Global government energy policies are impacting the environment and economies, and not in a good way. The Energy Realism team covers global energy policies around the world and their impact on energy. Buckle up and listen to Irina Slav from Bulgaria, Tammy Nemeth from the UK or Canada, David Blackmon from Texas, and Stu Turley from West Texas or Oklahoma.
We love the questions from all our listeners, and we even have photos of David’s vacation in Spain checking out the wind turbines.
Highlights of the Podcast
01:57 – Climate Policy and Energy
04:37 – Making Energy More Expensive
07:42 – Intentioned or Incompetent?
09:15 – Debt and the Cost of Climate Policies
12:03 – Wealth Transfer and Control
15:35 – Communist Ideology Influence
17:02 – Corporate Stupidity and Long-Term Thinking
19:57 – Reliance on Subsidies
20:32 – Commuter Trains and Societal Preferences
22:04 – Societal Change
24:11 – Affordability in Green Communities
25:12 – California’s Policies
27:28 – Crime in the Permian Basin
30:03 – Interview with Alex
33:40 – Renewable Energy’s Dependency on Fossil Fuels
35:29 – Maintaining Two Power Grids
35:59 – MARSDEN: Once again Trudeau makes the West pay to protect East
37:51 – Jack Mintz: Why have we all jumped off the climate-subsidy cliff?
38:28 – Left-wing UK Government’s State Imposed Rules See Petrol Cars ‘Rationed’
39:36 – Car industry pours cold water on von der Leyen’s ‘lead markets’ plans
40:25 – University ties to fossil fuel industry face growing scrutiny
43:37 – Madrid Airport Comparison
45:10 – Barcelona Seaport and Hybrid Technology
46:33 – Energy Differences in Spain
51:05 – Joe Biden admits that the Inflation Reduction Act was not actually about inflation after he started ranting without the teleprompter
52:00 – Higher Power Bills are a Feature of the Energy Transition, not a Glitch
53:38 – Wind rethink: UK to dial down 2030 offshore wind goal?
54:03 – Volkswagen can’t continue as before – CEO
55:23 – UK Carmakers Face ‘Gargantuan’ Fines For Not Selling Enough EVs
International Author writing about energy, mining, and geopolitical issues. Bulgaria
Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.
Energy Consulting Specialist
President, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host
Climate Policies and their impact on energy
David Blackmon [00:00:11] And here we are. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Energy Realities podcast. I'm David Blackmon, fresh off a two week trip to Europe. I'm happy to be back and see everybody this morning. And with me are Tammy Nemeth, doctor Tammy Nemeth of the Nemeth Report. How are you today, Tammy?
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:29] I'm doing great, David, glad to have you back. Hope you had a great time.
David Blackmon [00:00:33] Yes. And you're in a very dark city right now in, near Vancouver. Right.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:39] That's right. Yeah, it's a little bit early.
David Blackmon [00:00:42] You've been traveling incognito, I assume, to stay out of Justin Trudeau's
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:48] Absolutely
David Blackmon [00:00:48] Yeah. Irina Slav in Bulgaria. No. You're in. You're in Romania today, correct?
Irina Slav [00:00:54] Yeah, yeah.
David Blackmon [00:00:55] Visiting the in-laws, as we all have to do from time to time. Yeah, sure. Very enjoyable.
Irina Slav [00:01:00] Yeah, we do it with pleasure.
David Blackmon [00:01:02] Yes,yes. And I feel the same in case my in-laws are watching. I feel the same way. No, they're great folks. And Stuart Turley, the president, CEO and head honcho at the Sandstone Group, he puts all of this together every week. How are you, man?
Stuart Turley [00:01:19] Oh, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Well, that's a lot of fun. This is an action packed show.
David Blackmon [00:01:24] It is an action packed show. And if I'll ever get it started here. Okay, intros out of the way. Our topic today is how climate policy is impacting energy. And that is a really wide ranging subject topic of conversation that we talk about a lot. But this week we're focusing on it. And I will, start with. Tammy to give us our first comment on the subject. I'm putting it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:57] Online. You're putting it on me. Okay. So, I mean, of course, climate policies have an impact on energy, as we all know these days. And I think Carbon Leasing Canada carbon tax is a big one. In the United States, of course, there's the Inflation Reduction Act. And I think you circulated yesterday that, that tweet of or sorry, ex, whatever they call it.
David Blackmon [00:02:23] Now, whatever. They're calling it,
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:24] whatever it is of Joe Biden saying we shouldn't have called it the Inflation Reduction Act because it's really my climate act. And we need a different name, which I thought.
David Blackmon [00:02:33] It should be called the Massive Environmental Boondoggle Act.
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:37] Right. And how to funnel money to your environmental friends. Yeah. And I think one of the most devastating aspects of the climate policies have been what it does to the pocketbooks of people. And it because it not only makes it difficult for you to get around and makes everything more expensive, everything, because all these subsidies that are being handed out, that's taxpayer money. It's not, you know, suddenly the government has a money tree, although I suppose you could say the Federal Reserve or the central banks or kind of a monetary, but ultimately it's the taxpayers who have to pay for it. And, and then it makes everything more expensive. And then inflation goes up. And you know, I when he said inflation Reduction Act and it's all full of subsidies, I'm like, wow. It's like the reverse.
David Blackmon [00:03:22] It's exactly.
Tammy Nemeth [00:03:23] Yeah. And yeah. And here in Canada, there's a lot of anger and frustration about the cost of living. Everything here is more expensive. The UK, everything is more expensive. From when we first moved in the UK, our our electricity prices have now more than doubled since we first moved there. So it's. And they keep saying wind and solar are cheaper. Well not really. If you're paying double it's not cheaper. Yeah. So all these climate policies are impact on energy makes it more unreliable, makes everything more expensive. And what the heck is it for? There was that recent study that said that, all of these different policies haven't really reduced emissions. They used AI to, go through all the different data and whatnot, but the only thing that actually worked was making everything really more expensive so people couldn't use it. So if if that's your solution to the to to the climate issue, whatever is to make everything so unaffordable that you can't use energy and therefore you don't emit. How is that how is that beneficial for humanity and civilization?
