Energy Reality is Kicking into High Gear
We are seeing a global energy realization that “renewable and sustainable” do not include subsidies. The financial crisis and the reliability of current wind and solar technologies are starting to have a global energy impact, and coupled with Net Zero policies that impose crippling energy restrictions, you have the makings for a significant discussion.
You will want to start your week off with David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, Irina Slav, and Stu Turley as we delve into these significant topics.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:01 – Introductions and Power Outage Humor
04:07 – Trump’s Energy Comments Spark Debate
05:36 – EPA and the Endangerment Finding
10:14 – EU’s Net-Zero Policy Pushback
15:28 – Paris Agreement Legality in Question
17:26 – U.S. Regulatory Rollbacks and Nuclear Future
21:03 – UK’s Costly Nuclear Projects
25:06 – Bureaucracy vs Innovation
29:44 – EU to Tax Airline Water Vapor
33:11 – Satirical Video on Climate Activism
35:27 – Regulation Driving Business Out of Canada
37:35 – Consulting Firms and Green Misdirection
39:25 – Global Bifurcation of Energy Strategies
43:48 – Nano Nuclear Energy’s Breakthrough in Microreactor Technology | Future of Clean Power
45:01 – China’s solar giants quietly shed a third of their workforces last year
46:39 – Why Europe’s Green Deal rail dream isn’t turning into reality
49:16 – DAVID BLACKMON: Whales, Fishermen Heave Sighs Of Relief As Doug Burgum Cancels Offshore Wind
50:06 Dumbest E-Mail of the Week Right Here, From Something Called 350.org
52:24 – New Zealand Ends Ardern-Era Ban on Oil and Gas Exploration
53:19 – CASE TO BE MADE: Tourmaline and Uniper sign eight-year natural gas deal for European supply
Energy Reality is Kicking into High Gear
Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:12] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy Realities podcast. Today we are going to be talking about how energy reality is kicking into high gear. And to talk about that, we have our favorite panel, the four of us. We’ve got David Blackmon. And David, I’m not sure where you are. Are you in Texas today?
David Blackmon [00:00:34] I’m at home, but our power is out. And this background gives a little better lighting than what my standard background is here in my studio. So this is temporary. And I imagine the power is gonna come back on right in the middle of this and I’ll have to readjust.
David Blackmon [00:00:54] Okay, so how come the power’s out?
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:56] Big thunderstorm just came through. I got to get roofers out here today. It was a bad deal. We had some. 60, 70 mile an hour straight line wins and a lot of fun.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:08] Wow, did they call it, did the name the storm or anything?
David Blackmon [00:01:13] We haven’t gotten to that point in Texas yet, but I assume while we would have if the election had gone the other way, but now that we have sane people running the government, we probably will never get there, hopefully.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:26] Hopefully. Fingers crossed. We also have today, of course, the irrepressible Irina Slav, who’s in Bulgaria. Hi Irina, how are you today?
Irina Slav [00:01:37] Hi, Tammy. I’m fine, thank you. It’s not so hot anymore, so it’s great. The extreme weather is over.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:48] For now. Right?
Irina Slav [00:01:48] Yeah.
[00:01:50] Hopefully the tomatoes are growing well and that you’re garden is thriving.
Irina Slav [00:01:54] Oh, they’re great. I was actually doing some tomato preserve earlier because there’s been so much.
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:02] That’s a good problem to have.
Irina Slav [00:02:04] Yeah yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:05] Making salsa i hope that’s the best.
Irina Slav [00:02:10] No just you know boil them a bit and make them ready for pasta and all sorts of stuff.
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:19] Oh excellent sounds good And we have Stuart Turley. Stuart, are you in Oklahoma or are you Texas today?
Stuart Turley [00:02:28] I’m in Oklahoma today, but I did go to Texas over the weekend, and holy smokes, Batman, I’m tired.
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:39] That’s a lot of traveling. Are you sure you’re allowed to do that? Have you exceeded your carbon credits yet?
Stuart Turley [00:02:45] I don’t believe in Carbon credits.
Irina Slav [00:02:49] I believe in you, Stu.
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:56] And then there’s me, Tammy Nemeth, I’m in the UK today where there’s a storm that’s going to hit the UK. It’s a bit windy today, but they’ve named the storm, apparently, we’re supposed to be afraid. And the Met Office put out a warning saying, when there’s high winds, don’t open your door unless you have to.
David Blackmon [00:03:19] What did they name the store?
Irina Slav [00:03:21] Yeah, what’s the name?
Tammy Nemeth [00:03:23] Uh, I don’t know. I kind of ignored it. It’s like. Whatever, some kind of, it’s, you know, one of these whole leftovers off, off of a hurricane where it ricochets across the Atlantic, it comes to the UK and they just, I think they’re just feeling left out. America gets to name hurricanes and plus it gets to amplify the, the hype. Oh my gosh, there’s bad weather where it’s so bad we’re naming it. But Yeah, that’s the UK crazy as ever
Stuart Turley [00:03:53] In the United States, if it’s really bad, we call it a Nadler.
Tammy Nemeth [00:03:58] As in Jerry?
