In this episode of Energy News Beat - Conversation in Energy, Stuart Turley and guest Mike Umbro break down California's mounting energy crisis, highlighting how the state's overreliance on imported oil and flawed renewable policies—compounded by a cumbersome permitting process—are driving up costs and destabilizing the grid. They advocate for innovative, local solutions, such as transforming mature oil fields into synthetic geothermal power plants, to secure affordable energy, boost economic growth, and address the broader national energy emergency.
I have always loved having Mike on my podcasts; he is a real friend of the show and a California First Energy Leader. Please reach out to him on his LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeumbro/
Thank you, Mike, and I loved your comment about how President Trump needs to help fix California. As it is the largest economy, it will make a significant impact on the total numbers for inflation and lower prices. I was in the camp of let's just let California slide off into the ocean, but Mike is right: California is worth fighting for. It will just take a lot of hard work.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 - Intro
00:52 – Washington, D.C. Encounter & DOE Project Discussion
03:35 – Trump’s National Energy Emergency Declaration
04:29 – Critique of California’s Energy Policies and Oil Imports
06:32 – Grid Reliability and the Promise of Geologic Thermal Energy Storage 15:54 – Economic Impact and the Importance of Local Energy Production
21:49 – Regulatory & Permitting Hurdles in California
27:16 – Educational Outreach and Shaping the Energy Narrative
31:18 – Broader National Energy Security & Critique of “All Electric” Mandates 41:03 – Future Projects and the Path Forward
some regulatory issues was trying to ban gasoline engines. And one of those is like a pump. A guy saved his house because he had a gasoline pump and ran sprinklers off of that pump and saved his house. But that same gasoline engine is outlawed.
Mike Umbro [00:25:20] Yeah. Well, I think this ideology of all electric is going to go by the wayside as people realize it's really an all of the above. We as as humans have never transitioned off of an energy source. We can look at burning wood pellets. We're still burning biomass. We've not transitioned off of that. So I think it's it's it's really harmful for politicians to distort facts and reality and science to say that something is happening that is not happening. We're still dependent on fossil fuels and we will be for the foreseeable future.
Stuart Turley [00:25:58] You said you were working for a charity or a nun. Yeah.
Mike Umbro [00:26:02] I run our nonprofit. It's called Californians for Energy and Science. So we kind of we go out to universities. We've spoke at UC Berkeley, Harvard, University of North Dakota, University of Southern California, really educating at the student level, Taft Oil Tech Academy at the Taft Union High School, where Kern County students want this message. And even when we go to UC Berkeley, people say, Why are you wasting your time at Berkeley? The students, after we speak, say thank you for delivering this message because it's not something we hear. We know there's more to this story. We know there is a global supply chain. We know there's environmental leakage, but we're not getting that information in our coursework. So that's what we're out to do is is educate students. And it's going to take 30 to 40 years to reeducate society. We see how environmental activists have totally perverted the education system into false narratives, into, you know, climate catastrophes, into all kinds of nonsense. And so what we're about is just presenting facts and data in a non-emotional way. And students love it. And we have to start with the students because they're the future.
Stuart Turley [00:27:17] That is phenomenal because I think when Jimmy Carter put in the education board, you know, the Education Department nationally and federally, the United States went downhill from there because they had an indoctrination department as opposed to an education department.
Mike Umbro [00:27:33] Yeah. Yeah, that's what it is. These kids have been indoctrinated. And the good news is they're waking up. They there's there's there's more pragmatic thinkers. It's just the climate alarmists and the activists are louder. And that's the only reason that we.
Stuart Turley [00:27:50] Do you think the net zero do you think the banks bailing on net zero is probably one of the biggest indicators out there that global banks are bailing on net zero, on funding on those kind of projects because they realize sustainable energy is not wind and solar.
Mike Umbro [00:28:08] You know, and it has to be affordable. There was an article in The Wall Street Journal today talking about fossil fuel companies and comparing, I think it was total energies. Their renewable portfolio was generating an 8.9% return, their fossil fuel portfolio, a 20% return. So natural gas is going to be used. You touched on an earlier for data centers and I and the big companies are going to become power providers. That's what's happening. And so we're a part of that as a small company trying to do geothermal power. And so it is great. The future is power, and the most successful companies in this space will be the legacy oil and gas companies that have the the knowledge base, that have the skilled workforce, that have the balance sheets to support long project horizons. All of those characteristics point to a strong, healthy fossil fuel community, creating new energy projects for the people's needs.
Stuart Turley [00:29:07] That's very cool. You know, as you say that, I'm sitting here going through my articles that happened last year. Total energy, as we say in Oklahoma. Yeah, yeah. Total energy. They they bought enough natural gas power plants in Texas to equal the four nuclear reactors they're running. So you are right. They are diversifying into the power sections and they are they verse ified into the natural gas base. So if I was a a and you look at President Trump with his Stargate initiative and you look at where can you build power plants, I think we're going to see microgrids starting to becoming a huge issue for those that can afford the natural gas pipelines. So if you're an AI data center, would you want to build in California?
