Do you think the Energy Transition can happen with current technology? How about our current global leaders? Or do you think it is like the Thelma and Louise movie with the Renewable Energy Driving off a cliff? You don't want to miss the Energy Realities Podcast team from Bulgaria, the UK, and Texas as we cover huge updates in the energy transition. With the co-hosts David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, Irina Slav and Stu Turley they will answer all live questions from the viewers on X, LinkedIn and YouTube. - This episode was a lot of fun and we had great interaction from our live listeners. #podcast #energynews #energytransition
Highlights of the Podcast
00:09 - Introduction
00:51 - Sustainable Aviation Fuels
05:21 - Energy Interconnection Issues
08:59 - Norway’s Energy Export Cutbacks
12:36 - UK’s Clean Power 2030 Plan
14:58 - Global Energy Realities
16:49 - Thoughts on Energy Transition
20:30 - Advice for Young Engineers
22:27 - University Dynamics and Alternatives
24:53 - Future Energy Realities and Engineering Demand
29:25 - Natural Gas and Nuclear in Data Centers
35:08 - Energy Efficiency in Freight and Transportation
36:26 - Geopolitical Issues Tied to Energy
40:07- Natural Gas- Not Nuclear- Is the key to Powering North America's Future
42:13- Germany Is An Economic Model for What Not to Do
43:38 - Norway campaigns to cut energy links to Europe as power prices soar
44:05 - US solar industry downplays climate in strategy for Trump era
45:56 - In protest against LNG export permits, Climate defiance blocks unused entrance to DOE garage
47:45 - What Energy Transition? ExxonMobil Plans 18% Production Boost By 2030
49:32 - Biden's DoD doubles down on climate action as Trump promises Military Reset
50:07 - North Korean troops join Russian assaults in significant numbers - Oil for Troops Trade
53:17 - Canada-U.S. Energy Interdependence
57:05 - Chrystia Freeland’s Resignation
01:00:15 - Episode Wrap-Up
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
Reality Hits The Energy Transition
David Blackmon [00:00:09] Well, hey, we're live, everybody. Thank you for joining us. I'm David Blackmon, your apparent host for this week. I wasn't supposed to be, but we don't know where Tammy is. She was going to do this this week, but I'll try to struggle through it. I am here today with Irina Slav from Bulgaria. Irina. How are you today?
Irina Slav [00:00:29] Thank you, David. I'm great.
David Blackmon [00:00:32] Irina is a wonderful writer, energy analyst who writes at all price.com and also at Substack, where she has a lot more freedom to exercise for a survey. Quit on the energy scene. It's always really insightful and entertaining stuff. Irina What did you write about this morning?
Irina Slav [00:00:51] Thank you. This morning I wrote about so-called sustainable aviation fuels. It's really funny story. Europe can't wait to bankrupt itself in the most spectacular way possible. You know, they're trying to make fuels. I'll talk about this later. They go thousands of dollars to make a ton of it.
David Blackmon [00:01:16] My gosh.
Irina Slav [00:01:17] Yeah, Emissions. You know.
David Blackmon [00:01:20] That sounds about right. Yeah, that's pretty par for the course. And not just in the EU, but all over the Western world. And also with us today is Stuart Turley, the man about town in both Oklahoma and Texas. I don't know where he is today, and he probably doesn't want to disclose his location. How are you doing Stu?
Stuart Turley [00:01:39] Hey, I'm doing great. I'm up in Oklahoma, but I got my backhoe ordered. You and I were talking because I got a good I got to dig a bunker. So I went ahead and just bought a backhoe.
David Blackmon [00:01:48] Is the only person I know who actually buys a backhoe when he needs to dig up a few tree stumps.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:57] You never know what you're going to need it, right?
David Blackmon [00:01:59] Yeah, exactly. Hi Tammy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:02] Hi there.
David Blackmon [00:02:03] It's good to see you. You were supposed to be the ringleader of this deal today. Do you want to take it over? Because you do so much better job than I do?
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:13] No, that's okay. I'll do it. Next time. I'm really sorry. My computer decided to do some kind of virus scan, like ten minutes before, and I'm like, What are you doing? Computer, Don't do that.
David Blackmon [00:02:26] My gosh, I hate that. That's. That's a Microsoft thing. No, it's probably a McAfee thing. Do you have McAfee?
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:33] No.
David Blackmon [00:02:35] Okay. Well, anyway, they all do it and they do it at the worst possible time. And back to Stu tell. Tell before we get going. Tell everyone where they can find you on the Internets.
Stuart Turley [00:02:47] Well, the best place is energy news beat dot Co and you can see all my podcast there and all of our stories. It's it's a lot of fun and also the energy news beat.substack.com and I love doing it I'm writing a couple of fun papers for trying to get Chris Wright on the show and I'm trying to write three papers on ending ethanol, getting the Jones Act together and a couple of others and it's going to be tough. But with those here and what's going on, it's a time that I think we can move on some of these things.
David Blackmon [00:03:28] Yeah, yeah. Don't get me started on the Jones Act. We could. I can talk about that for days.
Stuart Turley [00:03:34] I knew I could.
David Blackmon [00:03:37] I wish you well, because that's the hardest nut to crack possible. Tammy. Dr. Tammy Nemeth. Where are you today?
Tammy Nemeth [00:03:45] I'm in the UK today.
David Blackmon [00:03:46] You're in the UK today. Okay, well, we'll speak carefully about the Starmer government so we don't get you in trouble.
Stuart Turley [00:03:53] Tammy, is that is your power line failing behind your house or is that Christmas lights?
Irina Slav [00:04:01] It's Christmas.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:02] Christmas lights.
David Blackmon [00:04:05] Awesome.
Irina Slav [00:04:06] You will be wasting electricity on Christmas decorations.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:13] Yes, I guess we're violating whatever code they have for rationing or appropriate use. You know what's sufficient? What's sufficient with these people?
David Blackmon [00:04:24] Yes. Well, Tammy also has exciting news. She started her own substack.