David Blackmon [00:04:37] And Irina. Isn't that really the very essence of the entire energy transition project? The bottom line is to make everything more costly so people will use less of it.
Irina Slav [00:04:48] I do believe some people aim for that. Yeah, the the groceries. But I still think most of it is inadvertent. Unintentional because they're very incompetent and really stupid. I know we disagree on this, and that's perfectly fine. I just don't want to overestimate them. You know, I see they are stupid. Like, for example, the European Internal Markets commissioner is expected to say in a speech. To berate as the FCC booted up carmakers for failing to push more EVs on to people. How do you do this? We can't keep our targets if you don't sell more EVs. How are they supposed to sell these EVs if people don't want to buy them? Exactly. Not you. This is stupid. This is outrageously stupid. I think this is the the biggest problem, because we have a lot of people thinking that wind and solar are indeed cheaper. Not right now, but in 20 years, they will be cheaper. How exactly this will happen? We don't know, but it will probably be, from what Tami said, by making energy so expensive that people start watching the consumption and consuming less, because this is the only viable way to make this work. If people start consuming less energy in Bet again, as Tammy said, how is this going to be good for humanity, civilization, for regular people and for the people calling the shots ultimately, because they will have a lot of angry voters on their hands? I keep harping on about this because they seem to have forgotten that these countries where they're trying to do it are still sort of democracies. Well, they're not really that just the Italian states, which we are now seeing both in Europe and in North America. But people can still change things, even by force if they have enough. And this is what climate policies are doing. Because remember what started this conversation about climate policies and their effect on energy consumption and energy? Everything was a report that surprisingly, shockingly found out that the only way climate policies work is through subsidies combined with mandates.
David Blackmon [00:07:15] Right
Irina Slav [00:07:15] Yeah, but subsidies on the wrong can not do it. Yeah, you need subsidies and forcing people to do this thing or another thing. Well, need the.
David Blackmon [00:07:25] Carrot and the stick.
Tammy Nemeth [00:07:27] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:07:27] And and at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. And I think that it will work over the long term. It could work short term. But over the long term really. And that's why I think they're stupid. Yeah, I think.
David Blackmon [00:07:42] So, Stu. I'm going to turn it over to you to answer the burning question. Are these people ill intentioned, or are they merely stupid and incompetent? Because those are the only two choices.
Irina Slav [00:07:55] We can have both.
Tammy Nemeth [00:07:56] You know.
David Blackmon [00:07:57] And we can have some of both. Yes. Do you? There. Can you hear that?
Stuart Turley [00:08:01] Yes, I and I'm trying to answer this without getting us thrown off the air, because I truly believe that it is a a underlying financial wealth transfer is all this is. And I believe that it is actually designed to keep the middle class poorer, the poor getting poorer and the richer getting richer. And it is 100%, a scam.
David Blackmon [00:08:34] Well, that certainly is. I mean, I think it's undeniable, regardless of what the motivations are, that the the net effect of the policies is certainly this wealth transfer from the poor to the rich. There is no question about it. The higher energy costs are a regressive form of taxation that hit the poorest the hardest. Yep. And and the people benefiting from all the subsidies are incredibly wealthy individuals, many of them already billionaires. It just keeps getting more and more money off the government. And, one of the aspects of this, and both I think Tammy and Irene have talked about, the taxpayers ultimately have to pay for all this. But one of the things that makes it even more and and the right I think.
Stuart Turley [00:09:15] My day is made. SRB thank you. Sorry. I mean, it.
David Blackmon [00:09:19] Can't be good. I mean, Stu. But what makes it even more costly is that the taxpayers who ultimately are going to have to pay for all this are our grandchildren, right? Because this is going to be passed on to future generations. We're actually financing all pretty much all of these subsidies by taking on more and more debt in the United States. And I think the same is true in Canada, in Europe. And so, you know, when you're funding all these subsidies with debt, it makes them twice as costly as they would be if you were actually doing it through the actual budget your government is supposed to be keeping. And we in the United States have completely I mean, nobody Republican, Democrat, anybody, Trump, Kamala Harris, nobody talked about the need to control spending in government. Because our deficit, this year alone, this fiscal year alone is over $2 trillion. We are spending $3 billion a day, $3 billion a day just to pay interest on the national debt in the United States, $1 trillion over the course of a single fiscal year. And that is not sustainable. The subsidies only exacerbate a problem that's not entirely due to them, but it is certainly in part due to them. So, I mean, it's really twice as costly as it would otherwise be, because we're finding it all with debt. And that's a point that tends to get lost in these conversations because the politicians don't want to talk about it.
Stuart Turley [00:10:49] Well, they don't in the corruption and, and, the video that I found is an Australian wind farm. Bailiff is on fire this morning.
David Blackmon [00:10:59] Bailey midkiff. Yeah. He's.
Stuart Turley [00:11:01] Lord, Lord Bailey.
David Blackmon [00:11:03] Lord Bailey, wealth transfer of energy can be considered a concept within energy systems. In economics, yes. It typically refers to redistribution of energy resources or benefits from one group to another like we are seeing. Yes. That's exactly.
Tammy Nemeth [00:11:17] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:11:17] So and, and and you know, I, I honestly believe and and I, I have nothing but in fact, every time, arena and I talk about this and disagree slightly on whether it's bad intentions or mere stupidity, I always find myself stepping back and having to rethink things. You know, but I believe this is a feature and not a glitch of the energy trance, transition program. It's a feature to exert an intentional, increasing control over populations who become increasingly dependent on the government for everything in their lives and increasingly unable to afford to pay their own bills.
