In this episode of Energy Newsbeat – Conversations in Energy, Stuart Turley interviews Kent Williamson, author of American Heat Engine, Hydrocarbons and the Power of the United States. They discuss the vital role of hydrocarbons in American history, touching on topics such as the impact of coal, oil, and natural gas, and how the U.S. has utilized private mineral rights to become a leading energy producer. Kent also highlights energy security issues, particularly in California, and the global importance of LPG in providing energy solutions to underserved populations. The conversation explores energy's complex role in shaping geopolitics and the economy, with Kent stressing the need for a better understanding of the energy industry.
We are in an energy revolution. Energy consumers are waking up to the fact that high energy prices come from "Green Energy Policies" that impact and hurt the environment and economy more than they provide electricity. Kent's book tells us how we got here and has some great insights as a guide for where we need to go.
I look forward to more conversations with Kent as we move into the next energy era.
Also looking forward to cooking you a steak, and taking you boating! - Stu
You can get the book here: https://a.co/d/fzFJ86V
Follow Kent on his LinedIn Here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kent-j-williamson-830bb617/
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 - Intro
01:04 - Kent's Career and Energy Industry Insights
04:09 - History of Energy in America
05:07 - Book Launch and Pricing
08:25 - Energy Security and Coal's Role
12:23 - Energy's Humanitarian Impact
16:34 - Energy Production and National Security
20:36 - California's Energy Crisis
22:47 - Strategic Hydrocarbon Bridges
31:06 - Energy Exports and the Gulf Coast
35:02 - Future Plans and Book Editions
39:14 - LPG and Global Energy Solutions
40:13 - Conclusion and Future Talks
Stuart Turley [00:00:07] Hello everybody. Welcome to the Energy Newsbeat Podcast. My name's Stu Turley, president and CEO of the Sandstone Group. I'll tell you, today is just an absolutely wonderful day because I get to visit with Kent Williamson. He is the author of a brand new book, American Heat Engine, Hydrocarbons and the Power of the United States. And he is here with a brand-new book that is just hitting the show. How are you today, Kent?
Kent Williamson [00:00:34] Doing great, Stu. Thank you. Thanks a lot for having me on your podcast.
Stuart Turley [00:00:38] I'll tell you what, you and I, before we were starting the show, we both talked about Chris Wright's bettering human lives when he was at Liberty Energy. And Chris Wright had a very significant impact on my life and the podcast. And you also have read his work as well. It is everything he talks about is really what your book talks about.
Kent Williamson [00:01:04] Yes. So that's part of where I'm coming from. I actually kind of started in the energy industry. It was only a little over 15 years ago. So I mean, growing up, I grew up in Denver, which happens to be where Mr. Wright's company is based. So, I was not totally oblivious to the energy industry, I remember a lot of things. But my parents weren't directly involved in oil and gas or anything like that either. So as the years went along, I served in the military. So obviously, I studied a lot about history and then geopolitics and security, so the Middle Eastern oil and things like that. But I have to say, looking back, I didn't really have a great understanding of how energy works. And I think that's true for a lot of people. But then in 2007, I ended up hiring into a company called IHS here in Tulsa. And I was a product manager for some geology software that they had acquired. And so I was basically, little did I know it, I was at ground zero for the shale revolution. So this software was used by mostly American oil and gas companies for geologic mapping and it was expanding into the engineering realm, geophysics and things like that. So I spent 15 years with IHS. It later became IHS Market and then S&P Global merged with, they merged about three years ago. So in that process, I learned everything about from upstream to midstream to downstream oil and gas. We also had coal experts in the company and I ended up learning quite a bit about that. And I was a product manager. I also got to do a research role where I was refining and marketing analyst for Latin America, which then I learned the close connections between the United States and Latin America on the hydrocarbon front, all of them really. And so I got to thinking and then I just realized like this stuff I thought was really interesting, But I also, when I read things and listen to podcasts, you realize a lot of people, myself included, before I learned about it, really don't know much about the energy industry. It kind of operates in the background.