Irina Slav [00:04:31] Yes.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:32] Yay!
David Blackmon [00:04:33] And it's wonderful. Her first post I shared with folks on my Substack is really fantastic and I'm so happy to see you doing that.
Irina Slav [00:04:41] Yes. Who's I'm going this yay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:46] We can be like the new Substack crew.
David Blackmon [00:04:49] That's great that we're all all there now. It's great. And good morning to you, Robert De Domenico said Good morning, Seanie. Rosalyn also says good morning from Alaska.
Irina Slav [00:05:00] Alaska. Hi.
Stuart Turley [00:05:02] A also David and Tammy and Irina Our staff will be providing the transcript and we can put the videos out there for you all to put on this on your individual subs decks so that we put this out on your podcasts out there.
Tammy Nemeth [00:05:21] That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Sandstone Group.
David Blackmon [00:05:24] Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:05:26] That. Jones Act, Richard, you are spot on. I'm trying to get this done. The northeastern U.S. LNG, it's like Hawaii trying to get rid of coal, but they can't import LNG from the U.S. so they're going to be buying it from Russia. Yep. Go figure that out. Okay, Gayle. We love Gayle.
David Blackmon [00:05:47] It's great to see everybody. So let's get going on our topic for today, which is go back to the slide. We can just read it. I can't remember exactly what we called this. The energy transition meets energy reality. We seem to arrive at the same point in time at the end of every year, don't we? I mean, every year goes by and this thing is supposed to be a real transition and we get to the end of the year and we realize, no, there's no real transition going on. And we're here to talk about that today. And so I'm going to call on. Well, Tammy can lead of question about whether we're in a real energy transition or not.
Tammy Nemeth [00:06:30] It depends on how you're defining energy transition, as always. But inevitably it's it's all about the energy realities. And and at some point, the reality comes home to roost. And I think with the energy transition, there's this move to try and shift all this investment money out of hydrocarbons, whether it's oil, gas, coal, whatever, and into whatever the the fashionable form of energy is. And we can have conversations about what do you mean electricity? Do you mean other energy use and what other products might come from things like oil or whatever. So it's interesting that there's a lot of talk, a lot of hype around transition. But when. When push comes to shove and people want to have reliable, affordable energy, it's not necessarily do the transition isn't doing what their supporters say it's doing. So we can look at, for example, Germany. Other countries in the EU or countries that are in the Schengen zone, which means that they can trade with with the EU without with limited amount of restrictions and so on. And I'm sure Irena will have some fantastic points to make about what's going on with Norway. And that's sort of what brought us to this topic today, where, you know, there's this overreliance on energy interconnectors. And the UK is putting a lot of faith into relying on other countries in the in the European area to supply them through interconnections with electricity that they know their own push for towards wind and solar can't meet. And so they're closing down coal. They they want to phase out natural gas. Nuclear takes an eternity to do anything. And so therefore they want to rely on these interconnections, but it's not secure. And as much as you think your friends today, when prices start to increase and people start to suffer, then all bets are off.
David Blackmon [00:08:45] Yes. I read a what I'm going to call on you next since Tammy referenced you and the wonderful point you're going to make about all this talk about Norway. What's happening there?
Irina Slav [00:08:59] It's actually one of my stories, but what the hell? It doesn't matter, really. And I covered that last week in in in a subset of goes because this was the lesson I was waiting for. You know the lesson that somebody teaches the Green Mad Men and Mad women? No way. I seen such an increase in domestic electricity prices because of its exports of electricity to Europe. That is going to stop exports via the interconnectors to Denmark, to Germany, both the Netherlands and the UK. All the countries that, as Sami said, try to be even more reliant on electricity imports from countries. Okay, forget about Norway. Norway has hydro. It has natural gas. But the UK, I think, was building on the interconnector to Ireland and two to the Netherlands. And the Netherlands is in the grips of the same insanity.
David Blackmon [00:10:04] Yes.
Irina Slav [00:10:05] The Netherlands is putting up wind turbines and solar panels everywhere. It's making itself vulnerable. Okay, so let's imagine this. We're in a in the dark doldrums as the job . And I like this translation. I don't know German, so I like this translation in winter. There's really not a lot of wind in north western Europe as we have seen recently. There is no solar to speak of. So the UK is building an interconnected to the Netherlands that's probably worth a lot of millions. And then the Netherlands cannot respond to this demand, so it has to import the electricity to then export it to the UK. How exactly these people thinking this is going to work? Especially when Norway, you know, shuts its own interconnectors and says, Sorry guys, we cannot subsidize a 20 fold increase in our domestic electricity prices because that's what Norway does and has the money. Why does it have the money to subsidize electricity prices for households? Because it is a massive oil and gas producer, right? Yeah. And it plans to invest more in oil and gas production next year.
Stuart Turley [00:11:26] And Irina, two years ago, they were trying to shut down their gas fields on land, and then they were trying to shut down near sea things as well, too. So it's amazing what two years in a war does to Norway.
Irina Slav [00:11:41] The Norwegians will some. I think the government was never really big on that. It was more environmental activists and some activists masked as politicians that. Yeah. That have seen the light now.
David Blackmon [00:12:02] Stu What do you think about it all?
Stuart Turley [00:12:05] I think that it is actually I think we've got a a thing. Let me jump to this question here, John. Ask a very question. I want Tammy or to ask this one. Have you taken a look at the UK government report, Clean Power 2030 plan?
Irina Slav [00:12:23] I did, but I think Tammy would be. More eloquent on that.
Stuart Turley [00:12:28] Let's throw Tammy under that bus.
Tammy Nemeth [00:12:31] I think I've downloaded it, but I haven't read it yet.
David Blackmon [00:12:34] Okay.
Stuart Turley [00:12:35] Okay.
Irina Slav [00:12:36] I saw the news release. It was really a lot of talk. Again.
David Blackmon [00:12:40] A lot of
Irina Slav [00:12:42] So because that's lying to me, it sounded scary that they wanted to prevent people from protesting, from stopping wind and solar projects.