Stuart Turley [00:04:02] Yes, we know it’s really bad when it’s in Adler.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:07] Oh gosh, that’s hilarious. Well, it’s interesting that, you know, with all this UK stuff, because last week Trump had some nice little visits, and that’s kind of one of the reasons why we’re talking about energy realities, because he certainly, when he was talking to Ursula von der Leyen from the EU, and when he talking to Keir Starmer, he was laying down some realities about energy that I think a lot of people found offensive. But a lot of people also thought, well, finally, we get to hear some realism on the world stage about energy and wind and solar and whatnot, but particularly wind. He had a big thing on wind. And then some of the other stories that we’ve been following that we want to talk about today as well is the Department of Energy in the United States put forward a review of the climate literature that was written by five really eminent scientists. And so we’re going to talk a little bit about that. And then we also have the EPA looking to rescind the endangerment finding, which is huge. So we have all of these different sort of energy reality aspects that we thought, hey, they’re kicking into high gear. I think we should talk about that So for all these different things, David, we’re gonna start with you. What do you make of the energy realities sort of kicking into High Gear?
David Blackmon [00:05:36] Well, you know, that’s certainly true in the United States in the current administration. You mentioned the EPA endangerment finding, the effort to rescind that. For those who don’t know, the endangerment on greenhouse gasses is a decision that was made by the EPA in 2010 when Barack Obama was president, in which the EPA seized the authority to regulate carbon dioxide. Plant food, the fundamental building block for all life on planet Earth, both plant and animal, as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, which was a gross misuse of the Clean Air Act. Everyone recognizes this, even the authors of the clean air act, the people who wrote it back in the 70s, admit that this was never the intention of that law to allow EPA to carbon dioxide or water vapor or methane is arguable, but even methane is not really a pollutant as defined in the Clean Air Act. It’s a naturally occurring element here on planet Earth. And so all of it is an abuse of power that was facilitated by the Chevron Deference, a legal doctrine that the Supreme Court just created out of old cloth in 1984 that said federal courts have to… Defer to the judgment of regulatory agencies in their interpretations of these major environmental laws. And the Supreme Court revoked the Chevron deference last year. And so now the EPA is free to rescind that deference. Of course, it’ll be challenged in the courts, but it’s hard to see how any challenge is going to prevail because the whole thing is insane. It’s just insane. Obviously carbon dioxide and water vapor are not pollutants under any definition. It’s just insane. And it’s a tragedy that it’s existed and remained a part of the law in this country for 15 years. So what would happen? Well, if. EPA succeeds in this effort. Then every element of the Obama and Biden climate policy agenda stands to be rescinded as well, because it’s all based on that endangerment finding. You know, we’ve got 15 years of overburden, some regulation of our economy, of auto emissions, tail plant emissions, et cetera, et cetera, on and on and all of that is now in jeopardy. And will ultimately be rescinded if, you know, if Republicans stay in power long enough, we’ll see. Uh, obviously you’re not going to get all that done in four years, but this administration, as, uh, my friend, Tim Stewart correctly points out is not a Republican administration. It’s a disruptor administration. And these people that, uh President Trump has appointed to these key positions. Are all disruptors and they’re all very aggressive in what they’re doing. And they’re moving with lightning speed that I don’t, I know no administration of my lifetime has ever moved this quickly to install their agenda. And they’ve been extremely successful. And frankly, I wish them the best of luck and hope they succeed in everything they’re trying to do. So that’s my diatribe for this morning. I’m in a bad mood because my power is out of my house. And so, yeah, I’m sorry, everybody. I’m grumpy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:09:19] I agree. Well, Irina, what do you make of what, you know, when Trump was talking to Ursula von der Leyen and when he was talking to Keir Starmer about wind and how unreliable and everything it is. And, you know, what are the implications there for the European Union’s Green Deal if the United States suddenly … If they rescind the endangerment finding and they act on what this climate review report from the Department of Energy says, if they act on that, does that make the American companies more competitive? And would that affect the European Green Deal? Do you think that they would start to reconsider some of those things? Or do you think they’ve gone so far that it’s difficult for them now to back off?
Irina Slav [00:10:14] First of all, these meetings were total humiliation of Ursula von der Leyen and all of us in the EU and Kirsten Tammer. It was really, really painful to watch. But I was thinking about this directive, you know, which I wrote about last week, in the context of these changes in the US and how the European Union wanted to… Enforce net zero plans on everyone, every big company that does business with the European Union. And when the Qataris said, no, we’re not going to do it, they immediately amended the directive. But the Qataries want something more. They want the whole net zero planning mandate to be removed. They do not want to have to make net zero plans just to please the Europeans who need their gas. So how are American LNG companies different? They’re not. They would not want to spend money on devising net zero plants just to make the Europeans happy. So I think the EU will have to go back on this because they do not have a lot of options in gap. They don’t have a lot of options in oil either. They have made sure they don t have options. I mean, they have been actively working to not have options, so now, you know, I don’t think that they were thinking about this. They somehow assumed that energy exporters will play along. Because climate change is so important for everyone and everyone knows it as well as the European Union does. This is not the case because energy reality is indeed kicking into high gear and more and more people at all levels of life are waking up, which we have been talking about repeatedly once again. Did you see the news report from Reuters how a UN report finds out that UN reports are not being widely read?
David Blackmon [00:12:42] That’s the greatest headline ever.
Tammy Nemeth [00:12:44] I know. It was a joke, but yeah, it was really funny.