Stuart Turley [00:03:12] You know, you bring up such valuable points because when people go in and they turn on the light switch, they think it happens amazingly or they'll sit out and they'll, they'll say, wait a minute, I want an electric car. Like Jennifer Granholm, holy smokes. They spent what? $7 billion of our taxpayer dollar to put in two or up to seven charging stations. If you charge an electric car from a coal plant, the electric cars are not necessarily the best for the environment. And so how does coal get here? How does energy happen? And Ronald Stein, we've talked about the author, Ronald Stein. He says, you can't make a iPhone out of a windmill. So you got to have the hydrocarbons and you got to have, the, the other stuff. So I love your balanced approach or your. Balanced learn on the job training you had. That's pretty darn cool.
Kent Williamson [00:04:09] Yeah. It was fascinating. And then the other kind of side of the story was I've always loved history, especially American history. And so I've read a lot of American history books, and I kind of went back through some of them, including my old high school American history textbook. And I was like, this stuff isn't really all that covered all that much. I mean, coal mining and coal mining strikes, and sometimes the standard oil is usually covered in a few big picture things. But like, for instance, natural gas, I think, is almost totally absent from American history. So I kind of started thinking about it, and then I had the opportunity to write this book. And why I did it, there's a few reasons. I thought it was interesting. I thought I was a story that needed to be told that has not been told at least like this. And then my grandmother wrote some books when she was kind of later in life. So maybe that inspired me and a few other reasons. So I went ahead and did it, and I wasn't sure I could pull it off, but you know, I ended up finishing.
Stuart Turley [00:05:07] The book and now it's published. How fun and so it's going to be available on Amazon by the time we get this pushed out.
Kent Williamson [00:05:14] Now so it was launched on Tuesday so outstanding I'm just self-publishing so I I'm doing keeping it simple for now it's just a paperback and then an ebook so okay fantastic so how it's priced 1775 and the ebook is 775. And the reason I did that is, so you may know, this year is the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution, April 19, Lexington and Concord. So I actually did a trip last weekend, and New England happens to be where the American Industrial Revolution started as well. It was powered mills and so forth. But hydrocarbons ended up playing a big role in that area, even though that area has very few hydrocarbons. So that's kind of why I thought for kind of an anniversary celebration for the United States, you know, the American Revolution starting on Priced at $17.75.
Stuart Turley [00:06:08] You know, we're about to, I think your book is going to become more and more important as we go through. Not only the industrial revolution, you know, oil and gas saved the whales the first time. You know when we talked about whale oil and, and everything else, I wonder if oil and gasses is going save whales. The second time with all the offshore wind problems that are out there killing the right whales, maybe with president Trump not doing that, but. That's a whole nother discussion there. So oil and gas will save the, the whales the second time. But I think with this president Trump's ship building going on and the reindustrialization, we may be facing a whole new industrial revolution that we need and Chris Wright, secretary, right? As we just mentioned a minute ago, put out several help put out several executive orders through president Trump. Where they have made coal great again.
Kent Williamson [00:07:10] So yes, coal is, and coal is actually where it all started as far as hydrocarbons. So you mentioned the environmental side of things and of course, hydrocarbons are criticized a lot and so forth, but you mentioned whale oil and that's a prominent example. So in the days before electricity, people use various methods to light their homes and businesses and so fourth. And one of them was lamps that used oils, different types of oils, including whale oil. And you know whales were hunted almost to extinction in the mid-1800s and then kerosene which originally you know first was derived from oil that was distilled out of coal right then progress to petroleum. That basically ended whale oil. But another area that people may not be familiar with is trees. So obviously, in the early United States, water power was one of the main energy sources, and then wood. So people used wood. And the Eastern United States especially was basically almost all covered with forest. So it had plenty of wood, and that actually delayed the industrial revolution in some ways. So wood in iron production, so wood can be burnt in the absence of oxygen to create charcoal. And charcoal was what was originally used for smelting iron in the early United States. And so there wasn't a need for coal. The British had been using coal, but eventually, we had a lot of coal in the eastern parts of the eastern United States, and that ended up moving into that. And that actually helped save the forest, so to speak, where you're not having to use wood for iron and fuel.
