China v. America on Rare Earth and Critical Energy Minerals
You won’t want to miss this live discussion from the Energy Realities team on China v. the US in the Critical Mineral market control that is getting global attention. China has been taking additional steps to control supply in various ways, and we will cover how the Trump administration is looking to secure key sources of critical minerals. With David Blackmon, Irina Slav, Tammy Nemeth, and Stu Turley.
As China tightens its grip on rare earth and critical energy minerals materials vital to modern technology and defense systems, the Energy Realities team dives deep into what this means for the global economy and Western energy security. From supply chain dominance and environmental resistance to national security implications and policy failures, this discussion unpacks the strategic challenges the U.S. and its allies now face.
We had a great discussion, and Stu brought up the fact that General Flynn had pointed out last week, when they were recording the podcast, that we all need to get involved and not sit on the sidelines anymore. The fact that we stood by and let our country get this bad is something we need to take to heart and take action locally. That episode with General Flynn is releasing tomorrow morning.
President Trump is going to get the critical mineral issue figured out, and we need to encourage Secretary Zeldin to get after regulatory reform before it is too late. We only have months, not years, to get the ore-refining capacity moving, and we will probably see wartime investments and action from the Trump administration.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:11 – Introduction
03:00 – China’s Global Influence and U.S. Response
04:16 – Warnings Ignored: The West’s Missed Opportunities
06:50 – Environmental Barriers to Mining
08:11 – The Irony of Green Resistance
12:03 – National Security and Supply Chain Risks
19:01 – Political Compromise and Chinese Influence in the West
23:09 – Useful Idiots and Ideological Alignment
26:56 – Political Incompetence in the West
30:00 – Call for Action: Building Domestic Capacity
32:17 – Nations Rallied To Stop the 1970s Oil Crisis. It’s Time To Do The Same For Critical Minerals
34:45 – Carney’s dead end for Alberta oil
37:31 – Foreign Billionaire Pours Millions Into U.S. Politics to Push Radical Green Agenda
38:35 – China v America on Rare Earth and Critical Energy Minerals
38:46 – Ferrari slashes 2030 electric car plan in half
42:43 – China and Iran Seal Oil-for-Infrastructure Deal to Bypass U.S. Sanctions
43:24 – Phil Mickelson says if you want cleaner Beaches, then restart oil drilling
44:23 – Greenpeace Threatens Crown Estate With Offshore Wind Lawsuit
45:26 – European Union and energy
49:46 – Climate Litigation and Political Hypocrisy
50:59 – Closing Remarks
China v. America on Rare Earth and Critical Energy Minerals
Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
David Blackmon [00:00:11] Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Energy Realities Podcast. I’m your host for the week, David Blackmon. For better or worse, I’ll be leading this gang today through a discussion about China versus America, on rare earth and critical energy minerals. What a subject, holy cow. It all came to head last Friday. With me today are Dr. Tammy Nemeth from her home in the UK, I believe.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:39] Yes sir, I’m in the UK today.
David Blackmon [00:00:41] Well, that’s wonderful. I hope it’s raining because you’re in the UK. It should be raining, right?
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:47] It should be, it’s overcast, but it’s just actually quite a nice autumn day, kind of hazy, but nice, good.
David Blackmon [00:00:56] Well, I like hazy. Hazy is good sometimes. Irina Slav is with us from Bulgaria. A happy circumstance. We thought she was going to be out with dental appointment today, but that got postponed. How are you today?
Irina Slav [00:01:09] I’ve done great, thank you. It’s a lovely autumn day here as well, but winter is coming. Yeah, next week.
David Blackmon [00:01:21] Oh, really? Oh, you’ve got a got a wintry forecast for next week.
Irina Slav [00:01:25] Yeah, I just published a Substack on the topic, the forecasts say that winter will come next week. New York.
David Blackmon [00:01:33] I’m guessing that’s all climate, climate change-y stuff kind of stuff.