Mike Umbro [00:30:02] No, I'd want to build on the border of California and Arizona and Nevada and be in Arizona and Nevada, where they're shedding free photovoltaic power all day long. And I'm going to get free power. And that's what you're going to see happen. And then in California, you're going to see distributed energy generation like our geo test project, because we need to maximize the existing infrastructure of the grid. We need nice reservoirs into clean power projects. And then at that point, I do see data centers that want to run on cheap, reliable, affordable geothermal power. But we need to we need to crawl than walk, than run. And so the first step to all of this is permits. And again, that's what President Trump is talking about by declaring a national energy emergency. We need two great projects permitted. He's invoking multiple agencies, the secretary of the Army, the Defense Production Act. I mean, this is this is a I would encourage everybody to read these ten pages because this is the blueprint he's using. And what you won't find in here is the word wind. You will not find the word wind one time in this dang, no. So he is not pickleball of energy, as I call it, is on pause.
Stuart Turley [00:31:18] The pickleball of energy. Can I quote you on that?
Mike Umbro [00:31:22] Absolutely. Yeah. I should probably trademark that because it is I mean, the idea that California is going to put 25GW of floating wind turbines in deep offshore waters and then transmit those electrons into the Bay of Humboldt and then get that to the consumer at any reasonable price and with any semblance of reliability. It's it's fairy tales and unicorns. It's not possible it will stop funding that garbage.
Stuart Turley [00:31:52] And in any goodness that would have happened by that would be digitally destroyed by Gavin Newsom taking a swim in the bay because an oil slick would develop from his hair. Yeah. And so he would have a oil slick worse than the Exxon Valdez.
Mike Umbro [00:32:08] Yeah, we'd get the boats with the dispersants out there real quick.
Stuart Turley [00:32:12] Okay. I am kidding. Of course. No, I'm not. That man is absolutely self interested and not doing Californians any favors.
Mike Umbro [00:32:21] Well, I think these fires have really sadly, I've always said that to fix California energy policy, it's going to take a disaster. I always thought it would be a supply crisis or a price crisis. Now the whole nation is about to see see more disaster unfold. The California Air Resources Board has just adopted more stringent, low carbon fuel standards. So those will take effect this quarter in the next 60 days. Getting our gasoline, which is averaging somewhere around $4 and 30 or $4.40 a gallon today will jump to over $5 a gallon. For no reason other than the fact that an unelected crew of bureaucrats at CARB have decided in their infinite wisdom to make it more expensive to get around and move. Products in the state of California.
Stuart Turley [00:33:14] Does nothing to reduce the pollution.
Mike Umbro [00:33:17] No, nothing. It actually makes it worse because CARB, in their scoping plan says we're going to need 4 to 5 times more tanker ships delivering refined products, finished products to the port complex. So we're going to be flooding our marine ecosystems and our port cities with Sox, NOx, particulate matter just spewing out of these tankers in 2040. We're going to increase them right now. When you look at that port complex, you'll have somewhere between 20 and 30 tanker boats just floating around our shores at all times. We basically have floating storage rather than storing it in a reservoir or safely under the ground. We're just going to float around the marine ecosystem killing whales, poisoning our air quality, and that's going to increase by 4 to 5 times. And that's a carb scoping study statistic. That's not me making something up. So it absolutely is creating massive environmental leakage and devastating our air quality and marine ecosystems and making energy and the movement of goods prohibitively expensive in the world's fifth largest economy.
Stuart Turley [00:34:27] Well, Mike, I'm trying to help put together, you know, panels and get more information to President Trump through through Chris Wright and all of those guys, because I believe in President Trump. God bless him. With the the advent of the death of mainstream media. People do not want even any they want information that is true. They want fact based information. And I think if we can help that, I'm going to lean on you a little bit. See if we can have is our boots on the ground trying to help California? Because as Texas, New York and California goes, so goes the rest of the country. Absolutely. I love the way you phrased that, that President Trump cannot get inflation for the United States under control if he leaves California out. I know that I was kind.
Mike Umbro [00:35:20] Of like and I think he knows that. He knows. We saw Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska write an op ed in The Wall Street Journal last week saying 40 billion barrels of proved reserves and 135,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas. Maybe it was 235,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas. California is no different. We've got the same vast resources. And those two Western states traditionally have won world wars in World War Two. Kern County in California was the largest global producer of oil. We ramped up production 42% to supply oil to the allied forces. Trump knows these things. He's he knows his history. He knows how critical California and Alaska are to the entire country. And that's where I pushed back a lot online. When people say, you voted for this in California and now California is just let's just forget about it. It's like, well, no, actually, California has the most congressmen and women in DC. We have for the Biden administration anyway, we've dictated the environmental policy in Washington, D.C. So you can't just ignore California. We are the biggest economy in the United States and you can't ignore it. It's just a fact of life. So come on in here and join the fight, because this is this is the front line of the battleground for our future.