Tammy Nemeth [00:12:53] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:12:54] You know, David I think I think this really articulates where we are. I've got two videos that I want to show and help TR off this conversation. The first one is imagine you're a father and you want to teach your son to ride a motorcycle. And you think that this is a good idea and you think that the father is the elected politicians and they're throwing out this energy policy. Here is either the Biden administration or it is the UK or the EU or one of the governments out there trying to do green energy policy. So here we go.
David Blackmon [00:13:44] Well, this should turn out fine.
Stuart Turley [00:13:46] Yeah? Is this a good thing? What could go wrong?
David Blackmon [00:13:54] Well, it's gone. It's gone. Reality right there.
Irina Slav [00:13:58] Right.
Stuart Turley [00:13:58] Right.
Irina Slav [00:13:59] Reality.
Stuart Turley [00:14:00] I guarantee you, the guy in the yellow shirt was an uncle because he was not a dad. Dads have a way of reaching out and grabbing a kid before death hits. So now you are an uncle? Absolutely. And so this is another way. And you asked me about the Biden administration is so. Horrific that they're putting out all this crap before they can get Trump into office. It's disgusting. Here is the Biden D.O.D. doubling down. This is a secret training mission on the Biden body. Training for climate change. Why is the Department of Defense training for climate change? Okay. I don't get it. I absolutely do not get why they're doing it.
David Blackmon [00:14:58] I just.
Irina Slav [00:15:00] Threatened. The world is facing Stu. Climate change.
David Blackmon [00:15:06] Yes. Yes, certainly. Okay. New Jersey residential rates at .265 cents per kilowatt hour. You know what they paid Norway last week because of these interconnections? $1.18 per kilowatt hour. Okay.
Irina Slav [00:15:19] No, but then we have Norway. Is that the government is paying.
David Blackmon [00:15:24] Right.
Irina Slav [00:15:25] It doesn't want riots, right? Yeah, but you don't keep paying forever. And as John said in another comment, if you could show. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:15:35] I think the UK.
Irina Slav [00:15:36] Norway, Norway begging for the interconnector. Not this way. Not utterly. Or they're about to.
Tammy Nemeth [00:15:44] I want to give a shout out to Catherine Porter, who has really been following the UK energy interconnection situation, and she's written a couple of really good reports underlying the underlining the energy security implications of relying on interconnections. And it's hilarious because in the news released to the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. And again, I haven't read the the document yet, just the news release like Iryna. But in it they're talking about, well, this will help energy security to not be reliant on international energy prices. It's like. What do you think electricity.
David Blackmon [00:16:26] Exactly the opposite of what The policy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:29] Right.
Irina Slav [00:16:30] Yeah. At least when you import natural gas because you're shutting down your own fields, which is idiotic in itself, you only rely on the price of the feedstock when you're buying electricity, you buying and then product, which is bound to be more expensive.
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:49] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:16:50] Yeah, yeah. Here in the United States, we've got the same kind of stuff happening. California is a basket case, of course, because, yes, it's followed everything Germany's done. Giving them some has made sure of that. And they're importing now electricity from Wyoming, from Nevada, from Utah, Arizona. And what's happening? Well, the high electricity rates in California are starting to flow back upstream to all these states that are stupid enough to agree to export electricity into California and for exactly the same reasons as it's happening to Norway. And so, I mean, this is all the most predictable stuff in the world.
Irina Slav [00:17:28] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:17:29] And yet they're going to continue doubling down on it, folks, until we force them to stop. And we're seeing it with the Biden administration in its final few weeks on Sunday announced they're going to give $1.6 billion to green energy propaganda operations. These NGOs who are going to take that money, by the way, and they're going to fund it, funnel it into media outlets like The Washington Post and the Financial Times and in The Economist and, you know, all these legacy media outlets that used to be reputable operations are now getting funding essentially from the government, but it's passing it through these NGOs to get to them to hire an army of climate writers to write all this propaganda and, you know, spew it out on the airwaves. And yeah. And so, you know, that's and over the weekend, there was a notice from the White House, from the what's it called, the CQ Council on Environmental Quality to all of its regulatory agencies to push as much of this IRA money as they possibly can out the door committed to be spent by January 20th when the Trump administration comes in. So, you know, we get to this again, we get to the same point. At the end of every year, we're going to use a record amount of coal this year during 2024, all time high, all time record amount of oil, all time record amount of natural gas, all time record amount of wood burned for fuel. The highest we've ever done, despite having wasted trillions and trillions of dollars on subsidies for these supposed alternatives that cannot create an energy transition because they simply are not viable alternatives. And it's a form of madness. It's it's a global religious exercise. And, you know, hopefully the Trump administration will come in and make a big difference in all this in the United States. But in Europe, as we discussed last week, even when conservatives parties win elections, the globalists find ways to prevent them from actually governing the country. And of course, in in Britain, you know, left a bunch of communists to run the country for the next five years. So it's it's a tougher situation in Europe than it is in the United States, to be sure. Let's see here. Robert says you saw the video of the government agent bragging that they were giving away public funding, like throwing gold bars off the Titanic. Yes, That was an actual executive official in the EPA admitting that on camera and our news media did not report it. There was not a single second of reporting on that or any of it by any of our major TV networks.
Irina Slav [00:20:30] And there's very good comment asking for advice for young engineers that are being groomed into being renewable and CO2 capture experts instead of focusing on learning useful stuff. Well, I magine what it takes to groom engineers who should know they're supposed to know physics and how things work. Maybe they're just being. And I know brainwashed again, because they're being told that this is the future. And after you're being told this enough times, you begin to believe it. I'd say stick stick to the fundamentals. Remember what you actually learned at university and don't give in to the indoctrination. Because I think in a few years there will be a massive, massive demand for engineers who know the useful stuff.