Irina Slav [00:12:49] It was the writers! And I think it’s the greatest demonstration of what’s happening. Nobody cares about you and reports. In fact, I googled that Guterres speech that we mocked, the horrible speech. It was only reported in three mainstream media outlets. So it’s true and this is once again evidence that people are tired, they’re exhausted with the climate change, fear mongering, which is bad news for the European leadership, because as I said, they do not have a lot of options. So they have to, you know, tweak their regulations about net zero and emission tracking and emission reduction, especially now that the U.S. Is done with… CO2 pollution which is nonsensical anyway and they will have to do it quietly but I don’t see how they could do it. Quietly because they’ve been really loud about it. Carbon pollution, net zero plans, mandates, import tariffs or whatever if you don’t comply or we’re not going to buy your LNG unless you have a net zero plan and you’re tracking your methane emissions. What are you going to do now? You’ve just. Signed a deal, it’s not a final deal, but it’s a pre-final deal, to import humongous amounts of LNG from American companies. They really are in a tough spot because it could happen. They could get into an even tougher spot than they already were in.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:32] Yeah, I mean, I wonder how this relates to the International Court of Justice ruling or guidance, sorry, it’s not a ruling, it is guidance on, you know, you can sue countries that aren’t fulfilling their net zero commitments through the Paris Agreement. And I’m wondering at what countries just pull out of the agreement like like America like I I don’t know how that works for the EU. They have in the past taken those ICJ guidance into consideration. So I’m wondering what they will do with that for the E.U.
Irina Slav [00:15:17] I have no idea. I guess we’ll see. But that’s a very good point. Probably we will start seeing countries leaving the Paris Agreement.
David Blackmon [00:15:28] Yeah. Well, if they’re going to try to enforce it that way, I mean, the main reason why all the countries signed on to the agreement is because it’s non-binding. These are targets and goals. They’re not legal commitments under a legally ratified treaty.
Irina Slav [00:15:45] The EU is very binding, the EU has been binding.
Tammy Nemeth [00:15:49] Because, yeah, they put it into legislation. Oh, yes, for the EU.
David Blackmon [00:15:52] All these third world countries were willing to sign on to it because it’s non-binding and most of those countries have no intention of doing what they supposedly committed to do under the Paris Accord. It’s a meaningless document with no teeth, so if the court is going to try to enforce it this way, well then, yeah, I think countries in addition to the United States are going to start pulling out of it the first time they try to. You know, penalize another country for not meeting its goals, there will be a flood of countries pulling out.
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:25] Well, it’s interesting because if you ask GROC or chat GPT or any of the sort of search engine tell me about the Paris Agreement, is it a treaty? They will all say it’s a binding treaty. And I’m like, but the United States, Congress has to pass something that’s a treaty. And they kept going on and on and about how it’s an unbinding agreement and that Every country has to put whatever it’s promising to do into their own legislation. So if that’s the case, then it’s not really a treaty. But yet all of the large language models will say it’s a treaty, which I find very interesting. What do you make of all these developments we’ve seen in the past week or so with sort of, it’s like, wow, energy reality, getting onto the main stage here where people are saying reasonable things. What do make of this?
Stuart Turley [00:17:26] I’m going to go in my bat closet over here and get my flight suit because we got a rough ride coming up here. Let me put this one article up here just to help show you Doge actually had some great impact, but nobody’s really talking about what Doge, I really like Peter St. Onge. He is a really cool cat on X and he pointed out some things. Doge’s target savings based on federal regulations could be three trillion dollars worth of regulatory bull crap that they actually get cut out impacting the U.S. How this plays into today’s discussion is if we get the Obama era EPA ratified and pulled out that CO2 is no longer a pollutant. This could really kick into high gear in the United States as being a place of favorable place to do business. I also wrote this article, net zero has cost Europe’s energy future. And you take a look at the GDP of Russia over the last 10 years versus the GDP of the other countries, Russia’s been increasing. You see how they’ve flicked that out. Through sanctions. Go figure. Yeah, go figure. Even with the sanctions. And so the regulatory bull crap that is going on in the EU and the UK and in Canada is coming to a full head right now. And you take a look at the article that I put up here, France really for years was the poster child of nuclear until they wiped out their maintenance fees trying to get rid of nuclear. Thank you very much. That really cost them big and they almost really didn’t, uh, recover from that. So now you take a look at the U S this morning’s podcast that we released. I actually see that the United States is going to be net zero before Europe. Let me explain how we get there. They’re wanting to put in, they’re wanting to double our nuclear fleet within the next 10 years. If we do that, nuclear is essentially net zero. And the way we’re going to do that is, as I was pointing out on the regulation side of things, they’ve got to do the NRC and absolutely wipe it out. I just interviewed the CEO of Nano Nuclear Energy. They’ve got two nuclear reactors and thank you for sharing that by the way. And then we had the, uh, uh two nuclear reactors, one in Canada and one in the U S but they’re not just building the reactors, they’re building the plants so they can actually get them approved and licensed it for controls. Their goal was to make a hundred reactors a year and so making the regulatory process work for you and unleash it is going to happen in in the United States. It’s going to be a tough road to hoe, but I’ll tell you what, the UK, I can’t see them doing it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:20:59] I agree.