Stuart Turley [00:08:45] You know, I find it funny that they call it an energy transition, but when we take a look at wind and solar, they've only added to the energy demand at the cost of trillions of dollars and would in biomass, as far as fossil fuels go, we're still have not weaned ourselves off because if we look at the amount of pellet chips pellets that we ship to the UK right now is still astronomical from the U of S as shipping biomass. I'm like, have we not learned anything yet? Well, that's,
Kent Williamson [00:09:22] get into that in the book, for sure, it's energy density. And that's one of the reasons coal, you know, had the advantage over wood was higher energy density, so You know, people warm their homes and so forth with wood for a long time. But as cities grew, that became more and more of a problem because as the population density increased, the wood supply chains became more and more important and that could be disrupted by cold weather. When rivers froze over, they had huge snow drifts and you couldn't get the wood to the cities and people literally would freeze to death or they had to burn their furniture or whatever. So coal had the advantage because if you could get it there, You didn't have to pile up as much coal because it has higher energy density, and so you could have especially urban dwellers that don't have room for huge piles of wood. Coal was a good substitute for wood once it could be delivered and was cost effective. So very interesting.
Stuart Turley [00:10:19] I'll tell you that the whole, the whole thing is this, uh, Ronald Stein does such a great job as being a, a author in his book. And I hope that you can continue in his footsteps by he is really taken up encouraging people to have a discussion about energy. And I hope your book becomes a cornerstone for people's discussion points. So I'm hoping that you are taking up and writing your own sub stack and writing article. I just, I just gave you your own. Here I am talking to you and you got a new homework assignment.
Kent Williamson [00:10:57] Considering that. That's one of the reasons I wrote it actually was, so I, as you've mentioned, you know, energy is kind of a misunderstood subject. It's not covered in our education system much. There's a lot of information out there that's not necessarily accurate. And then the energy industry itself, you know a lot, of cases has not done itself a favor with the way it communicates. I think Mr. Wright's company has done a great job, but in some cases, they seem to want to just stay out of the limelight and not really push forth the benefits that the energy delivers. There's always side effects. There are downsides to everything, but the benefits. And that's what I'm trying to convey with this book. So I'm not trying to make a political statement. I'm not trying make a, hey, fossil fuels or hydrocarbons, they're the only thing. All I'm trying to do is say, here's the place in American history that they played, that they continue to play. And then I have the end quote, I kind of give my own little view of where they might go in the future. But I'm really just trying to lay out, hey, this is their important parts of American history, and therefore world history. And, you know, despite what you may hear, they continue to be and probably will be for the foreseeable future. So I'm just trying to get that out there. And it's a really interesting story, too. That's the other thing is the more I dig into it, the more interesting it gets. And that's what I'm trying to convey with the book.
Stuart Turley [00:12:23] I, you know, I love how the United States has changed in the history. My grandfather was one of the chief geologist attributed with discovery of the North slope up in Alaska. And I absolutely love all my trips up to Alaska. And when you take a look at Alaska and then the Aliaska pipeline, which I was able to sell equipment up there too, and I enjoyed going up there and meeting with them and. And you, you take a look at how Alaska and then Texas has really changed from ESG investing in oil and gas did a good thing investing in the American oil and gas, 50% of our oil and guess is made by privately held companies and the tax benefits for investing in Oil and gas has been phenomenal. You have the great people like Harold Ham and, and all the others that are out there, Texas has done such a great job at eliminating ESG problems by curbing their own flaring by turning it into profit with for Bitcoin mining and stuff, the, the demonization of oil and gas companies is where I'm trying to go with this was falsely done. There were some bad apples. I'm not going to, not going a kid. But they've really U S production has become the gold standard in the world.
