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In this episode of Energy News Beat – Conversation in Energy, host Stuart Turley sits down with Courtney Moeller at NAPE to to discuss advancements in the energy sector, including the role of technology, AI, and modular nuclear reactors in meeting energy demands. They highlight the continued need for oil, gas, and natural gas infrastructure despite investments in renewables and address misconceptions about energy production and environmental impact. Courtney emphasizes the importance of education on nuclear energy, while Stuart shares insights on industry trends, regulatory challenges, and the future of energy in 2025.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
00:16 – First Impressions of NAPE
00:45 – Networking & Industry Connections
01:14 – Oil & Gas Production Update
01:55 – Technology & Efficiency in Energy
02:27 – Topics Covered in Energy News 8 Podcast
02:52 – Future of Energy in 2025
04:21 – Nuclear Energy & Policy Challenges
05:43 – Modular Nuclear Reactors & Innovation
07:35 – Renewable Energy vs. Fossil Fuels
08:24 – The Hidden Costs of Solar & Wind Energy
09:26 – Closing Remarks & Contact Info
Stuart Turley [00:00:00] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News 8 podcast. My name is Stu Turley, President CEO of the Sandstone Group. I’ve got Courtney sitting here with you today.
Courtney Moeller [00:00:16] I mean, I’ve got to meet you. So my day, I mean, like that was like the cherry on top of my whole day.
Stuart Turley [00:00:21] Oh, I doubt that. But I’ll tell you what you’ve been having. Tell us about Nape.
Courtney Moeller [00:00:24] What’s going on there? Okay, this has been amazing. This is my first time here. And when you see this floor and all of the exhibits, it’s overwhelming. But I’ve had so many conversations, met amazing people. You know, we’re here. No, it’s so fun. And it’s it’s great to see that, you know, the technology and the way things are traversing and moving throughout this space and just meeting great people.
Stuart Turley [00:00:46] I’ll tell you, what was really cool is I’m sitting here and she knows Doug Sandridge and Doug just finished an interview here. And it is so cool. There’s only three people in the whole oil and gas industry out of the thousands that are here.
Courtney Moeller [00:01:00] Which is amazing. I mean, incredible. And it’s funny because we just finished a project with Doug’s group about a month ago. So to turn up and walk around the corner and have you sitting here with him was amazing. And so we got to meet in person.
Stuart Turley [00:01:14] And I love the fact that you’re sitting there and those three wells that you just drilled are pumping out some serious oil. President Trump would be thrilled.
Courtney Moeller [00:01:22] He would be thrilled because, I mean, we’re going to drill baby drill, right?
Stuart Turley [00:01:25] Oh, absolutely. And as an investor, you always want to know that those EMP operators are going to give back the money. You just met Rachel, the CEO of W Energy. Yes. She was over there. So you got to know how the molecules are counting.
Courtney Moeller [00:01:41] You do. Well, and which is a perfect example of some of the technology and things that are being integrated into this space. I feel like there’s a lot of room for improvement and way to streamline things and make them a lot more efficient.
Stuart Turley [00:01:54] Well, how do people find you?
Courtney Moeller [00:01:55] Oh, well, that’s such a great question. I am I have a website. It’s CourtneyMoller .com. I’m not great with social media. I have it, but I have my family is for that is that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. So, yeah, CourtneyMoller .com.
Stuart Turley [00:02:10] Nice. And you can find me on EnergyNewsMeet .co. And when you go there, you can see all the great interviews. This interview will be there.
Courtney Moeller [00:02:18] I love that. I love that. Well, what do you typically talk about? You know, this is a little bit new to me. We’re going to add some additional stuff. What can I look forward to seeing on your station?
Stuart Turley [00:02:28] I’ll tell you, on the podcast we’ve talked about today, we’ve talked everything from PG and Yen with Diablo Canyon Nuclear. We’ve talked about W Energy and being able to have the whole new way of accounting to make sure that investors get their money back to make sure that we know what costs are going into it. We’ve got about 16 different other people lined up to talk about.
Courtney Moeller [00:02:52] I love that. Well, let me ask you, what are you excited about in this space for 2025?
Stuart Turley [00:02:58] That is a fantastic question. What am I excited about? I’m excited about oil and gas. We have the tipping of the barrel is right over there. They’re just walking by. They’re a great podcast team that they’re not missing now. But when you sit back and take oil and gas is going to be, we’re going to need so much natural gas. It’s going to be beautiful natural gas in the words of President Trump because we will not have enough power. Let’s take Texas as an example. Texas has $4 .5 billion worth of new power plants in budget or under construction. In order to even get AI, AI Stargate in Abilene has got its own dedicated natural gas power plant that it will support if it was on its own 80 ,000 homes. So we are not going to be able to hit the data centers without natural gas. What do we need with natural gas? We need bed stream. We need pipelines. We need EMV operators. We need the economy. We need high paying jobs. So I’m excited.
Courtney Moeller [00:04:02] You are. And I love that you brought up AI because that was something I was going to point out. I don’t think people realize the amount of energy that is required to power AI and what it is doing. I mean, it’s doing really great things in so many spaces, but we need a lot of natural gas. And so I think this is going to be a really great year for that.
Stuart Turley [00:04:21] Nuclear would be really cool.