David Blackmon [00:20:59] Okay, let’s put this up.
Stuart Turley [00:21:03] Do what? I’m sorry,.
David Blackmon [00:21:03] Go ahead, go head, Tammy
Irina Slav [00:21:04] I was going to ask Tammy, I just saw a report about size well C going, it’s going to cost up to a hundred billion pounds. How?
Tammy Nemeth [00:21:18] That’s a very good question. I don’t know. I mean, they’re changing the potential costs all the time. And part of the problem is that it was the original design was based on Hinkley Point, which has been taking forever. But then they added a bunch of changes. And so every time there’s a change request, the costs go up. And some of the changes are necessary, Some of them are kind of. Ridiculous. But you know, in any event, when you also have an increase in the labor, the labor costs, the material costs, I suspect because there’s a lot of concrete that goes into construction. Now there’s all of these different you have to that the carbon taxes that are that are put on something like concrete are quite significant. So as those prices go up, and as the closer you get to 2030, 2040. When the carbon taxes have these incremental increases that that’s going to affect your bottom line for for what the the overall cost is so I don’t know it’s um I try not to uh look into too much detail what the cost estimates are because they’re always changing and they always change in one direction which is you know going up but I love Stu that you you pointed out different these, there’s lots of innovative ideas out there, but the problem is getting them from, wow, we have this great idea, we’ve set up a prototype, but to get it from prototype to commercial feasibility. And I think this is where we’re at, where there’s a lot of good ideas at that we’ve had prototype stage, but now it’s a matter of making it commercially applicable and can you roll out the SMRs or whatever in actually be able to roll them out so quickly. And it’ll be interesting to see if they’re able to do that. I think I sent around an article the other day about these micro grid generators, which are natural gas. I don’t know how they evade the issue with there not being enough turbines for larger ones. Maybe it’s because they’re smaller and that supply chain is different. I don’t know, but they seem to be able to set them up in series. So you have small ones. But you can have multiple small ones.
Stuart Turley [00:23:46] And they’re using old jet engines.
Tammy Nemeth [00:23:50] Oh, interesting!
Stuart Turley [00:23:52] So the supply chain is evolving in the United States. If there’s a demand, we will fix it. And I guarantee it’s pretty entertaining.
David Blackmon [00:24:03] Great. We will do that in this administration, but come the next election, if the next election goes the other way, then we won’t be able to do that.
Stuart Turley [00:24:12] Exactly.
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:14] Yeah, and all that bureaucracy will come back. There was a really interesting article by Thomas Kolba on Zero Hedge this morning, where it was talking about how the bureaucratic tumor is killing Europe. And it kind of goes through how it affects Germany in particular, but how it impacts all the European countries. There’s just so much red tape. And when you have the United States, which is pretty innovative in the first place, and also has a lot of investment money and you’re kind of unleashing companies to go and do stuff and invent stuff and and and create new things um when you’re competing with a country like that but you’re europe or canada where there’s so much red tape try to get anything done it’s just like pulling teeth to try and get something.
Stuart Turley [00:25:06] For our podcast listeners, I just put up total number of pages in the code of federal regulations. This thing is, look at this thing. It’s the trillions of pages and the regulatory statute was in this article. And by removing it Doge actually, Elon’s real win is not in the minuscule 8 billion that they saved. It is in the trillions that they’re going to save because Doge is alive and well. And this is important. This is actually a very good lasting one. And I’m almost not wanting to call attention to this so that it survives and cuts out all the bureaucracy. If we keep calling attention to it, all of a sudden they wake up and go, wait a minute, we gotta kill Doge now. No, no, no. Don’t, don’t.
David Blackmon [00:26:02] One of many reasons why it was a really good thing that Elon Musk got his butt out of the White House and went back to running his companies. Because now Doge is free to operate behind the scenes, get all this work done quietly, and the media is all focused on Jeffrey Epstein. And so anyway, back to the number of pages, just one quick point. In the Code of Federal Regulations, Robert Bryce, our friend last year, calculated, added up the number of words that had been added to the Code of Federal Regulations by the Biden apparatchiks just in the first quarter of 2024, strictly relevant to power generation. And it was over a million words to in regulation and regulatory language that had been added the CFR in the 1st quarter of 2024. That’s how busy the Biden administration was trying to. Destroy our economy and our energy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:06] Wow. Oh my gosh. But, you know, if you look at net zero and how much extra regulation and red tape it brings in, and I was thinking in terms of the EU Green Deal in all of these directives, and now you have to do like their corporate social sustainability directive. It’s just insane, the amount of paperwork that’s required. And the companies were like, we will die under this avalanche of red tape. And so the EU kind of, wow, we’ll stream it back a little bit. We’ll reduce the number of data points you have to report on. But it’s like, there were so many that even the reduction that they’re proposing is still quite a lot that companies have to do. And I want to comment on Rodney McInnis. Had a comment on here quite a little while ago about the insanity. He said, speaking of insanity, scientists fail to point out that methane and nitrous oxide have their absorption spectrums nearly drowned out by natural water vapors absorption due to the overlapping concentrations. And this means they have negligible effect on global warming. So I often hear the scientists talk about water vapor. And the reason I want to mention this is because the EU. Started by saying airlines must monitor their emissions and they get taxed on their emissions and so on but now they’re saying airlines have to monitor their water vapor so when you see the contrails and the water vapor created by airlines they now must monitor and they’re going to be There’s going to be attacks. On water vapor because they’re saying that the water vapor creates clouds which creates warming and that big that’s the big issue is we have to stop the cloud formation and the warming so now they’re going to go after airlines starting I think next year where they’re gonna have to be reporting on their water vapor. Because next year so the international airlines have been exempt from from doing the carbon tax but now the international Airlines next year. Flying into the EU will have to pay the carbon tax and monitor and pay for their water vapor. So that’s where this leads, right? It’s just like you think it’s one thing, and once they get all that in order, then they start adding more. So that is the EU for you, always adding more things to…
Irina Slav [00:29:44] Yeah, it’s a huge bureaucracy. These people have to, you know, earn their salaries and the only thing they can do is look for more things to regulate for which you know the whole net zero ambition is very useful because where could we look? To regulate something more, to save the planet, to prevent climate change. And I think this will speed up the collapse of the European Union because, you know, it’s like a tumor, this European bureaucracy. And it will eventually either eat its host, which is the European union and all of us, and everyone who does business with the European unions. Or just collapse under its own weight. It’s unsustainable, literally.