Irina Slav [00:12:03] That's that's different. All in agreement about the control and centralization of all forms of control by the government over the population. Yeah, well, I disagree with that. It's, it's intentional. Intentional inasmuch as, you know, if you intentionally make more people poor than you make rich, there will be fewer consumers or whatever. The rich guys, providing because it's all a business, you know, you need consumers. Apple will go broke if people stop buying iPhones for whatever reason, you know, this sort of thing. So this is why I think there's a lot of stupidity involved. Not rejecting the the idea of, ill intentions entirely. You know, I think we can have both, I think we have a lot of stupidity because it's like the US that. Do they really think this could be sustained over a longer term? Apparently they do, because they think this.
David Blackmon [00:13:04] Certainly.
Irina Slav [00:13:05] Could continue uninterrupted forever, or at least until they retire or, you know, die on the job. And we know that this is not the case. Everything ends. There is no such thing as a permanent status quo. But they're so complacent, they're so certain that nothing could seriously challenge them. Rather, just keep going and people are supposed to swallow it. Which is stupid. Very stupid and dangerous assumption.
David Blackmon [00:13:38] And I think you and I only only disagree slightly. Yeah, I just think there's more corrupt people than stupid people. I think you think there's more stupid people than corrupt people. Maybe just a matter of degree.
Irina Slav [00:13:51] You can be stupid and corrupt at the same time.
Tammy Nemeth [00:13:54] Exactly.
David Blackmon [00:13:55] Yeah, yeah. Look, Andrea, Keiko Cortez is the prime example of that, you know? Anyway Tammy. Go ahead.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:02] Yeah, I wanted to just.
David Blackmon [00:14:03] I interrupted you.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:04] A little bit there. You know, when we talk about, like, I really makes a really good point, all these businesses are buying in. But if you reduce the spending power of people, then they can't buy anything from these businesses. And so it's a it's like what's in it for those businesses. Are they not thinking long term that they understand that with if they if the people who are pushing the whole climate, reorganization of the world and the economy and whatnot, if they get their way, then people won't be buying very much at all. It'll all be shared. There'll be one pool of thing. Whatever. And I think maybe one of the things that is difficult to talk about is what are the ideological components of this? Because when you think of how the Soviet Union started, when you think of how the Chinese Communist Party started, they really didn't care about, you know, okay, people aren't going to have stuff because what was more important was having that power and control. And my concern is that the that there's a maybe a core group of people who were thinking that way. And when you're partnering with, with the Communist Party of China for different things, how can that some of that ideology not kind of rub off on you? And so my concern is that a lot of what's being proposed here is actually we talk about totalitarianism and authoritarianism. But where is that root? That root is in some form of government control that could be considered communist or whatever. And people are like, oh, communism. That's so done. Is it?
David Blackmon [00:15:35] No it's not.
Tammy Nemeth [00:15:36] Is it? The Chinese Communist Party is the, you know, one of the largest countries in the world asserting its its fingers and everything. And like Canada put a thousand or whatever percent tariff on EVs to make it, so that that we won't import them. So but China controls the supply chain for everything else. If they want to do domestic EV production and like Irina had her article today, where or the quotes from the guy talking about how everybody needs to get on board and why aren't you doing more and I you know, when I was reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn and when they were talking about why aren't you doing more for the trains and why are you being such a record? What are the car manufacturers now? The records, I mean, it's just. Oh.
Irina Slav [00:16:23] They're not doing their bit
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:26] Not they're not doing their bit. Step it up. And the UK is you know, one of my articles is that they're rationing. The dealers are the car dealers are rationing the internal combustion engine because they've been given these percentage targets or and it's not even a target. It's like, you must you must sell this percent of, of EVs. And it's like, okay, well how does that work? Well, you just don't sell the other ones and then everything else becomes more expensive. People have to be put on a waiting list, and then it's rationed and apportioned by the dealer is a first come first serve or to put pay a little more. I mean, how does that work?
David Blackmon [00:17:02] Well, I think that's a great example of what Irina points do is she talks about the stupidity of these people. Right. Because they, they, the people making all these policies like that mandate on car car dealers simply don't appear to understand that corporations are in, in business solely to make profits for their investors. They are not. They seem to think these these car dealers, these corporations or some some sort of social program that they can just go on willy nilly doing whatever the government mandates without making a profit to stay in business. There seems to be a complete lack of understanding of that part of the capitalist system. Right?
Tammy Nemeth [00:17:44] Right. We're shareholders. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:17:46] Yeah. But we see the same thing from carmakers because for years they thought that the subsidies will keep them going, you know, subsidies, it will take care of all the problems around EVs. People will buy them. How how how do you explain this from the CEOs and the senior management of huge car making companies? They thought subsidies will take care of everything. Well, guess what? The money for the subsidies ran out. You're selling your EVs at a loss. How long can you keep doing this? Did you not think this could happen? Or. It's actually scary, this degree of. Lack of awareness, lack of, you know, forward thinking. And this is from people in really high places, people with a lot of decision making power. How could this happen? I have no idea. But it's obviously happening. And now we have the CEO of VRA calling on government for more subsidies for green hydrogen. Okay, you get them. How long do you think you'll get them for? Forever. No.
Stuart Turley [00:18:56] No.
David Blackmon [00:18:57] That's all. Always the answer, right? That's always the answer from these. These green and me green energy companies like Orsted. Orsted. Every time Orsted has a problem and with profitability or, you know, the economics of some project, their their knee jerk response is always to ask either US, UK, German governments for more subsidies, we have to pay more subsidies or this is not sustainable. Well, if you have to have more subsidies for it, it clearly is not sustainable, you know.
Stuart Turley [00:19:26] Yeah. Bulgaria's caretaker energy minister, Vlad Vladimir Malinowski, met with Germany's economic climate action minister. Climate action minister. That that should be a warning right there. Robert Habeck in Thessalonica, Greece, that quote, we will expand our partnership in the areas of hydrogen technology, renewable green transition, energy corridors and supply diversification and others. Holy smokes Batman. David, this is just about as bad or as dumb as that new hydrogen train. I sent you the note.
David Blackmon [00:20:04] On San Bernardino, California. Holy
Stuart Turley [00:20:07] How many billions of dollars if they wasted on an electric train, an electric train from coal that they can't even make? Go Choo-Choo. And they want to blow the hydrogen train going down the road going there. And I would have a Hindenburg train. That ain't gonna happen.
