries and what’s the material cost, the mining and and all of that. Not efficient.
Irina Slav [00:36:50] But it’s just the simplest possible situation. And so many people fail to say, yeah, it’s a good thing that they’re wasting so much land. And so we say, well the New South Wales.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:02] Yeah, because they were talking at the end there about how great it is they’ll be able to close the coal plants even quicker.
Irina Slav [00:37:09] No they will.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:11] Yeah. But that’s what they’re saying, right? I mean it was just that I.
Irina Slav [00:37:14] I know, I know that they believe all the same. They saying it in all earnestness.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:21] Yeah. Okay, so.
Irina Slav [00:37:26] I’m done with that.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:27] Okay. One. This one.
Irina Slav [00:37:30] This is one of my favorites. Think Tanks. The Institute of Energy Economics and Finance or something. It’s a green think tank and it has a special weakness going. So apparently Europe is at peak LNG demand, which heightens risk of stranded assets. This is another of their favorite topics stranded assets. And they’re basing this warning because it’s a warning about stranded assets in the form of LNG imports terminals on the fact that European LNG imports this year. Are down from last year.
David Blackmon [00:38:15] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:38:16] But there are. Pretty obvious reason for that. So just like they filled up their storage last year, so they had a lot of that left when winter ended. So there was. There wasn’t as much demand. Then you have the industrialization of Germany, which we’re not supposed to talk about, but it is happening. Obviously, demand is lower, so obviously demand is lower. Imports would be lower. You can’t say that this won’t happen. This won’t change. Maybe at some point demand will rebound and maybe that’s why Germany is building so many new import terminals. Because it will need the gas. But yeah, when we’re having the big demand, flood waves again and stranded assets, of course, stranded us. Yes.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:12] Yeah, they always repeat that. And it it’s interesting if you look at their about page. And who’s funding them. It’s the usual climb works and a bunch of different foundations and whatnot. And interestingly in the article near the middle or the end, it says they are committed to accelerating the energy transition. Well, yeah. I mean, here we go. And they’re not hiding it. So, yes, they have a point. So people are power says they are destroying native rainforest, blowing the tops off mountains to put wind turbines everywhere. Environmental vandalism. Ooh, that’s a good one.
David Blackmon [00:39:53] Government environmental Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:58] It’s not ecocide. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:40:01] Mihai has a really good point here to coal plants and whips coal plants and LNG terminals are a form of insurance. Yes, they are.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:10] Absolutely
David Blackmon [00:40:11] Working
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:13] And then Robertson.
Irina Slav [00:40:15] Energy, not just any energy, but reliable energy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:18] Exactly. Reliable and secure. And that’s basically what the LNG is. It’s a form of of security. Yeah. And Robert says efficiency is not a bad thing.
Irina Slav [00:40:30] No, no, no. Sometimes it’s so hard to achieve.
David Blackmon [00:40:35] Well, especially when you’re having to fund two different power grids.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:39] Exactly. How much do you want to add? Anything more on that, Irina?
Irina Slav [00:40:44] No, I’m done thinking.
David Blackmon [00:40:49] Boy. So here’s mine. Wall Street Journal big headline report, I think was published Friday about Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Company, made a recent trip to China and got all scared of encroachment. Guess what? A bloodbath. A coming bloodbath for the United States automotive industry. G. O media uproar in March by using the word bloodbath to describe what is coming to the United States auto industry thanks to encroachment from China. That would be Donald J. Trump, who has since suffered two different assassination attempts. But we won’t talk about that here. So Mr. Farley is very concerned, obviously, about the potential for China to enter the U.S. market. He’s old enough, like I am, to remember what happened when Japan flooded the U.S. market with inexpensive, high quality cars that Detroit couldn’t compete with because Detroit was continuing to churn out gas guzzling 4,000 pound clunkers with 454 V8 engines in them. Okay. And Nissan and Toyota and Honda came in with these smaller, fuel efficient cars during a time of high gasoline prices and damn near bankrupted the entire U.S. auto industry. Yeah, they all survived, although Chrysler has never really recovered Ford. GM did recover somewhat. And and the benefit was all of them were soon within a decade, making very high quality automobiles that were fuel efficient cars. So it actually was a net benefit to American consumers overall. But at the end of the day, he’s worried that now with the electric vehicle mandates, China’s going to be able China can make competitive cars, electric vehicles, very high quality cars already flooding the European market that they can sell for half the price that Ford can sell their own electric vehicles. Right. Less than half the price. And there’s no way Ford can compete with that without tariffs and import restrictions. But so he’s very concerned about that. Wall Street Journal has an excellent report. Everyone should go read it. You can just Google what scared Ford CEO in China and you’ll be able to read it. And it’s just the same stuff we’ve all been saying for two years now about the inevitable consequences of what the Biden-Harris administration has been doing with climate policy related to EVs. Sorry, but I love those cars. Yes, the old Detroit cars. Yeah, I did, too. You know, we’ve all got stories about them if we’re baby boomers. And yeah, we I had a really, really fast car when I was in high school, and I was a public nuisance because of it. But that’s another story for another.