Stuart Turley [00:30:41] This is amazing in the article you pointed out. The new EU also sets up rules how to estimate carbon footprint of sustainable aviation fuels, which can be produced from biofuels, organic waste of green hydrogen, green hydrogen, any fuel whose life cycle carbon footprint is at least 70% of that as standard kerosene will be rated as zero emissions. This is bull hockey. I know. Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:31:09] Wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:31:10] And so, you know, the EU has already passed this law where you can’t fly between capital cities in the EU if they’re under a certain distance. Yeah, yeah, that was part of the EU Green Deal directive after the Russia invaded Ukraine. So they added this bit. So I was listening to a podcast where this guy’s like, I had a meeting in Berlin and then I was had a But I wasn’t able, and they were on the same day, and he had to hire a private jet to fly between Berlin and Rome because he couldn’t get, there wasn’t a short haul flight. Those short haul flights were, you’re supposed to take a train.
Irina Slav [00:31:53] So if I want to travel from Sofia to Bucharest,.
Tammy Nemeth [00:31:58] If it’s too short, it’s not allowed.
Irina Slav [00:32:00] It’s about 500 kilometers.
Tammy Nemeth [00:32:04] It depends on how long the flight is, because it’s basically, there’s.
Irina Slav [00:32:10] It’s less than two hours, I’m sure, but the problem with this is if I was in this gentleman’s situation I will have to take a train, but there’s only one train a day going from Sofia or two maybe, from Sofia to Bucharest, and it takes about 12 hours.
Tammy Nemeth [00:32:28] So I think the way it works is that each nation has to implement that directive within their own legislation. So I know Germany did it, France did it. Probably Italy. So if you guys are just new to the EU and you haven’t yet adopted that, maybe it’ll still be allowed. We don’t know about it. Right. Pretend you don’t. But the problem is that they don’t want people to fly. Except if you’re a climate activist because then if you were an activist and you’re flying
Stuart Turley [00:33:00] I think we have a video on that, Tammy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:33:02] I think you do.
Stuart Turley [00:33:05] Well, let’s check out the most environmentally friendly woman on the planet. Let’s check her out.
Video Speaker (Narrator) [00:33:11] Keep her carbon footprint down. She says, climate change is killing the coral reef, as she lathers on sunscreen and snorkels in the reef. She once chained herself to a tree, for the selfie. She said the world would end in 10 years, 30 years ago. She flies to climate conferences, first class. She uses crystals instead of deodorant. She once lectured a starving African boy mining for cobalt, how he is stealing her childhood. She’s plant-based, unless someone orders wings. Her armpit hair has dreadlocks. She doesn’t have any actual kids, but has adopted seven Haitian families to come live in your town. Her catchphrase is, how dare you? She refuses to drink bottled water, unless it’s from Coachella. Instead of driving, she runs in Nikes made by Uyghurs in a Chinese concentration camp. She owns 47 tote bags, and still forgets to bring them. She gives out bamboo toothbrushes on Halloween. She is, the most environmentalist woman in the world.
Video Speaker 1 [00:34:27] I don’t always drink, but when I do, it’s from a coconut I flew in from Bali. Stay reusable, my friends.
David Blackmon [00:34:38] Sorry. Oh, that’s so awesome. That’s just perfect.
Tammy Nemeth [00:34:45] Can I give a shout out to Gayle Campbell-Andrus because she makes a really good point here how regulations kill innovation in Canada. And she writes, my concern is that legislators and regulators don’t understand the myriad regulations that businesses have to comply with and the upshot is lost opportunities. And you know, with Canada, I wonder how difficult it is for businesses to say, You know what? I think I’m just gonna go across the border. And maybe open up my business in the United States instead, where the regulatory structure isn’t as insane as it is in Canada. So I think she makes a really good point on that, that aspect.