David Blackmon [00:20:22] Well, I mean, you know, they'll put it on that one nine mile route right there. It's just isolated to this one nine mile route.
Irina Slav [00:20:31] Yeah, yeah.
David Blackmon [00:20:32] And it's just all it is. It's an enormously wasteful virtue signal by these politicians who ought to be able to run for reelection. Say, look at all the green stuff we're doing here in San Bernardino, California. Yeah, and nobody's going to ride the damn train. Nobody rides any of these commuter trains in any of these cities, because people are used to, to, to traveling by certain means. And it's one of the things I want to talk about when we, when we, you know, talk about, the energy things I observed on my trip here in a few minutes. Because people in America and in all parts of the country are used to being in cars. Okay. It's with very few exceptions, like Manhattan Island, New York City people really, you know, use the mass forms of transport there and in a few other big cities in America. But otherwise everybody wants to get in the car and go to work. That's that's how you live. It's how we become used to living. And so when a city like Houston puts in this $6 billion, 17 miles of commuter rail that they've got in the city of Houston, nobody rides it because people are not used to traveling in that mode. And there's generations of Americans who have eschew discarded that mode of transportation. So in order to make it work, you would have to have a entire transformation of societal attitudes. And you can't do that with mandates and subsidies. You just can't. It doesn't work that way.
Irina Slav [00:22:04] And you can't do it in ten years. You need a generation for this to happen.
David Blackmon [00:22:08] Yes, exactly, exactly.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:10] And that's you just take the cars away so, you know, if you.
David Blackmon [00:22:14] Which is the next logical step, by the way.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:16] Yeah. Like which is why, you know, with the, with the EVs, they can't sell them because they're too expensive. You can't charge them everything else because you're not supposed to have that vehicle. You're supposed to be jumping on the transit, riding your bike, walking if you can. And and it just makes it, you know, at some point it'll be unaffordable. You won't be able to have the parts once they reach a certain percentage of EVs. So how long will service stations that sell, petrol or diesel still be around? So if you no longer have a service station, you no longer have the refineries producing the fuel. Well, then you might have an old car, which you won't be able to have fuel to put in it. So then how do you get around you then you have to use these other forms of transportation that the that the climate people keep talking about, which is the point of these, new 15 minute communities. You know, like I was just here in Vancouver, there's this new development where they have like this set of, mini mall shops and doctors and dentists, and they built up all these high rises and, and townhouses and stuff around it, and they're pitching it that you don't have to go very far. They won't say 15 minutes, but they say you can't. You don't have to go very far. You don't need a car. And it's you know, you can walk and you could. You can do all these different things and everything's in this little community. And if you have to go a little bit farther into downtown or something, then you hop on the train or whatever, so you can see the planning stages already kind of taking taking place a lot of the new housing developments. There's no place for parking a vehicle, even an EV. So, this this is the trajectory. This is the sort of how they're planning these new communities in the in the larger centers. At least what I've seen in the UK and Canada. So, yeah, I mean, that's that's where we're kind of headed.
Irina Slav [00:24:11] How are people going to afford this? How are they going to afford flats or houses in these new developments? I mean, from what I've been reading about Canada, people are getting poorer by the day. People can't afford houses. How do the planners think people are going to fool these communities? Well, then they're thinking about it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:33] That's that's a really great point. They, the federal government in Canada was giving a lot of money to different developers and whatnot in order to build these green buildings in, in these more highly densely, packed in communities. And, and one of these subsidized places, I think it I forget how much it was, but you barely had any space at all. It was something like 400ft², and it was something like half $1 million. And that was supposed to be affordable housing. So great. If that's affordable. But who's supporting that? Nobody supporting that
Stuart Turley [00:25:12] Like California is about to roll out. That was it, $150,000 that they're giving a free loan that they don't have to pay back to illegal migrants?
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:24] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
David Blackmon [00:25:27] it's a loan. They don't have to pay back. What? What is that otherwise? No.
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:30] So it's a gift. It's a gift.
Stuart Turley [00:25:36] Yeah. Nevermind.
David Blackmon [00:25:38] No. You're in. No.
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:41] I just want to say one thing about women, though, because, you know, as a as a woman, if I have a vehicle, then I don't have to be afraid when I go out, if it's late at night or I have to if I'm working a late shift or something and I need to get home, I don't have to worry about someone attacking me on the street because I'm in my own car. But when you have public transit, a lot of the issues they're finding in the cities is that after dark, it's dangerous. It's dangerous for women and children to be traveling around in public transit, at least in North America, or taking the bus or, or the light rail or whatever. And even when we lived in Germany, it was there were some sketchy people out, you know, after 8 or 9:00 at night. And if you if you want to go home from a concert or something like that, and, you know, for women, actually the automobile has been a great way to, feel more safe and protected.
Irina Slav [00:26:35] Yeah. Western Europe used to be very safe when Eastern Europe used to be very unsafe. Right? Yeah. Speech. Turn! Yeah. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:26:46] We're saving the climate, but making people unsafe.
Stuart Turley [00:26:51] And I have been in too many situations where I've had to step in, and anytime there are innocent people around me, I will step forward. I will not put up with anyone being abused around me. Period. And unfortunately, there's not enough men out there that want to do that.
David Blackmon [00:27:12] Yeah. You know, those are all the time people just walking by or. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:18] And on the in the UK is you couldn't there's just you have no weapons and the bad people have weapons and there's gangs roaming around in it.
Stuart Turley [00:27:28] And we just ran a story. The, the Venezuelans, we're in Aurora and the I got really tickled over the fact that the Hells Angels were going to show up and deliver them, and that was just a joke. But then now, David, I don't know if you saw them, but the, Venezuelan gangs are rolling around the Permian Basin stealing, oilfield equipment.
David Blackmon [00:27:51] Yeah. Yeah. And what's the government doing about worse?
Irina Slav [00:27:55] What are they going to do?