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:47] And you survived. I can’t believe
David Blackmon [00:43:50] I survived. I lived through it. Unbelievable. Anyway, let’s go to the next story. Exxon Mobil hydrogen hub. So there’s. Attracts billions from major investors Mitsubishi and
Tammy Nemeth [00:44:04] Adnoc. Wasn’t it
David Blackmon [00:44:04] Adnoc and the other company. Yeah. Billions of billions of dollars. Letting ExxonMobil now to buy equity interests in their big hydrogen hub at their Baytown Refining and Chemical complex that is specifically uniquely located with a unique business plan that’s going to leverage ExxonMobil’s already on staff expertise, these incredible engineers at ExxonMobil and business managers at ExxonMobil that I believe makes that hydrogen hub uniquely situated to be a success story in the United States, where pretty much all the other proposed hydrogen hubs are going to be miserable failures because what’s ExxonMobil going to do? They’re going to take the natural gas that’s a byproduct from the refining process. Already enormous process at Baytown. They’re going to take that natural gas. They’re going to convert it into hydrogen, and they’re going to use part of that hydrogen to reduce their own carbon emissions by powering all the power providers needed at that refining and chemical complex. And then the rest of the hydrogen, they’re going to convert into ammonia and sell it to consuming companies like like Mitsubishi, who wants to buy a big chunk of hydrogen to use in their own fertilizer manufacturing processes. And they’re going to be able to make that ammonia very cheaply and sell it at a highly competitive cost to to those companies that want to buy to reduce their own carbon footprint of their own fertilizer operation. So this is a I just believe and we’ll we’ll know in 3 or 4 years they’re going to make a final investment decision next year on whether or not to move ahead. It makes sense. I think it makes sense. It’s a very small business model. It’s something that Exxon insists Exxon would not be mounting this effort, Folks, believe me, if they did not fully believe they’re going to be able to turn a profit with this hydrogen hub. And I would submit to you, five years from now, we’re going to look back on this. And the Baytown hydrogen hub is going to be a success story. And what is there, 7 or 8 that other projects that the Department of Energy has funded, hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies do, They’re all going to fail because they’re not sound business models. And they companies running them do not have the on staff expertise already on their staff needed to mount those successful projects. So I just wanted to highlight this because I know a lot of people skeptical about hydrogen for for a lot of really good reasons.
Stuart Turley [00:46:47] You got two of them on this panel right now.
David Blackmon [00:46:53] I know. And you should. Be. I’m skeptical about it, too, for, you know, all the time this guy crap about running cars on it and converting natural gas power plants to it. You can’t do that. The infrastructure won’t work with hydrogen molecules like it works with methane molecules. All those reasons why those other projects are going to be failures, this one’s going to be a success. And just bookmark this and come back to me in three years and tell me if I’m not right about it.
Irina Slav [00:47:19] But I think that green, hydrogen.
David Blackmon [00:47:22] It’s not green hydrogen.
Irina Slav [00:47:24] So climate activists will be demanding a ban on all known green hydrogen in 3 to 1. Yeah, I think there will be an attack on hydrogen. We’ve seen it before. Whenever big oil does something that makes sense and reduces emissions, notably their role in emissions, they get slammed for it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:47:54] Yeah. Yeah, good point.
Irina Slav [00:47:56] I think this will happen as well. I do hope you’re right. But I see an attack on this project and other hydrogen projects. Hydrogen is a very, very broadly used commodity. Right. It will continue to be needed, especially in the facilities of industry.
David Blackmon [00:48:20] But just one point I want to make about that, because Irene is right. But I think even if Kamala Harris wins this election in November, they won’t succeed in the United States because the Democrats understand they have to have one success story related to hydrogen. Yeah, they can take credit for. And they know this is the one that’s most likely to succeed.
Irina Slav [00:48:42] And still, it’s not green hydrogen.