Kent Williamson [00:13:48] Yeah, that's actually, you mentioned that the private oil companies and so forth. And that's kind of actually where I started this concept is so when I was working for IHS and its successors, one of the things that really fascinated me was the level, the number of wells in the United States. I mean, it's four and a half, five million. I go overseas and there's very few. And I always ask, why is that? And the reason is it's because of the private mineral rights that we have here. Then I found out United States is basically the only country in the world that has that. And I found that fascinating. And so that's where I actually started. I was wanting to write a book on private mineral rights and their role and why the United States has produced so much oil and gas especially. But I quickly found that was kind of beyond my capability. That's really a very complex and academic type subject, but I do cover it in the book and point out that that's one of the reasons that the United State is so prolific with hydrocarbons is because of the private mineral rights.
Stuart Turley [00:14:49] Oh, absolutely. And when you consider the alternative is Saudi Arabia is a kingdom and they own all the mineral rights and they use like Saudi Aramco in order to fund their big city, their, their programs. And I applaud the Saudis from a standpoint of looking at energy policies and decades in, in long-term planning, as opposed to the next election season. We as Americans have got to get past that.
Kent Williamson [00:15:22] It's also interesting, we do have quite a bit of our hydrocarbon resources that are controlled by governments, primarily the federal government. And that can be a very controversial subject, but what I've found in looking at that is through, I think that's one of the other really great things about the United States is our federal system of government. It kind of diffuses power in different directions, but it's kind of provided us at the end, it's been very messy. It's been frustrating sometimes, but we have an interesting portfolio of energy resources where the private areas are the ones that do a lot of the production, the innovation. They're much more nimble, fast moving. And then we have these federal areas like you mentioned Alaska. So that's all federally controlled, the offshore Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of America, if you prefer to say go for America. As an aside, you know, as people read the book, you know, I mentioned I thought about changing that I just decided to keep Gulf of Mexico because I have one or more quotes that actually mentioned it. I think most of the oil and gas industry is familiar with You know, they refer to it as golf mix.
Stuart Turley [00:16:34] I kept it. I think you're going to get a pass from President Trump. So when we when he watches this podcast, he'll say, oh, yeah, it was already in production. So we'll get a passage.
Kent Williamson [00:16:43] So, but you know, it's kind of interesting because you know the development in places like Gulf, offshore Gulf, Alaska and so forth, it is generally more measured than, you know it can be slow and so fourth, but maybe it leaves some to be developed for later and that is good too.
Stuart Turley [00:17:01] You know, what I see is that there is going to be a thing, AI and data centers are absolutely driving up demand. We've been stable. The grid in Texas has been, it's taken us a hundred years to build the grid. And when we sit back and take a look, there's never been a huge demand increase like we're seeing over the last several years. And I've been doing an analysis of the grid of the three different major sections of the, grid, the East West and, and Texas ERCOT, and I'm seeing a very large problem looming on the, the horizon and the large problem is the lack of subsidies drying up for the wind farms and solar panels. Land reclamation coming around the corner is going to be a problem. And that price tag is going to come due for the lack of subsidies going into wind and solar. So we have spent trillions of dollars on wind and solar in order to only gain about 4% increase to 7% increase of additional electricity because of the physics and fiscal responsibility puzzle that's here. We got a real problem coming around the corner.
Kent Williamson [00:18:25] Well, I mean, that, you know, that winter storm about four years ago now, you know, supposedly the Texas grid came within a few minutes of collapsing. And I don't think, I mean the human cost of that was bad enough, and it would have been even worse. But I don t think people realize how important that area is to our economic and our national security. So that's part of what I get into. It's a really interesting part of the book. And I got a lot of great source material from a guy named Charles Blanchard who wrote a history of natural gas. He's actually down in Houston. I haven't actually spoken to him, but he wrote a really good book called The Extraction State. But he pointed out that if you go into the regulatory history of our natural gas sector, especially after World War II, there was regulations on interstate gas but not on intrastate gas. One of the effects over time was that some of These energy intensive industries left due to the distortions of the regulatory regime left their original homes in the, you know, the industrial heart of the United States, which at the time was Appalachia and the Midwest, and they moved to the Gulf Coast. And so now our petrochemical industry, which is world-class refining industry and others, a lot of it is concentrated along the Gulf coast, especially Texas and Louisiana. If you lose electric power to that, that's a huge problem. I realize some of them have backup, power generation, but still that would be a disaster if that happened.