David Blackmon [00:27:57] Right. And so many Americans are so dumb. We sit here and think, well, you know, the local police will. We'll take care of that. Increasingly, that's not the case.
Stuart Turley [00:28:07] My interview.
David Blackmon [00:28:08] And my. It's not the case.
Stuart Turley [00:28:09] No. My interview with Michael Yon, who is a war correspondent, was over two hours. And it is frightened me what's coming around the corner. And, it is all intentional and it's all related to the climate change. They're all interrelated. But let me. David, if I if you don't mind, let me t this one articulate lady. She's in a van and she's being interviewed. She is an Australian. She worked for an Australian government, senator. And in the first part of the video, she talks about the money grab and how bad it is that the the theft of the land, the the lease for an average windmill is about $12,000 per year that they pay to lease this out. So it's about getting that lease signed. So for every windmill that there will be $12,000 sign what that $12,000 buys them is that if it burns up and blows up, that the fire, the farmer has the responsibility to pay for the damages for the other farms around it, or to take the the equipment out if it's destroyed or the destroyed the land. $680,000 is what the money is. The subsidies are paid in Australia, so the subsidy is 680,000. Busted up to the politicians, busted up to the energy company, and the farmer is stuck holding the bill. That's the frightening part. As far as where all this is, it's not only a land grab, as somebody had mentioned, but it's about the physics that matter on this. And I'm going to drop this in here if this is okay. David.
Video Speaker 1 [00:30:03] What do we have here?
Video Speaker 2 [00:30:04] Alex, Nicole.
Video Speaker 1 [00:30:06] Alex, now, you used to work for the federal government.
Video Speaker 2 [00:30:08] I did, yeah, for seven years.
Video Speaker 1 [00:30:10] Doing what?
Video Speaker 2 [00:30:11] I was a policy adviser for a Liberal Party senator.
Video Speaker 1 [00:30:14] Okay. And tell you something. About you working with the windmills.
Video Speaker 2 [00:30:18] Yeah. So, the area that I was working in was renewable energy and basically, it was my job to, uncover a lot of the stuff that was going on with the Renewable Energy Act, which was put in in 2002 under the Howard government. So that was the Liberal Party put the act in place. And I was, looking at the mess that it had created. And what a lot of people don't understand is that the Renewable Energy Act, creates a subsidy environment where if you build wind turbines, you're paid between 600,000 and 900,000 per turbine per year as a subsidy alone.
Video Speaker 1 [00:31:04] Well, if it's on your property.
Video Speaker 2 [00:31:06] No. So what happens is the wind company comes in and leases, they pay a lease to the farmer to build the wind turbines. And that, in effect, makes sure that the farmer is still liable for the turbine.
Video Speaker 1 [00:31:22] Okay.
Video Speaker 2 [00:31:22] And they pay lease of $12,000 a year usually. And the company gets paid between 600 and 900,000 per turbine per year.
Video Speaker 1 [00:31:32] So they pay 12,000 to the farmer, but they get $600,000.
Video Speaker 2 [00:31:36] Exactly.
Video Speaker 1 [00:31:37] Per TurbineTrip. Yeah. This is a big incentive to put in turbines.
Video Speaker 2 [00:31:40] Yeah. And the land owner takes the, takes their liability for the.
Stuart Turley [00:31:46] Worst guy.
Video Speaker 1 [00:31:47] Gets $12,000 a year, but. Everything a him that he's got to fix it or she's got to fix.
Video Speaker 2 [00:31:51] Yeah. When they catch on fire. Yeah. They're responsible when this property properties going up in. Smoke. Yeah. And effectively that money, the subsidy that's getting paid to wind farms is framing $40 billion a year out of the Australian economy. And it's paid by everyone, every pensioner, household, schools, hospitals, everyone. It's not just the attacks. It comes out of your power, bill.
Video Speaker 1 [00:32:22] Is this why power bills are going up?
Video Speaker 2 [00:32:24] Yeah. That's what power.
Video Speaker 1 [00:32:26] Our power bills are going up to pay for wind turbines that don't want.
Video Speaker 2 [00:32:29] Exactly.
Video Speaker 1 [00:32:30] And why don't they work.
Video Speaker 2 [00:32:31] So they don't work? Because, for a start, they draw power off the grid. So they have to have coal fired power in order to turn their not windmills, their turbines. And essentially.
Video Speaker 1 [00:32:43] What do you mean, the power to turn? So when we see them turning, that's not the wind, that's the power generator turning.
Video Speaker 2 [00:32:49] Essentially, they have to draw power off the grid, so they have to draw a coal fired power off the grid in order to turn. And what happens when the wind picks up? They do actually start to create electricity of their own, but that electricity is so intermittent and unreliable. When it gets back to the grid, it has to be balanced on the grid, which you can't do. And like with your coal fired power station, you can't ramp your coal fired power stations up and down. So the coal fired power station stays at the same level, because it takes 24 to 48 hours for them to get up to heat anyway, and they just let off steam as the wind comes onto the grid. So there's absolutely nothing about them that works apart from raising that amount of money out of the Australian economy. And it's going offshore.
Video Speaker 1 [00:33:40] And money's going offshore. Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:33:46] Wow. David, that that picture that we just saw there at the end of it was I, that. Yeah. I don't know why it's not stay in there, but that I asked, can you create a street view of David Blackman holding a sign? And this is what, exes, Grove thinks of you? I thought it was pretty good.
David Blackmon [00:34:11] Very happy about that. Yeah. It's good,
Stuart Turley [00:34:14] you know. Because in grid, physics
David Blackmon [00:34:17] he's about 30 years younger than I am. But, that's okay too.
Stuart Turley [00:34:21] Yeah. Ingrid's fiscal responsibility and physics matter.
David Blackmon [00:34:27] Yeah, well, they didn't.