David Blackmon [00:48:43] It’s not green, but it you know, it is hydrogen. So, you know.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:47] Yeah, yeah. The Democrats have to walk that fine line between the the crazy radical environmentalists who want no hydro. Carbons at all. And the ones who want to make money off of it. And you know who’s who’s contributing more to the campaign? Who’s the more useful in getting elected and so on. Which is why, you know, Kamala was one of the people who co-sponsored the Green New Deal when it was presented to Congress and has always been a staunch supporter of these kinds of things. But, you know, who’s her who’s her major backers? Who are the fundraisers? Are they the radical environmentalists or the ones who want to make money off of it?
David Blackmon [00:49:27] Yeah. Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:49:29] We love Robert. Good morning, Robert.
David Blackmon [00:49:33] Yes, Robert. I’ve already googled seven red lines. I’m going to watch if I have it back later today.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:40] What’s it about?
David Blackmon [00:49:41] I don’t know. I haven’t watched. Okay. But I’m going to remind. use. Laugh out loud. I’ll post
Irina Slav [00:49:47] a comedy sketch.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:49] Okay. All right, So I guess it’s my turn. I’ll go back. See where my things are. All right.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:56] So the UK government dropped on Friday, of course, that they. They’re buying Britain’s electricity network. The government is buying it. They’re nationalizing, and they don’t want to use the word nationalization. So they’re just like governments taking control. I like these little you put this.
Irina Slav [00:50:15] On so much better.
Tammy Nemeth [00:50:17] So, so much better Government just taking control. It’ll be okay. And so it’s already like this quasi independent thing, but the government’s buying it, and then they’re going to set up another independent energy ISO, whatever, and an independent energy electricity system operator. That’s what they’re going to do. At the same like about a few months ago. I’ll tie this in here. The whole natural gas network in the UK was bought. It’s solely owned now by Macquarie Investments, which is this large institutional investor out of Australia. But it’s one of the biggest backers through Macquarie is a Canadian institutional investor from British Columbia. So British Columbia doesn’t want, you know, they’re trying to stop natural gas to some extent, even though they’re the the port for it. And they have, they produce a lot in, in northern British Columbia. But now they’re co-owners of the entire natural gas network in the UK, which I find just interesting. But this this new nationalized electricity system operator that just this government is terrible. Governments are terrible at doing anything, and now they’re going to control an already messed up electricity network. So I don’t know where this is going to go. Maybe it’ll improve things. Maybe it’ll make it worse. I’m not sure it’s.
David Blackmon [00:51:51] Can I give odds on it?
Tammy Nemeth [00:51:52] Sure, give odds.
David Blackmon [00:51:55] I think. I think it’s about 30 to 1. It’s going to make it worse. And I’ll take any bets.
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:01] Yeah, especially because, you know, the radical minister here, Ed Miliband, he’s such a crazy and, you know, everything’s he’s going to double down on wind and solar. What’s that going to do to the grid? And so then now the government’s going to be managing that at it. And I don’t think it’s going to be good for the citizens and it’ll be more expensive. And here’s the kicker. So they’re spending 630 million pounds to buy this network. Then they’re going to make it so-called independent. So taxpayers have paid the 630 million. Right. But they’re going to recoup the cost on taxpayers electricity bills. So taxpayers pay twice. It’s like we’re taxpayers already paying for it. But they’re going to recoup it from the taxpayers. It’s it’s crazy. I don’t understand. But whatever.
Irina Slav [00:52:52] So arrogant. Really?
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:55] Yeah. And they don’t care, because. Who’s going to know? Yeah. Yeah. They have five years to do this garbage, so. And then this isn’t a new story, but it’s a new report written by Kathryn Porter, who’s an amazing expert on the electricity market. And she’s talking about interconnectors, because one of the solutions, of course, for the UK grid, because they want to retire all their coal power, they don’t want to build up natural gas. They’re not sure about nuclear because everything takes forever to build. So they want to rely on the interconnectors. And there’s been a significant increase in the interconnections that are basically keeping the UK grid operational. And she makes a really compelling argument in this short report. It’s only about 10 or 15 pages of the security aspects of it. And I think I really did a great job talking about this and and David earlier in the podcast, but I highly recommend people just taking a look at this at this report because she really puts some facts together about, you know, the insecurity of being so reliant on interconnectors for the stability of your grid because, you know, if things go south, even if countries have agreements to supply another country, I think if push comes to shove, their own citizens will come first. And it’s kind of like we’ll take us to court afterwards. So it’s a problem, I think, for the future of the UK grid to be so reliant on interconnectors. So that’s, that’s my little thing for today. And then there’s that. So, Stu, what do you have for us?