Stuart Turley [00:19:55] Oh, absolutely. And you mentioned regulatory issues and things and next week I'm interviewing Mike Umbro and Ronald Stein about California, because when you take a look at the regulatory process for the green new deal and the over regulation in New York, Delaware, New Jersey, and California. California is about to have an, an, a energy crisis of biblical proportions. I mean, was it Dan Aykroyd it was it's raining cats and dogs, you know, in ghost busters, we're about to to have biblical problems in California in their energy market.
Kent Williamson [00:20:36] Yes, I'm connected to Mike on LinkedIn. He puts out some really great content on there. And I've commented a little bit on it from a historical perspective. And I have a whole section in the book on California alone. I mean, it's a great American hydrocarbon province. Or at one time, it was Kern County. The Los Angeles oil field was discovered in 1892. And a lot of people don't know oil money, actually a lot of oil money funded the early Hollywood film industry in that area. But, you know, at one time in the 20s, California was producing around a quarter of the world's the entire oil supply, it was a prolific.
Stuart Turley [00:21:14] So they went from energy independent to now California is importing 60% to 70% of their, I believe it. No, excuse me. It's 68 to 72% of their oil is being imported from countries that we sanction. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Why this kind of entertainment?
Kent Williamson [00:21:36] You know, California is, you know, everyone thinks of when they think of industry. Generally in the United States, you know, you think of the Midwest, Appalachia, maybe the Gulf Coast, not many people think about California, but in the 1900s, especially around World War II. And the Cold War, California was a huge industrial producer, and it was the epicenter of the United States aerospace industry, which was critical, of course, during World War and the Cold War and so forth. And it's becoming more and more of a problem. And the Pacific coast of the United States, of course, we also have Alaska and Hawaii, which are states in the United states. We have some of the other parts of the United States that are further afield in the Pacific. But if you think our major geopolitical kind of rival or adversary is now China, California is still a very important, I mean, that's where most of our naval power is based. And, you know, so national security and things like that. So it's concerning what's happening there for sure. You know, if you have lack of energy security and deindustrialization on the west coast, that's a problem.
Stuart Turley [00:22:47] Oh, it's a huge problem. In fact, they import 70, 78% of the oil that is drilled in Ecuador from Chinese corporations and they're taking down the rainforest and their import. Mike Umbro talks about that as well too. But we also sit back and take a look at the de-industrialization. You mentioned that beautifully. I did a, what prompted me four years ago was not only Chris Wright's endeavors, but taking a look, at China and California, California banned all of their coal plants and they were still importing in coal from one last coal plant, which was in Nevada, I believe. So they're still importing in all this oil they're importing in from other sources. And I noticed that through the EPA reports, Kent, they were actually using more coal than they were before. So that prompted me to come up with what has been dubbed by one of my other podcast guests, Turley's law, the more we spend on wind, solar, and hydrogen, the more fossil fuels will be used. And it's been held true, especially in California. They're using more coal now than they were before, and it's not for electrical generation, it's for cement. It's for steel. It for other things that they're doing out there. It kind of hilarious.
Kent Williamson [00:24:14] Yeah, it's interesting. Ironically, you know, California, as far as hydrocarbons go, has very little coal. It's mostly oil and natural gas. But the first hydrocarb they used originally was coal. And it was extensively before the oil booms of the late 1800s, early 1900s. So when the gold rush happened in 1849, there was one gentleman, which I talk about in the book, who came out there to find gold. But then, like most people, he had to figure out something else to do. And he ended up starting up municipal lighting, a gas light company in San Francisco. And they had to, of course, import coal from Pennsylvania and Australia to generate gas for lighting. So yeah, coal goes back a long ways. It's interesting, you mentioned the energy security, the imported oil for California. And that's another area I cover in the book is when, you know, so I use these concepts called strategic hydrocarbon bridges to try to hit the highlights of the history because, you know, I wanted to keep this book kind of high level. Say that again.