Stuart Turley [00:34:29] and that was kind of an eye opener for me that she was a political, assist in a political senator's office for all those years and articulated that their turbines, turbines require electricity. That's why in Scotland, last year, they were burning so much diesel on local generators to keep those things turning. And I was trying to figure out why, because they were burning diesel to keep them turning. Well, it's because they're turbines and they have to have the electrical to turn the system in order to do it. And this goes back to my theory that I've been Tammie, I've still got all those articles I'm working on so I can write a retribution to those articles, because this is part of a bigger project. The more we go renewable, the more fossil fuels we use. Period. I have been proven right on this now.
David Blackmon [00:35:29] Oh, it's absolutely right. Yeah. We having to pay to maintain two different power grids, one for virtue signaling and one to keep the lights on. Yeah, that's what we're doing.
Irina Slav [00:35:38] Well said.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:40] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:35:41] So let's go to our articles for the week Stu who is first.
Stuart Turley [00:35:48] I'm not sure who the first victim is, but let's take a look. Nothing. Actually.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:53] Make me go first. Okay?
David Blackmon [00:35:56] You just throw the whole episode here.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:59] So when when Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, put this massive tariff on 100% tariff on Chinese EVs in order to match the the United States. And, what the first thing China did was cut off the they put an embargo on the import of canola, which is, an oil seed. They call it rapeseed in, in Europe. And it's one of Canada's agricultural, really big exports. But nobody out in the West supports Trudeau. So it's kind of like, did they not know that this this Trudeau doesn't care about the farmers? He really doesn't I don't think he knows what a farm is. And so to slap a tariff on a product that he doesn't care about, how is that helpful? You know, why didn't you go after. Yeah. I don't know, something in Quebec or Ontario that maybe he would have cared. But, you know, when it comes to, grain farmers, he really doesn't doesn't care at all. But it's interesting.
Irina Slav [00:37:00] China will respond.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:02] Yeah. So, and that was interesting that this was, you know, we're going to slap this tariff and then you end up with these trade wars and everything else. So, this is another unintended consequence of, of the climate policies that you want everything domestic, but you can't afford it, and then you don't want to import stuff. So you slap tariffs on and then you get these, these trade wars and everything else. Which makes me wonder, why are we part of the World Trade Organization when none of the countries follow it? You don't follow it. So why don't they just dissolve it? Because it's not working. Yeah. Okay. So that was that was that. Sorry.
David Blackmon [00:37:44] And next. Is there another one Stu? Here we are.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:49] Right. So then Jack Mintz the Financial Post, talked about, this study that was kind of the, the, the motivation for inspiration for this, subject today. And he talked about how we all these subsidies don't really do anything. And it just makes everything more expensive. And, and what did work is having these carbon taxes along with mandates, which basically, as we talked earlier, just makes everything unaffordable. So then people don't they don't use energy and and that lowers emissions. So how that's helpful I don't know. And then the last one is this, this great story where, I mentioned earlier that with these mandates that the dealers have to sell to so many EVs, they're rationing petrol cars. So if you if you want to buy a diesel or put your, gas car in the UK and that dealership has made its quota already, they'll maybe put you on a list or they'll say, we can sell this to you in February once the new, quota comes around, but we can't sell you anything more this year, so I don't know what the price of used cars are, but I imagine they're going through the roof as well.
Irina Slav [00:39:12] They're going? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:15] So an unintended consequence or not, I don't know, stupidity, intention, combination I agree with I think it's a.
Irina Slav [00:39:24] All of the above.
David Blackmon [00:39:28] Irina.
Stuart Turley [00:39:31] Car industry pours cold water on von der Leyen.
Irina Slav [00:39:36] Well, that story was about is probably about EVs. Looks like again. Really? So finally, the car industry is speaking truth to power. Imagine that. Imagine how bad it must have become for the car industry to actually respond to EU plans about its future. And I see this as good news. I honestly don't remember the details of this story, but it's good to me that they're starting to speak out. They're starting to say that what you are planning for us is not going to work, whether it's raw materials, you know, setting up supply chains from scratch, whether it's, EV mandates, it's just not working. And then finally finding the courage to speak up. This is this is a beautiful story in the Financial Times in the publication formerly known as Financial Times. But I'm going to call it The Guardian 2.0, because really, you know, they're knocking it out of the park anyway. So some study, discovered, revealed, that universities who receive funding from oil companies, not bashing oil companies, they're actually being more favorable, favorable in their representation of the energy industry. And obviously this cannot be allowed to continue because the universities that do not receive funding from oil companies are more critical to oil companies. I wonder where they receive funding from these places that do not take money off the oil industry, and it's really so unbiased. It is really so impartial. It is really so objective. And I'm out of synonyms, this habit. But, yeah, it's it's very bad to take the money of the oil industry because it will make you less critical to that industry, because taking money from other industries will not make you less critical to those other industries. I'm not defending the oil industry here. When corporations from any industry fund universities, they probably don't do it uncritically and completely altruistically. And if I'm the head of an oil company, I will not give my money to some place which will, you know, teach kids that oil and gas are bad. Why would I do that?
David Blackmon [00:42:11] Other companies do it all the time here in the United States.
Irina Slav [00:42:13] But of course they do it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:16] Yeah, yeah.
Irina Slav [00:42:17] But I'm sure that sometimes these oil companies just donate money. First of all, to, to, you know, reduce their taxes. And second of all, to, you know, stimulate research in whatever direction. It goes.
David Blackmon [00:42:36] Sure.
Irina Slav [00:42:37] It makes sense. Everyone's interested in actual research. Well, everyone with the now some sense of money to support it.
Stuart Turley [00:42:46] So are the students being trapped or taped like tape on a cat so that the cat is sitting there and they get the tape on them, and they have to do this because I got a video of the cat for you here. This is what the students are having to face now. Not sure if they're taking money or not, But that poor.
Irina Slav [00:43:15] This actually looks like a climate scientist presented with some physical facts. You know you have. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:25] Oh.
Irina Slav [00:43:26] Yeah. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:29] Oh, that's a good one.