David Blackmon [00:35:27] Hey, I want to and I agree with you that she does and I want to look at this comment from PB. This is what happens when you create an entire industry of environmental consultancy. No one polices them. And I just, an offshoot of that this morning, I saw an article, I believe it’s in Wall Street Journal this morning about people at McKinsey. Yeah. Because AI is gonna replace all their jobs. And all I could think was there’s a more deserving class of individuals who deserve to have their jobs taken by AI than the people at Mackenzie. I’m sorry, folks, I love you, but damn, you have done a disservice to our economy. In our country over the last 15 years with all this nonsense about climate alarmism.
Irina Slav [00:36:19] But that’s great news because they can retrain as electricians.
David Blackmon [00:36:25] Oh no, it’s going to replace Coder.
Irina Slav [00:36:26] It gives workmen and women. Yeah. Because there’s a shortage of these.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:31] Welders
Irina Slav [00:36:33] There aren’t even enough bricklayers. Yeah. Plumbers.
David Blackmon [00:36:42] I got to tell you, during all of this, I’ve had these thoughts, because I’ve interviewed a lot of people from some of the high-power consulting firms in my podcast and just for pieces of Forbes and elsewhere. And I just, I got a believe their clients at the big oil and gas companies and other companies in various industries today are looking back on all the advice they got from these enormous firms. And I won’t name them. About how they need to do this and adopt that and and write this you know include this and there’s the sustainability report and spend billions of dollars buying wind farms and solar arrays and now we’re sitting here with it all falling apart and I just wonder if the people inside ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and all these other big companies They’re thinking, wow, we wasted a lot of money on these.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:35] Uh-huh. Yeah, I wonder though, like if Trump hadn’t been elected, then those investments would have been smart.
David Blackmon [00:37:46] Well, they might’ve been, but again, they’re still non-profitable, and they would’ve been even less profitable under Kamala Harris because she was just gonna keep loading the economy down with all, you know, millions of words and new regulations every quarter.
Stuart Turley [00:38:01] Yeah, I think we all are realizing that as we look at energy realities, having a wake up call, the world is bifurcating into two different modes. One following net zero in deindustrialization and a financial collapse and ultimately resume change. The other one is going to be open trading based on energy, low cost energy based on. Using energy sources that are actually profitable. And if you look at it that way, you’re gonna see a realignment as long as President Trump does not listen to Lindsey Graham and issue secondary sanctions on India, if he can keep off the secondary sanctions. I think it’s a biggest mistake of the most winning president we’ve had in the United States history. If he sanctions India and China for secondary coal, LNG, and natural gas for India, it will be a travesty and it will ricochet around the world. If he listens to this podcast, President Trump, lock Lindsey Graham and that bill in the trash can.
David Blackmon [00:39:25] Yeah, stop playing golf with him and block him on your cell phone.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:31] Well, you know, you make a really great point. I would argue that that bifurcation was already happening because you saw the bricks that were setting up to be the reliable energy, sort of affordable energy block, and then you had the EU. And as long as the Democrats were in power in the United States, the EU had the United states to join them in this new, uh, bifurs in the world. Uh, and Trump now it’s like, is America, which side are they on? And Maybe they’re on their own side.
David Blackmon [00:40:04] Exactly.
Irina Slav [00:40:04] This is the only side that is, you know, that makes sense, it’s the only…
Stuart Turley [00:40:10] If we see President Trump’s domestic team is by far the strongest team I’ve ever seen running a domestic policy. You have Lee Zeldin, Chris Wright, and Doug Berger, absolutely rock stars. His foreign policy team does not understand how to get President Putin to the negotiation table. And they are not negotiating from a position of strength. If the United States can get through the Russian ending of the Russian war, you, I believe president Putin has telegraphed to the world several times on several interviews that I’ve watched. He wants to do business. He does not want war and he has been doing what he does best. And that is take care of Russia. I don’t have a problem with that. I think that the big problem is, uh, how NATO encroached on Russia. That’s the quiet part. Nobody’s talking about.
David Blackmon [00:41:18] Yeah, we wouldn’t like it much in America if Russia and China, in fact, we’ve seen Trump administration respond to it, if Russia in China had brought Mexico and Cuba and Canada into some military alignment, you know, international alignment.
Irina Slav [00:41:39] And we’ll interface this along your board.
David Blackmon [00:41:42] Exactly, exactly. And we never look at it from Russia’s point of view here in our country, and it’s a travesty.
Irina Slav [00:41:50] Yeah, but the problem is you don’t, I’m sorry and don’t take this personally, but I don’t think you have the kind of professional diplomats to handle such a situation for the reason that for the last 30 years, American foreign policy has been very
David Blackmon [00:42:12] Bully your sh-
Irina Slav [00:42:15] expansionistically oriented, shall we put it like this?
Stuart Turley [00:42:17] I’ll say the quiet part. I’ll tell you what, CIA should no longer be in existence and it is absolutely not elected bureaucrats pulling all the shenanigans.
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:31] Well, you have an elected beer in the in the form of all your stuff, so. But even elected people are, you know, pushing certain agendas and whatnot. And yeah, yeah, I think you need to have a clear idea. I don’t know if it’s is it is it the fact that Putin doesn’t want to come to the table or that the the people who are behind Zelensky don’t want a deal?
Irina Slav [00:42:56] Is the latter who are the people behind my honest opinion i’ll give you their conditions how do we get to geopolitics and the war in the ukraine again i don’t know yeah i don’t know okay
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:12] Let’s move on to the stories, our headlines. You know what, Stu, you always end up being last, so let’s start with you today.