Stuart Turley [00:25:16] I love that again. I love that term strategic hydrocarbon bridges.
Kent Williamson [00:25:21] Yes. And so you'll find 15 of them in the book. There's a kind of a map that goes with each each one of them. But one of the that a lot of your listeners and I'm sure you are familiar with, just as an example, I called it the Gulf Coast to the mid continent, to the Midwest oil bridge. Right. And it was basically spindle top in 1901 on the Texas Gulf Coast. Right. And that was the first major oil discovery kind of outside the original kind of Appalachian and Midwestern core. And that was right at the dawn of the automobile age. But then what really solidified it was those fields actually started declining pretty quickly. The Glen pool, literally just a couple of miles from where I'm sitting right now in Oklahoma, just south of Tulsa, that was a huge field. And so that caused some of the Gulf Coast companies like Texaco and Gulf to build pipelines up into Oklahoma. And then others like Standard and Shell ended up building pipelines back to the Midwest. So that kind of connected that other companies like Sun Oil Company, they started shipping oil on tankers through the Gulf of Mexico up to the East Coast. And that was actually ended up being the cheapest way to transport oil to the refineries on the East Coast, but what happened when we got into World War Two, the Germans, the German U-boats immediately came over and started sinking our tankers and essentially cut off the oil from our own Gulf Coast and mid-continent oil fields to the East Coast. So we figured, and that's where we built these pipelines, but I bring it up because that's the kind of thing that I think is being forgotten here. It's like California is importing so much of its oil from overseas. And what's the vulnerability of that?
Stuart Turley [00:27:03] Your book is going to highlight a huge issue for people is that history does repeat itself and we do have a security issue here with California, not only are there the fifth largest economy in the world or something like that. I mean, it's, it just huge, but if they are that susceptible to foreign influence, it is absolutely horrific. And the president Trump. We have, what a trifecta we have in Doug Burgum, secretary of interior, Lee Zeldin cutting, slashing EPA and EPA in California has got to just absolutely, that is a whole nother nightmare right there. And then you have Chris Wright talk about a trifacta, the three horsemen out there running around on energy. That's a great team.
Kent Williamson [00:27:59] That's another part that I have a section in the book is the international oil, oil imports and so forth. And that's a very controversial subject. And it's a concern. But the fact of the matter is we needed imports and a lot of them, especially after World War II. And we still import a lot of oil. Now, thankfully, the majority of our oil is imported from Canada. And Canada is probably best ally in the world and so forth. And that, along with our own increases due to the unconventional revolution has drastically reduced the amount that we have to import from more unstable places like the Middle East and Venezuela. But it's an interesting thing because now we talk about energy security or energy independence, energy dominance, however you want to term it. But if you go back in history, oil imports or it was mostly oil imports, of course, time was actually thought about as a good thing in some cases because there was concern that ours was running out and so we wanted to save it for later and why not get it from somewhere else. So there is that aspect to it and I think Canada is a great example of that. I mean, Canada, if you go by geologic reserves, has much larger oil reserves than we do.
Stuart Turley [00:29:14] And, and, and they are, they do a fantastic job up there in the oil field saying they do a ecologically great recovery methodology.
Kent Williamson [00:29:25] So that's another fascinating thing that I learned in my career with IHS. So when I was that refining and marketing analyst for Latin America, I mean, we're very much tied to Latin America. And one of the reasons for that is because when our own oil reserves kind of peaked in 1970 and started going down, most of our oil is light sweet. Then we we started importing more from like Venezuela, Mexico and Canada eventually, and that's heavy sour primarily. So our refining industry had to retool, invest, upgrade to be able to handle that, you know, with cracking, coking, so forth. And now the refining industry is world-class in that respect, and it can handle all different kinds of crudes. So, but you know with our shale revolution, that's mostly light sweet, and they can't literally can't handle as much of that. So then we've been exporting a lot of that, which has improved global energy security, and we're still importing a lot heavy sour from Canada and Mexico and so forth. And it's kind of a win-win situation. I would go down to those Latin American countries and they were always interested in what the U.S. Refining sector is doing because they're a huge customer. And then we talked about the private ownership and things like that. Most of those countries are national oil companies. They have not been to keep up with oil production or refining capacity. So they import a lot of refined products and LPG and stuff from us. And so it was a really fascinating kind of relationship that I got to see. And the bottom line is our refining industry, our petrochemical industry, and so forth along the Gulf Coast especially is a huge. Strategic asset for the United States.