David Blackmon [00:21:25] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:21:26] There's already they seem. To. Be using energy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:21:29] But they seem to only being educated in the useful stuff in Eastern Europe, China, Russia and like, for example, in North American universities. You know, the students who who would like to do say, petroleum engineering and other types of engineering that wouldn't necessarily be along the renewable lines. They're treated quite poorly by the other students. And when you are faced in that kind of intellectual milieu in which you're supposedly supporting a field of inquiry that is unfashionable and unpopular, it's really hard to continue down that road. Like, for example, at the University of Calgary, they temporarily stopped recruitment for petroleum engineering.
Irina Slav [00:22:17] Which is to have had to restart its petroleum engineering program due to demand.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:24] And that that was Calgary. So that.
Irina Slav [00:22:25] Was through.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:27] So they, they stopped it and then it was like, well, what are you doing? And then they reintroduced it. But I spoke to some students who were there and asked them like, why? Why? What's your sense of what's going on? And they said, you know, it's just it's really hard because you get called names and treated very poorly by the more activist students on campus. And, you know, if that's that that that's a really terrible learning environment. So I would say students were are really keen to do it. Is there maybe a different way to do engineering that isn't through a typical university, but maybe more of a a technical college or university or something? I don't know.
Irina Slav [00:23:10] Wow.
David Blackmon [00:23:11] I will say this.
Irina Slav [00:23:13] Advice Get get access to the real information.
David Blackmon [00:23:17] Yeah. Yeah. And reading fossil futures is a great idea. But I'll also say that it's not it's not everybody in college, okay? I get inquiries quite often from students at universities, and I had a great deal of interaction with a group of graduate students in engineering at the University of Southern California who had very realistic outlook on what's really happening in the energy space. And they were writing one of their papers on, you know, what's really happening with the energy transition and asked me for some input and I gave it to them. But they were really I mean, I had a couple of Zoom calls with them, really smart, well-grounded individuals at a very liberal university. University of Southern California is not some conservative institution. So that was very encouraging. And then also, if you're going into college, consider going to a school that has eliminated its D-I operations like the University of Texas. The whole university system in the state of Texas has ordered the closing of all those offices and the firing of all the employees. And so you have options where you go to school. And if you're going to go to an Ivy League university, I know that they're getting a spot at Harvard is a very coveted thing, or Columbia University. But there they are, just basically diploma mills for communists at this point. And, you know, you have to make intelligent decisions about where you decide to go to school as well.
Irina Slav [00:24:53] You know, my.
Stuart Turley [00:24:53] Gayle is.
Irina Slav [00:24:54] Working on a story on pipeline engineering, and he has been forced to work on CO2 pipelines. Don't worry, big data centers, big tech and data centers is a I will create such a demand from your natural gas pipelines that they will get off of work and, you know, just try to steer clear from the toxic environment. I know it's hard.
Stuart Turley [00:25:19] Gayle has a great point. We have to keep the focus of universities on good science and future energy realities. That is an outstanding point, Gail, especially when David is once said, physics and fiscal responsibility matter. I believe David Blackmon is a great man. Once said that. I could be wrong.
David Blackmon [00:25:39] Well, I once said that I don't think I'm a great man, but.
Stuart Turley [00:25:42] I do well. Okay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:45] I'd like to add that, you know, as students, the situation when you're entering university is a little bit different now than, say, when I went through or older people have gone through. You kind of have to. Look at where you want to go. Look at who the professors are, what the structure of their courses, and see if that kind of professor is someone you want to learn from. Because quite often with the courses that they might require you to take could be diverted along these alternative lines, you know, along. There's nothing wrong with researching the engineering of renewable energy. It has its place in certain niche applications. But should we be putting an entire modern industrial technological civilization on that? No. At least not at the current state of technology. And so you need to do some research into who the professors are and decide if that's who you want to be taught by. It's one of the proactive things that that future engineers ought to be taking.
Stuart Turley [00:26:49] Your ear dead on, right, Tammy? And that is Elon Musk will have the surviving every car manufacturer in the United States because he does not take subsidies. Subsidies come to him in other ways, you know, through tax credits and things. But he's he's using the system. He's not taking direct. Thing. So you are spot on on that. We don't need to be doing that.
David Blackmon [00:27:16] No, we don't. And you're right about that. I mean, I think Tesla's going to be the last man standing in the heavy industry in the United States, and then it'll be a matter of importing cars from China. What's once that we elect another Democrat, they'll allow that to start happening and and he'll be competing against them. But, you know, Ford, GM, Stellantis, they're all going to fail. They're bleeding billions of dollars every year. And that's, you know, just it's a fool's game. And and but Tesla's well established a healthy company without subsidies. Yeah. And that's you know, they had a 15 year head start on everybody else. So they're going to be the last man standing.
Stuart Turley [00:28:02] I think Patrick and McAfee need to go have lunch. And having a great conversation back and forth there. And I think that that is actually very true, that we in Tammy, you you had excellent advice for people to shop for the universities and everything else. But there's also a lot to be said for not bothering to go to university. You know, are the universities actually worth anything anymore?
David Blackmon [00:28:29] Yeah, I think.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:30] Well, especially if you can get an Equivalent
David Blackmon [00:28:31] Version of.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:32] That. Yeah. If you can get an equivalent training through, say like in Canada, there's different technological colleges where you also work in a co-op program, so or an apprenticeship. So you do your, your initial training and then you work alongside it on the job kind of thing to, to learn the actual things. But there there is still a bit of a requirement to have that Bachelor of engineering or Masters of engineering or whatever, but maybe there's, there's other pathways now.
Irina Slav [00:29:08] Yeah, because engineering is like, you know, a medical degree you need to taking a lot of academic and practical knowledge why the college is a profession of some trade, but they, they focus on the practical applications. You still need engineers proper.