Stuart Turley [00:43:20] Oh, I, I wouldn’t go that far. I’m, I’m best last. In fact, I’ve got a face for radio. In fact where my slides.
David Blackmon [00:43:29] Aren’t even in there.
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:31] The slides aren’t even in there! What the heck?
Stuart Turley [00:43:33] What happened?
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:34] What did you do? Oh, there you go.
Stuart Turley [00:43:38] We’ve already covered the story that I had for today. And that is Net Zero, you know, boom, crowds going wild. But Nano Nuclear, it was a very interesting interview with James as the CEO of Nano Nuclear publicly traded company, if they can get past the regulatory issues. We stand to really make modular reactors a real thing. And I’m gonna be watching this one. And Jay, you, I interviewed him about a year ago and he is the founder of nanonuclear and hats off to them, they could change shipping. Their nanonuclear could actually work on ships. They’re the size of a, an 18 wheeler. I mean, it is a phenomenal nuclear reactor technology, and they’re building the plants the same time they’re getting their first two licensed. This to me is a solution.
Tammy Nemeth [00:44:43] Yeah, that’s a really cool story. I wish them luck. I hope it works.
Stuart Turley [00:44:49] So who’s next? Who’s next?
Tammy Nemeth [00:44:50] Irina! Irina!!
Irina Slav [00:44:53] Okay. Is that one story? China’s solar giants quietly shed a third of their workforces last year. It’s something I’ve been suspecting for a while, I’m not the only one, but they’ve gone so fast, so hard on solar and wind and EVs that now they have to address all the capacity. And obviously companies are dying, they’re going bankrupt because… It has all become so cheap. It has become a race to the bottom, as I’ve heard you say, Tammy, and that’s correct. And now they’re laying off people and they’re going to have some problems on their hands until the situation, you know, balances out. Which just goes to show that subsidies are not the solution because this is what’s happening in China, which has the money to subsidize all these industries. Because it makes the money available, because it can do it. And even with all that money, that made solar actually do cheap. They can keep growing forever because they’re not making money. If solar becomes too cheap, which is apparently a lesson that Europe has yet to learn, as it will not learn from China’s mistake at the end. No, it won’t. They don’t learn. The other story was funny. Do I have another story.
Stuart Turley [00:46:33] Yes, you do. I broke it into two slides.
Tammy Nemeth [00:46:36] Yes oh my gosh.
Irina Slav [00:46:38] Funny one why Europe’s green deal or rail dream isn’t turning into reality so apparently Europe was so big on railways as you noted Tammy with your example they really wanted to to make the whole of Europe very railway heavy should I say but the thing is that all these nutrients, the electric ones, are really, really expensive. I mean when I traveled five years ago to Italy, my plane ticket from Bulgaria to Italy was a lot cheaper than my train ticket from Milan to Florence, which should not be the case. But the funny part is you know how Europe has these rearmament military plans and ready to go to war with Russia, building a massive military base in Romania. Planning to build another one in Bulgaria, because we are the frontline countries. If the equipment and the vehicles and the armies can get here by rail, which they can’t, because the railways in each European Union member state are built according to different standards, to national standards, which are different. And they have to standardize all the rail ways. And I’m sure you can all see this happening very soon and very cheaply, can’t you?
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:10] Of course.
Irina Slav [00:48:12] This is your
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:14] And that’s why, when they want to do European-wide military procurement, good luck. Because every nation has their own standards, their own requirements and whatnot. And how are you going to make one size fits all for everybody without costing a fortune?
Irina Slav [00:48:33] Yeah, Europeans is not turning into a country and that’s that. So please stop crying, it’s costing a lot of money and that money is wasted when it could be used for something actually practical and, you know, beneficial for everyone.
David Blackmon [00:48:49] What a concept.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:50] What a concept.
Irina Slav [00:48:52] I know.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:53] And Irina, where can we find you on Substack?
Irina Slav [00:48:56] Irina’s level of energy. Drop by, as David likes to say.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:04] Drop by. It’s awesome. We got a good laugh out of it.
David Blackmon [00:49:09] Speaking of which, so well, yeah, I love the first one. It’s, you know, Doug Burgum put the final knife into the chest of the offshore wind industry last week as he basically canceled all of their set aside areas for development in the U.S. Offshore. So there will be no more expansions and the administration’s already, you well along the way to killing. Pretty much all the projects except for Empire Wind. And it looks like a hurricane may plow right through Empire Wind here in the coming five to seven days. So we’ll see how that project holds up in the face of a hurricane. How idiotic is it to think that you’re gonna be able to build these things in the United States with our constantly shifting policies? Anyway, dumbest email of the week. Is the second one that came from 350.org, which is Bill McKibben’s group. I wrote in my piece that I didn’t know what the org was because I figured if I put them in the headline, somebody there would come read the piece and I didn’t want them to get the big head thinking I was thinking about them. This group smeared me about 12 years ago. And, you know, so any chance I get to ridicule them, I’m happy to do it. The letter which came into my email inbox that day was chastising Shell and BP for actually making profits from their oil business units and for abandoning their wind and solar projects and all this typical stuff you would expect to hear from a radical left-wing climate alarm conflict group which is what 350.org is. And here’s the other problem 350.org and a lot of those other groups are gonna have is many of them were getting a lot of money out of the USAID budget before this year. And the USAIID budget is now gone and they’re gonna have to find other means of support. And isn’t that a glorious thing, America? So thank you for voting the right way last November. That’s all, I’ll cut this one short. I know we’re running a little. Short on time, but you can come see me at Energy Transition Absurdities on Substack and I’d love to see you there.