Stuart Turley [00:31:07] Oh, you, you bring up some fabulous points and like, I also want to give a shout out to Nathan and hammer who is also a fellow Oakey and he has just started his sub stack, so I'm hoping that you start your own sub stack and get a regular following out there and we'd love to have you on a regular consulting and get your opinions. Yeah, I love your, the way your thought process was going through this. I am ordering the book here within 15 minutes. Well, for our podcast listeners, I do have a PDF copy or electronic copy, but I want to go ahead and get a hard copy because I like being able to hold it up when you, you and I do future podcasts in the future.
Kent Williamson [00:31:52] Well, and I just wanted to point out, Stu, I mean, I think, you know, a lot of the audience for this book is going to be, you have people that are familiar with hydrocarbons, energy, and so forth. And some of it, you will be based pretty basic to experts, but the way it's told and the interrelationships between coal, oil, and natural gas, I found fascinating. And I think most people will, even if they know a lot about one or the other, you know one of the specific industries. But the other thing I wanted to out is I really wrote this book also to expand the audience because I find when I was in the energy industry directly, I mean, it's a very close-knit group. And like I said, sometimes the energy industry, especially hydrocarbons, don't do a great job of kind of communicating the value out to the wider audience. And most citizens, people, they just take it for granted. You know, they go exactly like you said, they flip those switch. Well, what's involved with that? They go to the gas station and fill up their car. Well, I mean, how is that gasoline produced? All that kind of things that, you know, and so I wanted to convey this. I think it's a really fascinating story, but I tried to write it in a way that people that aren't familiar with the industry can understand. So it's less than 300 pages. It's not like an academic book. I mean there's even a little bit kind of folksy tone and even a bit of humor in there. And I hope... For all of your listeners who are kind of in the energy industry. I mean, if you have people that you want to buy, be a good Christmas present or birthday present, but people that may have misconceptions or may be curious about it, I think it would be a great book for that.
Stuart Turley [00:33:31] Where I enjoy my podcast is visiting with great authors and great guests is like Meredith Anglin, who wrote shorting the grid I did not, I love her. She is known as the electric grandma on Substack. And I, I absolutely appreciate you and authors like that because I'll hold up the book and go, okay, I'll use them as references because I remember reading it and going, I don't remember the exact. But I'd rather pick up a, I guess I'm old school enough. I like having a book. And I, and I also think for our kids and our next generation books are harder to change so that you can't rewrite history. If you pick up. I look for old books that haven't been changed. Let's keep an eye on your book because authors that I have interviewed, like Mark Stansberry wrote his book years ago, his book is still relevant now. And so when you sit back and take a look at this book, it's going to be relevant for a very long time. I hope so.
Kent Williamson [00:34:43] I mean, that's part of the way I tried to write it. I mean I do have a kind of at the end, I give my kind of view of where things might be going and it gets into some current events and so forth. So some of that may change, but I may do a second edition or whatever as things develop over the years, whatever.
Stuart Turley [00:35:03] Well, if as being self published, I want to probably visit with you about that. Cause I've been wanting to write a book because mine is also more along the lines of bettering human lives. I think it's a cross between bettering, human lives, the American heat engine and the global geopolitical mess that's going on around the world. When you take a look at people looking at hydrocarbons, renewables, nuclear, not many people are looking at the overall arching. Theme of humanity and going this is energy this is an energy for all.