Stuart Turley [00:54:42] Well, you know, I love Grok on X, you know, and you go out and you ask to create. What do you think about? Kamala Harris to frack or not. And I get back a Shakespearian play. Get outta town. I love acts. So let’s let’s talk about energy policies here. This story on Reuters was absolutely wonderful. Italy’s central bank bank backs helping poorer countries fund the energy transition. This is what drives me nuts. Why don’t we and as as Western countries export clean coal technology in that we can show and export the power plant technology to burn coal cleaner that would have lower costs. It would lower the output in the pollution. I love Robert. Absolutely. And so that would make more sense. You know, Italy is just this article is just an example of the West taking advantage of the poorer countries. And it is infuriating That other article with Kamala Kamala in the debate, when she looked at President Trump and said, why are you making a you know, why are you saying that I’m going to ban guns? Tim and I are gun owners. And two days later she puts out and says, I want to ban guns. Okay. Why can you trust her on anything? The Biden administration and I want to show you this next slide here. Look at this. Climate policies in the United States make a difference. 40,975 new oil and gas leases under Trump 671. And part of this is because they had none in the I believe in David, you have to fact check me. I believe it was zero this year in the Gulf War memorial. And then you also had in Alaska, they cut down Conoco Phillips area to almost a fraction of what they could do up there in that gigantic oil lease up there. So you take a look at energy policies and where it goes. Look what happens when you say, it goes into this. One of their green policies equals deindustrialization and the failure of the economies.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:35] Yes. So it’s not banning is just choking. We’re just going to choke it off. We’re not banning it.
Stuart Turley [00:57:41] But, hey, just as we we only got one more minute. Let me show you this. This is a cat video of the Ohio cats going out here. I love this video in my cell. I would watch a full video of this. I watch this 6000 times. Can you imagine all the cats doing this? The the survive. I love this one.
Tammy Nemeth [00:58:04] They got to protect their brothers and sisters.
Stuart Turley [00:58:07] Absolutely. I want me a cat now. I am. I am now a cat guy.
David Blackmon [00:58:12] Now I think this cries out for a new movie series called Planet of the Cat.
Stuart Turley [00:58:18] I think so. And then look at this one that looks like dogs and cats from the live show. And then this one was as they’re Okay. And then David, love this one.
Tammy Nemeth [00:58:45] running away from.
Stuart Turley [00:58:48] And all those are jokes and they’re mean, but they do prove a serious point. When she said that they fact checked President Trump in the debate. And they said, they’re not there. One of the sources that I follow on X, he is a great guy. He geofence the the phones for the Haitians coming in to that area. There’s 37,000 phones, not 20,000. There’s 37,000 phones that have been geofence in that area that the Kamala Harris Group brought in, not from the border. They flew them in a Redmond voter. And so there’s actually more than that in that area. So, yes, they are eating the cats. They are eating the dogs. And it is green energy policy so that we can cook our own pets. Sorry, that was my rant.
Irina Slav [00:59:44] So the environment, you know, they kill so many birds and there are these people calling for. The ends of all bets because they have such a huge carbon footprint. That is why they do so many patients to take care of the cow in the pets.
Stuart Turley [01:00:02] I am so sorry if I got you guys thrown off here on.
David Blackmon [01:00:08] I’m all in. It doesn’t matter.
Irina Slav [01:00:09] Stu get a cat.
Stuart Turley [01:00:10] I’m going to get a cat.
Tammy Nemeth [01:00:11] I want you to get a cat.
Stuart Turley [01:00:14] I’m going to be a single cat, lady. I think I already am. Okay, Tom. I love you already. Look at that pretty darn thing. But anyway.
Tammy Nemeth [01:00:27] Yeah, this is the best one. Getting rid of the very concept of climate policies would have a very positive effect. Yes, indeed. We can’t control climate.
Stuart Turley [01:00:37] Anyway, this is a fun show. Thank you for putting up with my my rant.
Tammy Nemeth [01:00:43] Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to share with us today and see you next week.
David Blackmon [01:00:48] See you all next week.
Irina Slav [01:00:50] Very, very good.
Stuart Turley [01:00:52] And I’m going to have a cat next week.
Tammy Nemeth [01:00:57] Thanks Everybody, See yah! Thanks for the comments. Bye
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