Tammy Nemeth [00:51:45] Yeah, because David always has some such great stuff on his substack. I want to comment just briefly, you know, when you mentioned USAID and the reduction of funding, I’m wondering if that’s why the UN report wasn’t covered because the journalists aren’t getting subsidized to cover it anymore.
Irina Slav [00:52:09] Yes. That must be the reason.
David Blackmon [00:52:11] I think it probably has something to do with it, yes.
Irina Slav [00:52:15] Glorious times.
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:19] So these are my two stories. The first one is, the headline says, New Zealand Ends Ardern Era Ban on Oil and Gas Exploration. This is good news for New Zealand. Another progressive policy in the bin, which is energy reality coming to New Zealand, just like it’s suddenly come to Germany, where they’re going to be doing offshore oil and gas development with Holland, go figure. But good for New Zealand where maybe they can become more energy independent as well and find some good natural gas fields. So it’s great that New Zealand is waking up and has a good government that embraces energy reality. So yay, energy reality is kicking in around the world, not just in the United States and Europe. Way to go New Zealand. And then my second story was in the Western Standard and the title is case to be made. Tourmaline and Uniper signed eight-year natural gas deal for European supply. Uniper is a German energy provider and they’ve signed this eight- year contract with Tourmalines. Now Tourmalin is the largest natural gas producer in Canada. And a lot of it is in the Montney Formation, which covers the sort of north, northwest corner of Alberta, northeast corner of British Columbia. But, you know, there’s no pipeline that puts natural gas to the east coast in Canada, of course. In 2022, when Olaf Scholz showed up to Canada begging to get natural gas and LNG, Prime Minister Trudeau famously said there’s no business case for it. And there’s no way you get a pipeline. So industry finds a way. What Tourmaline is doing is they’re putting the natural gas south through the United States, out through Louisiana at an LNG facility where it will be shipped to Germany because Canada doesn’t have a pipeline.
Irina Slav [00:54:28] And they will be paying through the nose once again.
David Blackmon [00:54:32] Oh boy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:32] Yeah, I don’t know. They’re getting world prices, whatever that is right now. I’m assuming it’ll fluctuate. Maybe they have a long-term, in this eight-year natural gas deal, maybe they’ve got better fixed prices. I don t know the precise details. But good for Canada, for the industry to find a way out to tidewater, unfortunately, has to go through United States. Because the environmental groups are very belligerent and want to stop the pipeline. So we’ll see what happens with Quebec because Quebec has said they don’t want a pipeline, but now New Brunswick says, please build a pipeline so we don’t have to rely on American natural gas. New Brunswick is on the East Coast and they want a pipeline to be extended from Quebec City and Montreal, which gets natural gas from Alberta. And build it out to New Brunswick, which could also then go to Tidewater and build an LNG facility at some point in the future. And the Quebec premier last week said, well, maybe we’ll think about it, if there’s consensus and there’s never consensus.
David Blackmon [00:55:48] It sounds like the governor of New York state, preventing the pipeline from the Marcellus into New England.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:55] That’s right. Yeah, it’s pretty much the same same idea where you get one one state or one province that holds it up for for others, which In a nation shouldn’t be happening, but whatever.
Irina Slav [00:56:09] While benefiting from an already existing pipeline that feeds gas into their province. Right, so you know…
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:18] Not hypocritical at all. And one of the interesting things about Quebec is that at the same time they’ve now banned by 2040, there will be no more new natural gas allowed for home heating in the province. So I don’t know how they’re going to do electric heating. I don’t t know. Pretty stupid.
David Blackmon [00:56:38] Holy moly.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:40] Yeah, so this is my substack at TheNemethReport.substack.com. I try to post every week now that I’m back from holidays. So last week I did one on the amazing Peter Foster and his writings and this book from the early 90s where he talked about the creation of Canada’s national oil company, Petro Canada, and just how it’s the 1970s all over again. But, um. Yeah, so check that out if you have an opportunity and that’s it for this week.
David Blackmon [00:57:19] A one last comment from Rodney McInnis that I really like. Perhaps we need to identify the organizations that these abusive politicians hang out at. We’re looking at UWEF and declare those organizations some form of terrorist organizations.
Irina Slav [00:57:34] They are terrorists.
David Blackmon [00:57:37] They are.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:39] Well, I mean, the World Economic Forum is undergoing a rebranding now that Klaus Schwab is being thrown under the bus.
Irina Slav [00:57:52] Thanks for all the comments, everyone, they were all great.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:55] Yeah, that was awesome. Thank you, everybody.
Irina Slav [00:57:58] Have a wonderful week.
David Blackmon [00:57:59] Thank you, Stu.
Stuart Turley [00:58:01] All right. It was a lot of fun. Hey, we will see you guys next week.
Irina Slav [00:58:06] Yep.
Tammy Nemeth [00:58:07] Thank you. Bye.
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