David Blackmon [00:29:25] Yeah. Hey, can we go back to this comment by Michael Mahaffey Stuart at 8:27 a.m.. Based on energy demand projections very high in growth, it seems obvious will need to massively ramp up natural gas and nuclear. And that was a point I wanted to make and forgot. Up top is we've we've had this rush by all these big tech firms right over the last few months to secure nuclear capacity to to run their data centers. But that's for a longer term. And what the point that gets lost in all that is those those things are coming ten, 15 years out. And what those companies are also doing, Microsoft and Google both also had announcements that didn't get a lot of attention is in the shorter term, they're going to build natural gas power generation to run those data centers there. They're completely going off this line that you can do all this with solar and when they know that's not possible, they have to have reliable 24 hour, 365 days a year power generation. You can't get it from wind and solar and batteries. You just can't do it with current technology. And you're probably not ever going to be able to do it. And so these companies with trillions of dollars at stake are doing making practical decisions instead of virtue signaling. And they're building natural gas first and then nuclear later, assuming the technology and permitting process is come along to allow that. If not, what are they going to do? They're going to keep building more big natural gas power plants because that's the cleanest fossil fuel.
Tammy Nemeth [00:30:58] Yeah, that's actually one of the articles that that I'll be talking about in the context of, of Canada. But I think it's really important to point out that when they make these announcements that they support nuclear and they would buy that nuclear power for these different A.I. applications or whatever. I think that's meant to signal for financing for those companies to say, look, we've we've got these markets already lined up to purchase that that electricity. So please guarantee us the funding so we can build it ten, 15 years from now.
David Blackmon [00:31:33] Right. Exactly. Tesla is also a leader in BESS, not just cars.
Irina Slav [00:31:39] Yeah, but mostly worse.
David Blackmon [00:31:41] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:31:42] And Gayle says it's possible that there will be another energy crisis of sorts in the scientists and engineers who can see the way through. This will be considered leaders. This could happen in Canada sooner rather than later. Yeah, I agree for sure.
Irina Slav [00:31:56] I believe it's not just possible. Is quite likely.
Tammy Nemeth [00:31:59] Yeah, it would have to be otherwise. Well, what are we going to do? Recruit Russian engineers? Is that even allowed anymore?
David Blackmon [00:32:07] What's going to happen in Europe too, isn't it?
Tammy Nemeth [00:32:11] I don't know.
David Blackmon [00:32:12] I mean, I think it's. I think it's more likely to happen in Europe than in the US.
Irina Slav [00:32:17] It will happen in Europe sooner than it will happening. And I again.
Stuart Turley [00:32:22] I in my opinion, this is a opinion for entertainment purposes only so that we don't get banned. I believe there will be an end to the war in Ukraine very quickly, and I believe that it is about to happen. And if the deep State can keep their mitts out of any kind of agreement, it will happen. As German Chancellor Schulz has already been asking for Russian natural gas to be turned back on. Yeah, I've been spending probably 8 to 10 hours talking to folks over the weekend about geopolitical issues around the world and pipelines. It's all about pipelines. Syria is actually a pipeline issue. If Assad had actually if Assad had agreed to having a pipeline go through and have it trade in U.S. dollars, he would still be in power. Let that sink in for years.
Irina Slav [00:33:23] Have to do with Islamist. Isn't that great. So you know there's a friendly I'm sure it'll work out just fine.
David Blackmon [00:33:30] I'm sure it'll all be great.
Irina Slav [00:33:32] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:33:33] And I think there's an issue with Turkey there as well, because Turkey wanted to be the hub and Syria was going to be the competition. And Turkey has other more global ambitions. They've been very active.
Irina Slav [00:33:48] in the case of Syria.
Tammy Nemeth [00:33:49] Yeah. Yeah. And they've been active in in Africa, like significantly active in Africa, which has been flying under the radar for lots of people. So yeah, that's, that's right. Patrick, Syria is one route of pipeline from Azerbaijan to the Med.
David Blackmon [00:34:05] Yeah. There's another one from Qatar that has its terminus in Bulgaria. Irina was natural gas pipeline planned to come from Qatar through Syria and half its terminal termination interconnect.
Irina Slav [00:34:19] It is going to be a new pipeline. Yes Yeah already So we didn't want the Russian pipeline, but we're totally taking the Qatar pipeline. Exactly. A very principled position. Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:34:32] And that's five years out, David.
David Blackmon [00:34:35] Yes, that's yeah. So I'm sure the Islamic government is going to be happy to accommodate all of that.
Irina Slav [00:34:42] Yeah, totally.
David Blackmon [00:34:43] Yeah. Thanks. Always work out so well when the Deep State plans these coup d'etats.
Irina Slav [00:34:49] Yeah, well, they work with fundamentalists. Religious fundamentalists. Yeah. Nothing can go wrong.
Stuart Turley [00:34:56] I love Robert.
Tammy Nemeth [00:34:57] So Robert had some interesting points there about freight. Yeah. If you go to the. Yeah, the earlier one. So Robert says.
Irina Slav [00:35:08] This numbers.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:10] Ocean going bulk freight energy intensities are in the 100 BTU per ton mile range. Last mile distribution intensities are in the 10,000 BTU ten mile neighborhood. We can improve last mile delivery. And so then he goes on to say North American rail freight intensities are only 300 BTU per ton mile and long haul trucking, only 2500 BTU per ton mile. So then he concludes by saying. Driving at 57.5 NPG hybrid to the convenience store for 20 pounds of goods is if I can get these number.
David Blackmon [00:35:51] 200,000, I think.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:53] 200.
Stuart Turley [00:35:54] Wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:55] You for ten miles.
Stuart Turley [00:35:57] So, Robert, let me ask this question. Do we throw in Amazon delivery from Biden administration that failed to electrify the postal service for $32 billion for 32 electric trucks? Just asking
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:19] Amazon is maybe if they're using drones now and drones is
David Blackmon [00:36:26] See here, look at how energy realities are central to so many geopolitical issues and even Connecticut. Yes. And have been for well over a century.
Stuart Turley [00:36:36] Yeah. Gayle just discovered this for two hours.
David Blackmon [00:36:43] that's. And just give a shout out to Daniel Yergin, because if you read The Prize, which is the greatest book ever written about the global oil business, he goes into great detail about our every decision. Every battle leading up to the early years of World War Two was about countries like Germany and Japan wanting to secure oil supplies for their military every move they made leading up to that war. And it's just such a brilliant piece of work. And Dan is such a wonderful guy. Everybody needs to read that book if you want to understand all this. And then the new map, too, because the new map just brings it up. And Dan predicted the the Ukraine Russia conflict in 2019, folks. And was.