Stuart Turley [00:43:31] One climate scientist taped in the corner so he could steal more things. Oh, David, this is
David Blackmon [00:43:37] I love That one. Hi. Okay, so. So, do you have the one of the the Madrid airport first? So what I want everyone to understand is, is, on this trip, we just took Terry down, and my wife, we fly out, and we're located near near Fort Worth. So we flew out of Dallas Fort Worth Airport, which has just undergone a major renovation, much improved. And we land in Madrid, where we took a commuter flight over to Barcelona to get to Barcelona. This is the Madrid airport. Terminal four. And it is. It is a gleaming palace. It is absolutely spotless. It is brilliantly designed. It is one of the most, convenient and, well laid out airports I've ever traveled through in the past. I've been traveling regularly for 32 years. And it makes Dallas-Fort Worth airport look like a local dump. Despite the major renovation DFW has been through, and and Barcelona's airport was just as impressive. And I just wanted to show this to folks, to try to convey an understanding of how in a what a terrible state of disrepair and primitive nature, of the United States infrastructure is compared to some of these cities in Europe. Now, you know, I'm sure not every airport in Europe looks like this. I've been through others that don't look anything like this, but it just it's a kind of an embarrassment. I mean, DFW is one of the most modern airports we have in the United States. Fly in to LaGuardia sometime in New York City, or Miami. And it's it's like flying into a third world country compared to these things. So that was the first thing I wanted to show folks. And then that other ones, too. The other photo was of this at this is at the Barcelona Seaport, and I took it through the window, of the ship I was on. And this is a hybrid refueling ship that, refueled the ship we were on at the Barcelona seaport and Barcelona seaport, has, at least they claim has is achieved a 90% reduction in emissions at their that their operation over the last ten years. And they've done it with this kind of creative solution, hybrid technology, which I am all in favor of. I actually think hybrid makes all sorts of sense, and it was interesting for me anyway, to see this applied to a, you know, a big refueling ship at a major port in Europe, which, I don't know, we may be using those at some of the ports in the United States, too, but it was just, kind of a dichotomy. And and being in Barcelona was really interesting and unfortunately didn't take a lot of pictures of, of the transportation in the city.
Stuart Turley [00:46:33] Do you want. The video. David?
David Blackmon [00:46:35] No, that's that's, in Lisbon. We'll go to that next. But in Barcelona, which is in Catalan Catalonia, region of Spain, which is kind of like an American Indian tribe. It's a sort of almost, self self-governing region of Spain. And so they have a completely different program in terms of energy than Spain does flying into Madrid. You see wind developments all over the countryside. And I wasn't able to get pictures out of the plane of these things. There's just windmills everywhere in that part of the country. You fly to Barcelona, there's not a windmill to be seen. We traveled, outside the city to, you know, many miles outside the city. Never saw a single windmill. So in Catalonia, they're doing they have a completely different program where energy is concerned. But their bus is really interesting because it's this combination of of hybrid busses, diesel busses and electric busses that you see, you know, on the streets of Barcelona. And, you know, I don't know what they're paying for all that, how most of their electricity is generated. I don't know, but we did see several natural gas power stations in and around Barcelona, and that was just kind of interesting to me. But yeah, go to that, video, the trolley. And so this is this is the old city of Lisbon, its history, the tucked up in the foreground with a trolley, electric trolley in the background. And that reminded me of the fact, of what a lost opportunity we've had in the United States where electric trolley systems are concerned, because, you know, I spent a lot of years living in Houston. And it is a fact that prior to the mid 1950s, the city of Houston had the second most extensive system of electric trolleys in the United States, second only to San Francisco. The city council, I think it was 1954, voted to just get rid of all those electric trolleys that people were. I mean, they were full, they full of riders. People use them all the time to go all parts of the city, and instead, bought a bunch of diesel powered busses and in all those trolley lines got torn up and have disappeared forever. So now when the city of Houston in modern times wants to build light rail, they don't have the infrastructure in place, and it costs billions and billions of dollars to to put in 17 miles, of light rail that nobody rides. Because why? Because starting with a baby boomer generation. Nobody rode trains to work. And so everyone in Houston for generations now has been used to getting in their car and going back and forth to work. Whereas in Lisbon, you know, you still have the old trolley system. It's fine. It runs well. It gets people around. You see those trolleys? They're full of people all the time. And it's just, really again, an interesting dichotomy that we saw. We visited Lisbon, Porto, Barcelona spent a lot of time in Barcelona, and it's just really interesting to see the differences in modes of transportation and the infrastructure being in so much better shape in these cities in Spain and Portugal, anywhere away than it is in the United States. So that's my, preaching es on, on transportation Difference.
Stuart Turley [00:50:02] where
David Blackmon [00:50:05] This is the southern coast of Spain, and I just happened to see this Coast Guard ship that I took a film up. But there's all the windmills in the background. You travel across the southern. It was right before we got to Gibraltar, coming back from Portugal. And. Yeah, the whole countryside. The whole coastline look just like this. Do it in. Yeah. I mean, there's just windmills everywhere. Some of them are gigantic, too. I mean, they they have to be seven, 800ft tall. They're really the the hillsides of mountainsides are just covered up with them. So I, you know, they've gone in big for wind in Spain other than Catalonia. And, it's not really working out for them. And then they pay some of the highest utility bills on the European continent. As a result, and just for the reasons the lady from Australia was talking about. So that's my little tutorial on on energy in Spain and. Okay. So my my articles well this one was we've already talked about Joe Biden admitting that the Inflation Reduction Act wasn't about reducing inflation at all. In fact, it was it was really about, inflation enhancing, subsidies for green energy. And he, he, you know, for whatever reason, just blurted out in a speech he made last week that we should have named it what he was. Well, the reason they didn't name it what it really was is because if they had done so, nobody would have voted for it, which is so classic of the American Congress, especially the Democrats. Then give these bills names that are exactly the opposite of what the bill will do. And so immediately after the passage of that bill and the beginning of the implementation of it was when inflation really kicked off in the United States, tripling from from the levels. It was, during the Trump administration. So that's what that bill was really all about. And then I love this one. The higher power bills feature the energy transition, not a glitch. This is about the, of course, Gavin Newsom and his his lunatic energy policies in the state of California. Now, I've just momentarily forgotten what what exact policy that one was about. But you could just point out damn near me. Oh, this was about a foreseeing, PG and the government is forcing PG any to bury 10,000 miles of power lines in the northern part of the state as a forest fire prevention measure, when power lines cause maybe 2% of the wildfires? In in northern. California,
Stuart Turley [00:52:41] United States, and in Canada of the forest fires that are causing all of the problems of 7000 fires. A forest fire guy that I talked to, three were started, right? By natural causes. The rest of them were arson.