Stuart Turley [00:36:42] I'm going to be honest with you. I was I'm a Texan because that's where I'm most of that time hanging out there. But when you sit back and take a look, I'm like, screw California. You know? And I'm like, you know, as like a normal Texan would say. Except, no, your comments are now making me really go, We got to get it fixed. Absolutely.
Mike Umbro [00:37:05] Absolutely. And maybe maybe in 20 years, Texas economy will be as big as Californians. But you're not there yet.
Stuart Turley [00:37:13] And you're not there yet. No, we're not. But the funny thing is, take a look at Governor Hochul. She is just as bad as Governor Newsom from the standpoint of assigning in climate reparations against big oil companies does nothing but want to drive the oil companies out of New York. Can you imagine if all the oil companies left New York what travesty that would be?
Mike Umbro [00:37:36] Well, and it's happening in California. I don't study in New York as as closely because it's not traditionally a large producing state. But one of the one of the biggest disasters that happened in California was in 2015. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab wrote a report on, well, stimulation, hydraulic fracturing, Hydraulic fracturing in California uses less water than the other shale plays, does not extend oil field boundaries. It lowers the carbon intensity of oil and gas produced in California. If you read this report, you would think, wow, I want more of that. And that's why hydraulic fracturing was banned by executive order because they didn't like the science. The science said it was good for the people of California. It was good for the economy in the end.
Stuart Turley [00:38:25] No science.
Mike Umbro [00:38:26] That is exactly why it was banned. And it's why you see, because people will say, well, the Monterey Shale in California didn't work out well. It was never given a chance to work out. That's why we would we absolutely start. If you look at the data, we started increasing production in 2013 and 14 when we started, when we just started to crack that code. And then the report came out. They paused everything. They stopped issuing permits. The executive order came out by Governor Newsom. And what have we seen in states like Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, reserves and production hockey stick to heights that nobody thought was possible. We all thought it was or well, we didn't all think but peak oil. The you know, the Hubbert theory. Yeah. And what is it? It's science and technology that unleashed those reserves. The beauty of California is they're still there. They haven't gone anywhere. We just need the National Emergency Declaration on Energy. I love that start impacting so that we can unleash California's reserves and save this country from nationwide inflation.
Stuart Turley [00:39:39] You know what? After this conversation with you, Mike, you have absolutely made my day. And I'll tell you and I'm sure I am damn serious, I am pumped up. I mean, this is what we've got to do and we have got to do this. So again, people can get a hold of you on your LinkedIn. Mike Umbro, good luck. Guy. I mean, you're sitting there with an oilfield. Premier Resource managements and Duke University at Nicholas School of the Environment. So just like Chris Wright, you're an environmentalist that happens to work in the oil business.
Mike Umbro [00:40:14] Absolutely. I'm a 100% absolute environmentalist. Beachgoer, outdoorsy.
Stuart Turley [00:40:21] Loving, cool.
Mike Umbro [00:40:23] Everything. Everything about my life is getting vitamin D and being outside. And the last thing I want to do is hurt the environment. So, yeah, I went back to school and got a master's of energy environmental management from Nicholas School and it was a great experience and I'm using a lot of that teaching and learning and applying it to turning an oil field into a synthetic geothermal project. So it's it's it's exciting. It's fun times.
Stuart Turley [00:40:51] I cannot wait to see more papers on that. So I look forward to follow.
Mike Umbro [00:40:55] Up your link with all the media coverage we have so far and look out for the demonstration coming launching here soon.
Stuart Turley [00:41:02] When is it?
Mike Umbro [00:41:03] Well, we're waiting for our final award documents from the Department of Energy. I know with the transition, there's a lot going on over there, so we'll get that launched.
Stuart Turley [00:41:13] Exciting.
Mike Umbro [00:41:13] They give us the green light where we're going.
Stuart Turley [00:41:16] I'll tell you what would be fun is if you could do live broadcasts from the demonstration.
Mike Umbro [00:41:22] Yeah, I got my I got my microphone here, my laptop, my my set up. I just invested in that equipment with that exact idea in mind. I want we got to take people to these sites. I'm about letting people in and letting the good news flow, letting the light shine. It's 2025. It's we're not looking back at the past. We're going forward.
Stuart Turley [00:41:46] I like the way you think, Mike. Have an absolutely wonderful day and I cannot wait to see you again. So thank you too.
Mike Umbro [00:41:52] Well, thank you. So, yeah, I'm stoked for it. Thank you.
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