Irina Slav [00:37:33] Since 2014. So.
David Blackmon [00:37:35] Right. Well, but I mean, he predicted that that Russia would invade actually invade to to try to annex these eastern. What are they Carter done.
David Blackmon [00:37:49] Yeah, right. Yeah, the region there. And,
Stuart Turley [00:37:53] well. He was going after the land bridge in the Syrian the Crimea bases because he needs the.
David Blackmon [00:38:00] he did Crimea.
Irina Slav [00:38:02] And the Austrians. Yes, exactly.
Stuart Turley [00:38:07] But he also needed the land bridge to get there because they are trying to the Western powers are trying to isolate Russian natural gas and eliminate all choke marine choke points. And so he is trying to counter that by going land. And it is an amazing chess match that's going on. I would not want to play chess against Putin or Trump.
David Blackmon [00:38:36] I wouldn't either.
Stuart Turley [00:38:36] They play they play on different levels.
David Blackmon [00:38:44] Freight energy and cost intensity data are available online from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and easily corroborated by analysis of supporting data. Good to know, folks. You learned so many things on this podcast every month.
Irina Slav [00:38:59] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:39:00] With young engineers and electrical mechanical technicians working on a project, I found myself saying, keep it real alive.
Irina Slav [00:39:08] This is horrible what they're doing to children. Well, not children that young people.
David Blackmon [00:39:12] Young or younger.
Stuart Turley [00:39:14] Hey, Robert. I love Robert. Look at this Amazon a UPS intensifies to the 50,000 per ton per mile whether gas or electric. Holy smokes.
Stuart Turley [00:39:27] So these people .
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:29] To make electricity, he says. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:39:32] It's a.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:33] Go figure.
Stuart Turley [00:39:34] So people people that are fat, that are fat and don't walk to the store are getting fatter by ordering off of Amazon. Did I hear that right?
Irina Slav [00:39:43] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:39:44] And I have a garage full of cardboard boxes to prove it. Okay, folks, it's time to go to our articles of the week, starting with Tammy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:58] Okay. So I'll go with the second article first. And this was written by Gwynne Morgan for the Epoch Times. And the title is Natural Gas, Not Nuclear is the key to Powering North America's Future. And he he makes a really compelling argument about what we've just been talking about, the energy realities. And if you want to have reliable, affordable, you know, on demand energy when you need it and not have to worry too much, natural gas is the way to go. It's it's got a is more available to some extent it's a little bit easier to bring online than nuclear. And you know, he kind of puts a sop in the article that while nuclear maybe at some point 15 years from now, just because it takes so long to get all of this stuff operational and going. And I know one of the comments said that smart people are optimistic that maybe they can fill in some gaps here. But again, the only places that actually have them running and are connected to the grid and and being somewhat reliable are Russia and China. There is yet to be a North American or European summer in operation. So I guess we have to wait and see. There's been a lot of talk, a lot of hype, and I'm just concerned that a lot of this hype is just hype, like with lots of things in the energy transition. So it's a really great article talking about the strength of natural gas. And I think he mentions the government of Alberta announced that there is a coalition that's putting together natural gas powered AI data servers and whatnot in northern Alberta. And part of the group is funded by Kevin O'Leary, who's on Shark Tank. And Mr..
David Blackmon [00:41:56] Wander.
Tammy Nemeth [00:41:56] Has been. Yeah, he, he's, he's really sensible when it comes down to business and he realizes the reality there you know so he's one of the the the funders are backers of this project so it should be interesting. And then the second article was in Real Clear and the title is Germany's An Economic Model for What Not to Do. And this is a great article by Rainer Zelman, and he's talked extensively about what happened, what happened in Germany with the business community and the Nazis and then what happened afterwards. And so he's got a really clear idea of what happens when governments try to tell corporations what to do in a sort of corporatist mentality. And his article is just fantastic for talking all about all the things we talk about, energy realities and how we're investing so much in wind and shutting down your coal and shutting down your nuclear is not the best way to run a modern technological society. If you want to keep your industry and businesses going, because as we we've talked about, there's deindustrialization happening in Germany. And it's it's a really sad thing to see.
David Blackmon [00:43:12] You know, and it seems intentional.
Stuart Turley [00:43:15] And Tammy, may I add that the UK, New Jersey, New York and California are following off the lemming cliff of the green industry policies.
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:24] And Canada, too.
Stuart Turley [00:43:25] And can.
David Blackmon [00:43:27] Sorry.
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:29] Maybe not for much longer, but, you know, I'm not going to hold my breath on that. There's lots of shenanigans.
Stuart Turley [00:43:35] Yep.
Irina Slav [00:43:36] Good. There's a mind. Well, we already have a Norway which is campaigning to cut energy links to Europe as power prices soar, but to to damage Germany. So I just saw a headline in Bloomberg today. I didn't read the story. Didn't have time with Germany's failing right when Europe needs it most.
David Blackmon [00:43:58] Nobody could have seen that one.
Tammy Nemeth [00:44:00] No one saw that one coming.
Irina Slav [00:44:03] And a lovely story about the U.S. solar industry that's decided to stop talking about climate change and talk about energy dominance instead in order to curry favor with the Trump administration. This is so horrible. Yeah, this is not at all unethical. This is not also immoral. They're trying to survive that suddenly forgotten about climate change and how good their industry is for reducing emissions. So now that that they're focusing it all on arguing that solar would be critical for U.S. energy dominance and how how are these people still alive and employed? I have no idea. Really? Well, no, seriously, I don't think.
Tammy Nemeth [00:44:56] We all will. Be good.
Stuart Turley [00:44:58] All right. For all of our listeners, please subscribe to Irina Slav dot in substack.com. It is important that you just listen to what she has heard, where you can listen to her great sense of humor on her articles. I highly recommend that Joy every day.