David Blackmon [00:53:00] Yeah, it's arson. And it's bad. Forest management in California..
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:03] Yeah. Bad management.
David Blackmon [00:53:05] They refused to do controlled burns to get rid of all the, the tinderbox in those forests, like any responsible state would do. And so, you know, they they pushed the blame off the PGA to force it to bury the power lines. And the costs are going to be passed on in utility bills, which is a regressive tax on the poorest in society. That's the essence of governance in California.
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:31] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:53:32] Wow. Okay. Let's take a look at this one. Will the UK dial down 2030 offshore wind goal? Probably. Sure. Every time I turn around, the UK has got more entertainment going on. I'll tell you, I'm a I'm having a lot of fun with and generating, cover images for stories. If anybody's not using it, you got to try it. It's a lot of fun. The other story here. Volkswagen can't continue before. This one was really pretty entertaining. The pie is getting smaller, and we have much more guests at the table, said the top executive at the group. Car owners in chat. Such as Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini. The EU has become the largest overseas market for Chinese electric vehicles. The value of EU imports Chinese cars surged to 11.5 billion in 2023, just from 1.6 billion in 2020. Holy smokes. Barely smokes. The deindustrialization, climate energy climate policies. Equals deindustrialization. And in poor Volkswagen is a victim of deindustrialization. There, they're not able to even compete anymore.
David Blackmon [00:55:02] And what country is the beneficiary of the deindustrialization of the West?
Stuart Turley [00:55:06] China. Thank you. I'll take China for $2, and then you take a look at.
Irina Slav [00:55:12] The poor folks working, please.
Stuart Turley [00:55:20] The other one here, UK car, face gargantuan fines for not selling enough EVs. I thought of that. Tammy, I can't believe this. Okay, sell the EVs. Don't sell the EVs. Don't produce oil. Or if you do produce oil, we're going to windfall profits. Tax you. Holy. Yeah. What's going on over there?
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:44] I don't know.
Irina Slav [00:55:45] Well, the transmission plug, it's essentially it's it's the same development that, Tammy talked about. Carmakers have new emissions targets. They must stay within these targets. And to do that, to stay within the limits of that total fleet emissions, they need to sell 22% of the total sales for this year must be EV. They can't make that target. So they face fines. And this is why they're delaying deliveries of petrol and diesel cars. Yeah, because they don't want to pay the fines of course. Then of course.
Stuart Turley [00:56:22] Yeah the fine is 15,000 pounds.
Irina Slav [00:56:25] And owners.
Stuart Turley [00:56:27] Wow. You're are they're already losing 15,000 per car. They sell. So let's let's take that dead cat that's on the side of the road. Put a defibrillator on it. Simple. Clear.
David Blackmon [00:56:44] Mark Outhwaite, nails it here. The ends justify the means according to labor.
Irina Slav [00:56:49] And the idiotic two.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:52] Yeah. Okay.
David Blackmon [00:56:54] Yes, yes, they were. And, who who is famous for originating that saying? By the way, Karl Marx,.
Irina Slav [00:57:02] A great guy.
Stuart Turley [00:57:04] What? Applying the
Irina Slav [00:57:04] Machiavelli
David Blackmon [00:57:07] Oh, is it Machiavelli? Okay. All right.
Irina Slav [00:57:09] No, it wasn't. It wasn't, I think. I thought it was Karl Marx or something. The Jesuits.
Stuart Turley [00:57:14] Did. We. I just saw this here. They might know what it cost to install a three megawatt wind turbine. And then nobody.
David Blackmon [00:57:22] Answered that question, and.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:23] Yeah, I answered that.
David Blackmon [00:57:24] That wasn't me.
Stuart Turley [00:57:26] It was the Nemeth Report.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:27] That was me. There's a it depends. Right? Right.
Stuart Turley [00:57:33] With annual maintenance.
Irina Slav [00:57:35] Maintenance?
Stuart Turley [00:57:36] See, here's where it gets really funny, because none of the reports, when I'm going through all these things the way that four years, four years is what the wind farm folks are now trying to get out of their warranty, and they're trying to re put in new turbines every four years using.
David Blackmon [00:57:57] A new round of subsidy.
Stuart Turley [00:57:58] They get a new round of subsidies. And it's like what a revolving money scheme this thing is. No wonder the cost per kilowatt. New Jersey is now catching up to New York, California, Germany and the UK in deindustrialization. Methodology of increasing energy costs. Unbelievable. Yep. So, anyway, let me get rid of this one here. Thank you. Tammy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:58:30] Well, lowest bidder actually, because if you think of which, when you have to put the roads in, you have to do all these other things. And, you know, is that installation and the and the, the making of the wind turbine, I think there's a lot of different variables in there. And so therefore I think that's a very conservative, estimate for what they cost.
David Blackmon [00:58:52] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:58:53] I would think so. I'll tell you what. This was a fun one.
David Blackmon [00:58:57] This was a lot of fun. This was a boy. We covered a lot of ground here, guys. I, and I really appreciate is absolutely thrilling to be back and start my week this way. I really.
Irina Slav [00:59:10] We Miss you.
David Blackmon [00:59:11] And I missed you all too. Yeah. And, I love the vacation to to Europe. It's such a wonderful place, but I'm sure glad to be home. And with that, I think we're done. Right.
Tammy Nemeth [00:59:25] Yeah. Thanks, everybody.
David Blackmon [00:59:28] Bye.
Irina Slav [00:59:29] See you next Monday. Bye bye.
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