Courtney Moeller [00:04:23] It agreed. I 100 % agree.
Stuart Turley [00:04:26] Well, as Nixon brought in the nuclear agency, what he did is what he didn’t realize is he stopped nuclear because of the regulatory process. Now that we have Lee Zeldin and President Trump said, for every new regulation you put out, you got to kill 10, we might be able to see some nuclear in about five years.
Courtney Moeller [00:04:47] Yes. And I think there also needs to be a little bit of education that’s brought about in the space too, because I think there’s a lack of education in the general public on what having nuclear means and what that could actually do in a research country.
Stuart Turley [00:05:01] Nuclear carrier.
Courtney Moeller [00:05:02] Oh, yes. You are right about that. I do. I do. I think that it has the potential to create so much energy very quickly and very cheaply.
Stuart Turley [00:05:13] Oh, Randy has done so great with our fleet. We have nuclear reactors. We teach young kids nuclear. Why are we doing that everywhere?
Courtney Moeller [00:05:21] Well, we’ve got these little floating cities that are powering all kinds of things. We should be able to tap into that and bring it on shore.
Stuart Turley [00:05:30] Absolutely. Modular reactors. I interviewed the CEO of Copenhagen Electronics and he was building, they were rolling out and targeting for this year to build modular reactors one a day.
Courtney Moeller [00:05:43] Okay.
Stuart Turley [00:05:44] That’s a lot of modular reactors. They’re not there yet, but that’s their target. Then you take a look at Jay Yu. He is with Nano Energy. Nano Energy is also looking at building modular reactors.
Courtney Moeller [00:05:57] Okay.
Stuart Turley [00:05:58] That is the only way we’re going to make it is if we can mass produce modular reactors in a controlled environment.
Courtney Moeller [00:06:05] Let me ask you, I don’t know the answer to this. Do you know how many reactors we have here in the United States?
Stuart Turley [00:06:11] About four, I believe.
Courtney Moeller [00:06:12] Okay. Down from, I mean, where were we? Okay.
Stuart Turley [00:06:17] I believe. I’ve got to do wall burn numbers. I have to fact check myself frequently. But when you take a look at the base load for Texas, it’s about 10%. If you look at California, it’s 9 .8. And the rest of the country, it’s about that seven to 8%. Coal is a big chunk of that. Then you have natural gas and you take a look at the EPA curve. The EPA curve is here’s trillions of dollars spent on wind and solar. And it’s growing like this. But there’s a spike for electrical demand.
Courtney Moeller [00:06:51] Well, what is interesting, and I actually have a great chart that I shared, gosh, about a year ago. And it showed our sources of energy and it broke it down from coal to natural gas, oil, all of these different solar and renewable energy sources. And obviously everybody wants a cleaner environment and things like that. The amount of this renewable energy sources and what it’s powering is this teeny tiny little blip compared to what we’re getting from all of these other resources that we’ve been using for a very long time. And I think what’s a little bit wild is a lot of people don’t realize how much oil and gas is actually needed to create these renewable resources.
Stuart Turley [00:07:36] You know what’s even frightening? There’s a couple of things that are frightening. And that is I’ve got a theory.
Courtney Moeller [00:07:41] Okay, I love theories.
Stuart Turley [00:07:42] The theory is the more money we spend on renewable energy, wind, solar, and hydrogen, the more fossil fuels will be used.
Courtney Moeller [00:07:51] Absolutely.
Stuart Turley [00:07:52] And that is holding true until technology changes.
Courtney Moeller [00:07:56] Well, I think it’s what one windmill uses, I think it’s 500 ,000 barrels of oil over the course of its life to keep running. And that’s not even what you need to actually build the unit itself.
Stuart Turley [00:08:07] About 500 ,000 tons of ore, material, steel, and then you have the land reclamation. In Oklahoma, they had 80 windmills out of an Indian farm that the judge ordered them to remove them.
Courtney Moeller [00:08:24] Okay.
Stuart Turley [00:08:24] It’s gonna cost about a million bucks per windmill to get the land reclamated. Now, here’s another problem. There is a $5 .5 billion solar farm that just got decommissioned and is going out of business. There’s no money in there for land reclamation. The solar panels and wind turbines are more hazardous to the United States environment than the nuclear fleet of 94 nuclear reactors. That’s really terrible.
Courtney Moeller [00:09:00] It’s terrible. And people don’t understand that. They’re not digging into what’s beneath the surface.
Stuart Turley [00:09:06] See, I went to Oklahoma State, and I can understand that. That’s pretty sad.
Courtney Moeller [00:09:09] I can understand it, too. I can understand it, too. And one of the other things I’d like to say is there’s so much that’s destroyed through the solar farms and everything else. And really, oil and gas does a pretty good job of preserving the areas where they’re drilling and doing things.
Stuart Turley [00:09:26] So give a shout out to all of your fans, all of your social media. StuChurley, energynewsbeat .co. I love you. If you are in the energy space, I want to talk to you. And if you’re out there for our fans, get a hold of Eric, Courtney there. And thank you very much for coming.
Courtney Moeller [00:09:45] Oh, my gosh. Yes, thanks for having me. This is awesome. I love talking to you. Well, thank you.
Stuart Turley [00:09:50] We’ll see you soon.
Courtney Moeller [00:09:50] Okay.
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