Tammy Nemeth [00:45:22] Absolutely. It's awesome.
Irina Slav [00:45:26] Thank you. Probably winning. Need to stand up comedy or sit down comedy. I know it's funny because it is ridiculous, really, And I have no qualms about it. They're not embarrassed about it at all.
David Blackmon [00:45:41] No, for that is just another tactic. It's just another business tech tactic.
Irina Slav [00:45:45] Yeah, but please.
David Blackmon [00:45:49] Here's me. So let's see. So the first one, the left, is in protest against LNG exports. Climate defiance blocks a new unused entrance to DOE Garage. Okay. That was that was our friend Kevin Kellow writing yet just the Newscom this this climate defense group is kind of like the just stop all bunch over in the UK and Germany and they they put up this breathless tweet Friday afternoon saying we have blocked the entrance to the Doe. headquarters in Washington DC and local police are swarming the area to try to shut us down. We need your money. We need your money now to support these efforts, these important efforts. Well, it turned out there's about 15 pasty, white, chubby little trust fund. Kids from wealthy families have parked their fat butts in front of the entrance to a parking garage that hasn't been in use for several years now because 90% of DOE employees continue to work from home since Covid, they still not going back into the office and this parking garages vacant. And they did block the entrance to it, but nobody cared because nobody's trying to use the stupid parking garage. And Kevin, Kevin got all that and got the poop on it Within a couple of hours, he had put this great article out. Everyone needs to go read it. You need to become a regular reader of Kevin stuff.
Tammy Nemeth [00:47:23] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. He's really fantastic.
David Blackmon [00:47:27] He started at the Cowboy State daily up in Wyoming a couple, three years ago is where I think all of us first noticed him. And yeah, the guy just does great work and has a great sense of humor and stuff, he writes. Then the second story is again along the same theme of what we talked about here all day. There is no energy transition happening. What is ExxonMobil doing there? They're investing 25 to $30 billion every year and ramping up their oil and gas production globally. They plan to increase by 18% overall by 2030, and that includes more than doubling their production from the Permian Basin and from their Guyana offshore operation, which is turning Guyana into a world full power. They're already producing 600,000 barrels a day in Guyana. They're going to be producing an estimated 1.3 million barrels a day by 2030, and it's probably going to be substantially more than that. These are always conservative estimates. So that's what Exxon's doing. And by the way, Chevron's doing the same thing, talking about doubling their Permian production. And Shell and BP are also in the process of winding down all their crazy investments in wind and solar and going back to being all oil and gas companies. And that's because there is no energy transition happening, folks, is just isn't. I'm sure that's my rant for today.
Stuart Turley [00:48:56] I think dogs can talk better than humans sometimes.
David Blackmon [00:48:59] Certainly better than I can.
Stuart Turley [00:49:01] That's right. Here. Now, here's a dog trying to say cow. What does a cow say?
Stuart Turley [00:49:09] Okay, so you know that. I'm sorry. I had to throw that in there, David. But hear my stories. You can't buy this kind of reprehensible behavior from a government. I despise the Biden administration. I can't make this any plainer. Biden's DoD doubles down on climate action as promised. Trump promises Military Reset. Unbelievable. Hack me off. We've talked about the Postal Service plan to electrify it. If we paint it yellow, we could get a negative comment about what's her name. She disappeared off the scene so fast, I can't remember her name. Well, let's see. Come on, old Kamala. If it was a yellow bus, we might have gotten more traction. Just kidding. But people really weren't talking about how all these North Korean troops showed up in Ukraine. It was actually oil for troops. I never thought I would have seen this in a in a long time. Go figure this out. North Korea needs oil. Russia has got all these tankers that are, you know, in the dark fleet. A, how would you like to have been on the wall for that conversation with Kim Jong un?
Irina Slav [00:50:36] who runs the landscape?
Stuart Turley [00:50:38] Yeah. Yeah, he's over here kind of going, hey, I got I got me some oil. I do a lousy Putin imitation, you know? I can't do it. It is terrible. Hey, I got. I need some troops. Hey, in the news, Kim Jong IL. I need more oil. Wouldn't that have been fun to be in that meeting? So, anyway. You can't buy this kind of energy generation guy.
David Blackmon [00:51:05] You just can't.
Stuart Turley [00:51:07] And it's about in the U.S. I cannot wait for the deep state to be dismantled. The U.S. does not need to be poking its business in around the world.
Irina Slav [00:51:21] I think Trump will take care of that.
Stuart Turley [00:51:24] I'm sure hopeful because after visiting with all these. And there's a reason why a lot of people from around the world and it's disgusting what we do. I'm I'm embarrassed as a U.S. citizen.
Irina Slav [00:51:38] It's not your fault. It's not your fault.
Stuart Turley [00:51:42] No, but it's disgusting.
Irina Slav [00:51:43] I refuse to take responsibility for the ideas that have been vulgarian for the last three years. I'm sorry. I did not vote for them. I'm not going to feel embarrassed.
David Blackmon [00:51:56] Tammy, are you taking responsibility for Keir Starmer and Justin Kasper?
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:00] My gosh, no.
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:07] My gosh. Like when. When Trudeau came out last week and was talking about women and saying how once again, the Americans have not voted for a female president and what kind of message that sends to the world. And then he said, but it's okay because Canada has the first feminist prime minister and he say, I will be the feminist. And I kept thinking, is he now going to say he's actually a female? Well, Prime Minister, the first female prime minister in Canada, I don't know. He says some ridiculous stuff, but it's one of the interesting things that also happened late last week and I was going to put a link to it, I forgot is that the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, has said that maybe what Trump needs and America needs is for Canada to shut off its electricity exports and its oil and gas exports to the United States for a day and see if they like this 25% tariff thing. And then if you see that.
David Blackmon [00:53:17] There's.