Kent Williamson [00:35:38] Yes. Well, that's I mean, as you can imagine from reading the title, I mean it is, you know, it's really kind of another way to look at it. It's an American history through the lens of hydrocarbons. And I'd say, you know, pro-United States, I love my country, I served in the military and so forth, but I also believe that the United States has been a force for good in the world. I mean, we're not perfect. We have made plenty of mistakes, but you have to look at, you know, what's the alternative, right? You know, if you see some of the regimes or the Soviet Union, you have some of fascist ideologies and so fourth, and the fact that I get into this in the book as well, the fact the United states was able to defeat those or at least Pulled them back, I think, is a huge value, and then you'll see some of the value of hydrocarbons on a humanitarian front as far as economic development, petrochemicals, fertilizers. So the agricultural revolution that's happened in the last 100 years ago that is supporting the billions of people across the world. So the clean cooking fuels provided by LPG, so propane. United States has gone from basically nothing in the last 15 years, we're the largest LPG exporter in the world. And again, I went down to Latin America, if you go to Mexico City, our office was actually in a skyscraper. If you look down on the top of the buildings in Mexico City there's tanks on all and it's all LPG tanks. They don't have they don't
Stuart Turley [00:37:03] I did not realize until even like a few days ago, how much LPG is out there. In fact, the dark fleet, which is what Russia, Venezuela, and other countries, Iran, Iraq use in order to get around sanctions. I did, there's about 1400 tankers in the dark fleets that are used to avoid like when president Biden sanctioned Russia and weaponized the as dollar. Russia had learned from Iran. Iran figured out years ago from all the sanctions, how to get around and selling to China and India the oil. Well I'm a long story here, but when you sit back and take a look at the Dark Fleet, 1400 ballpark ships are in the Dark fleet. LPG, I did not know until this week how many ships, there's 120 LPG ghost tankers that are used to ship. Products that are being smuggled around the world to avoid, avoid sanctions. So the dark fleet is actually avoiding the sanctions and Russia has actually had a 4.2% growth in GDP because they figured out how to avoid sanctions and you take a look at Germany, the UK, California, New York, Delaware, New Jersey. They are all failing because they're going through the energy policy. So you follow fiscal responsibility and energy policies and all of a sudden you're seeing a pattern develop. So LPG is huge around the world. And I did not realize where it's stacked into this whole mix. So, I mean, it's important.
Kent Williamson [00:38:48] For petrochemical production as well. And then one of the most basic needs for it is just heating and cooking fuel. And that's another thing I learned in my time in the industry is a lot of people don't realize there's somewhere around a billion people in the world that still don't even have electricity. And a lot, a lot them use wood, still use wood dung and other materials for heating and cooking in their homes.
Stuart Turley [00:39:14] And LPG and propane can help solve that than the last mile. Those tank systems can be rolled out easier than pipelines.
Kent Williamson [00:39:24] I get into that in my book as well, the origins of, so it's kind of at the intersection of natural gas and oil, the origin of NGLs and petrochemicals, and it's a fascinating story as well.
Stuart Turley [00:39:37] Well, I'll tell you what I, I like normally being a lot more prepared for discussion, but I thoroughly look forward to more discussions with you. How do people get ahold of you?
Kent Williamson [00:39:48] Well, as mentioned, I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook. Those are kind of the two main things. I did sign up for X and some others, but I'm kind of focused on LinkedIn right now. That's kind of where I do my longest. And then you can find me through there or my email address. My email address is in the book. It's kentjwilliamson.gmail.com if you want to contact me that way.
Stuart Turley [00:40:13] Well, thank you so much for your time today. And I cannot wait and I look forward to buying you a nice lunch and dinner. And then have you signed my book? Cause like a Terry Edam out of California out of Canada, I had to sign my own book as a joke and say, Hey, to the best podcast host ever, you know? So, but at this time, since I'll just drive up and have you sign the book. Awesome. I'd love to, I mean,
Kent Williamson [00:40:36] I've, I've definitely read a lot of Terry's, he's awesome.
Stuart Turley [00:40:40] All right. Well, thanks for stopping by the podcast. I appreciate you.
Kent Williamson [00:40:43] Thank you, Stu. I really appreciate you having me on and giving me the opportunity to talk to you.
Stuart Turley [00:40:49] We're going to have some more talks.
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