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:18] It's an interesting point. But if you look at the state of energy trade between Canada and the United States, it does go both ways. And there's pipelines that run through the United States to serve Canada. And the United States does provide some oil and some natural gas in certain jurisdictions. We're now on lots of interconnections. So and unfortunately, in some provinces, they're relying on American electricity to balance the grid. So it works both ways.
David Blackmon [00:53:52] Yeah. And you have the northeastern states relying on all that hydropower, right? Yeah. Yeah. In southern, south, south, eastern Canada, coming into those north eastern states. And yeah, there's a lot of interconnectivity. And we import, what is it, 500,000 barrels a day of Canadian crude into the United States? I think it is 5 to 700 jobs like that. A lot of.
Stuart Turley [00:54:16] My rail thanks to Warren Buffett killing the the idea was a Biden or Warren Buffett to kill the Keystone.
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:24] Obama. It was Obama. Yes, Obama killed it. And then Biden..
David Blackmon [00:54:29] Obama's campaign. Specific for that reason. Anyway, I shouldn't say that about Mr. Buffett. He's a wonderful man who's, you know, lived a very modest life despite being worth under $1 billion or so. So what do you all think about Elon Musk being worth $428 trillion since we're we're on our billionaires list? Do you know that Elon Musk's net worth is either almost as big or bigger than ExxonMobil's market cap?
Stuart Turley [00:55:05] Wow.
David Blackmon [00:55:06] Is that an amazing statistic or what? Let me look at this young woman and talk among yourselves.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:13] Yeah, but net worth is such a sort of hazy calculation because it's based on they own this many stocks and it's that kind of asset versus actually having money in the bank that you can spend as you would like. I don't know.
David Blackmon [00:55:29] So ExxonMobil's current market cap is 487 billion. Elon Musk's net worth is 428 billion. But yeah, you're right. I mean, his net worth is all tied up in and I mean mostly tied up in Tesla. The value of Tesla and SpaceX since.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:46] Space X Space X is huge.
Irina Slav [00:55:49] Yeah. Yeah. Well. And he's doing pretty well. Yes. Net worth is so high.
David Blackmon [00:55:55] Yes. Okay.
Stuart Turley [00:56:00] Right. Sorry. Let me go back to Gayle.
David Blackmon [00:56:03] This would be very harmful for both countries, Canada and the U.S., which we were talking about a minute ago. And so, so bad for our businesses that need a stable business environment to operate efficiently. Yes, absolutely. But the point of view, by the way, the point of trouble doing that now is because he doesn't want to actually impose any tariffs. Okay. He's hoping for the Trudeau government and the government down in Mexico to respond positively to his threat and start doing things related to border control. And then there will be no tariffs.
Stuart Turley [00:56:41] I love Robert. Your podcast is the only place where reality presides, which I always enjoy. Thank you, Robert. We love your comment.
Irina Slav [00:56:56] Yeah, well.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:57] A Brian's.
Irina Slav [00:56:59] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:01] Canada's finance minister and.
David Blackmon [00:57:03] Canada's finance minister has just.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:05] Resigned. Chrystia Freeland, No way. My gosh.
David Blackmon [00:57:09] Is that Freeland?
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:11] Yeah. She was reviewing the mini budget today. So she resigned. That's huge news. Wow.
David Blackmon [00:57:20] That's a big news story right there.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:22] They're talking that while the news was suggesting that Trudeau was going to appoint Mark Carney as the fine one, though he doesn't have a seat in the House. That's not
David Blackmon [00:57:38] My God. Mark Carney. Really?
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:42] That's what. That's what would just be terrible.
David Blackmon [00:57:48] Good grief.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:50] CBC is in meltdown.
David Blackmon [00:57:52] I bet it is. I got a
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:54] My gosh. Yeah. Now I got to go check it out
David Blackmon [00:58:00] with YouTube TV. So access the CBC for us.
Stuart Turley [00:58:02] All right. Hey, so if. If Canada was a band, is this what they would sound like?
David Blackmon [00:58:14] There's Chrystia Freeland right there.
Stuart Turley [00:58:16] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:58:18] Why are they really in such great song?
Stuart Turley [00:58:23] Yeah. They butchered a great song. I'm sorry. Sorry about that.
Irina Slav [00:58:26] But it's fitting for the situation, and it's a bittersweet symphony indeed.
David Blackmon [00:58:35] Okay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:58:36] First thing is, if I can add to the Chrystia Freeland story, On Friday, she made an announcement that there was a there's a limit for the Canada pension plan, an investment fund that they can only own 30% of a company. They they can't go beyond that limit. For obvious reasons. You know, you don't want to be overinvested in something and have it fail. And then the pension fund suffers and they've lifted that limit because they're trying the federal government and Canada's trying to get the pension funds to make a whole bunch of significant investments in areas they want. Yeah. And I find that just frightening. Like what's going to happen to Canadians pensions if the pension fund is allowed to invest more than, you know, owning more than 30% of a of an interest in something.
Stuart Turley [00:59:30] Unbelievable. Brian's got another good one. She was supposed to present a mini budget today. It's a confidence motion. Trudeau could be soon gone. I wonder why. That's why Trudeau snuck into Mayor Largo for a couple of days. Maybe he was looking for a job. I don't.
David Blackmon [00:59:52] Well, it is just in the day.
Stuart Turley [00:59:55] And Tammy can start a bingo card on government officials resigning. And when we love Tammy.
David Blackmon [01:00:02] Way to go, Frederik.
Stuart Turley [01:00:03] I don't want to bet. I'm going to add that. Okay. Don't play chess against Putin, Trump or Tammy.
David Blackmon [01:00:15] Well, it's 9:00, folks. We are. We're out of time. Thank you. This has been one of.
Irina Slav [01:00:20] The news most.
David Blackmon [01:00:22] Episodes ever. I really appreciate people tolerating my moderation. Everybody, have a great week.
Irina Slav [01:00:27] Your grades. have a nice.
David Blackmon [01:00:30] Next Monday, same time.
Tammy Nemeth [01:00:32] Thanks everybody. Bye
Stuart Turley [01:00:35] Bye Tammy.
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