Irina Slav [00:01:37] They’re not saying it’s climate change, they’re too worried about gas supply right now.
David Blackmon [00:01:42] Oh, yeah, I mean, we have those concerns. And Dr. Stu Turley at his bunker in Oklahoma today. How are you?
Stuart Turley [00:01:54] Oh, doing good. Doctor of humor, I think, is the only thing I haven’t actually done.
David Blackmon [00:02:01] Dr. of the backhoe.
Stuart Turley [00:02:03] The doctor of the backhoe. Yeah, me and the back hoe got a workout. So we’re, we’re having fun.
David Blackmon [00:02:10] Well, as I said up top, we’re talking about critical energy minerals in rare earths today and China’s crackdown, which came on Friday. They’ve implemented at least a regime. On Friday said they were going to try to impose on the rest of the world and restrict exports of these minerals, even from third party countries who have relationships with China. It’s a pretty extraordinary act, a very aggressive act on the global stage. President of the United States responded pretty much immediately just a few hours later with a new round of tariffs on China’s economy and its exports to the United states. We’ll see where that all goes over the course of this week, but it is a pretty major bit of news since China controls 85 to 90% of supply chains for. The processing for rare earth minerals. It’s a bit of a myth that rare earth minerals are in fact rare. They’re all over the world. The United States has enormous domestic quantities in the ground of these minerals and Greenland has a big resource, Canada does too. I’m sure they’re all all over Europe as well. The question is, will we ever get to mine them? And if we do buy them, where will they be processed? Because as I mentioned, China controls about 90% of the global processing of these minerals today and most of the supply chains as well. So it’s a difficult situation for every country outside of China. And the irony here is that the Western world, basically, you know, ceded this territory to China 40 years ago when we gave up on the mining industry in the Western world thanks to the environmentalist movement. And so here we are. We have a hell of a conundrum on our hands and Dr. Nemeth, I turn it over to you for your initial comments.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:16] Well, I mean, you’ve been warning about this, I’ve been warning about it for a long time. I think all of us here on the energy realities has been like, come on people, what’s going on? And you know, periodically, they have this statement that now we’re going to mobilize, like there, there was an article on Chatham house from last week that Yes. This should galvanize the West to build resilience. Oh, it should. They’ve been talking how it should galvanyze resilience for many years. And it’s interesting, I was at a conference back in 2011 and this is just when everything was starting to take hold in Europe. And they were really pushing this idea of desert tech, which is this huge solar array in North Africa and they’ll ship the energy. To Europe and whatnot. And I said, but what happened? Where are you getting those materials from? Who’s going to be building it? Of course, the EU thought they were going to be building all this stuff. And i said, But where are you getting those material from? Even if you are building it, what’s your supply chain? And really, it was crickets, because they weren’t really thinking about it in those And I said look from a From an energy security perspective, you’re worried about being dependent, overly dependent on one source for oil or gas or whatever, but the same thing goes for the supply chains with the critical minerals. And what really bothers me with the lack of forward thinking is number one, like you pointed out, the environmental groups that prevent the mining and just trying to get anything done in Western countries. Oh, I didn’t know what that is. You OK? Yeah, there was some weird sound there.
Stuart Turley [00:06:12] It’s not my stomach, guys. It is not my stomach. I just want to make that. Jerry Nadler is not in the building.
Tammy Nemeth [00:06:21] It would be interesting if he were, but I guess what’s so frustrating is that there’s all these policies for stockpiling and for ensuring resilience within supply chains, and yet we don’t have it. And there’s now that we’re in a position where China can exert this power, just like they did to Japan in 2010, except on a global scale now, because they control so much more of it. And we hear lots of rhetoric. And very little action. Like when they were going to friend shore a couple of years ago, I think it was in 2022, 2023. Oh, we’re going to French or we’re gonna do this and that, and nothing happens. So it’s like, why is that? And I think that at the heart of that matter is permitting. Regulatory structure and the resistance by environmental groups and the role of litigation in just kind of slow rolling all of this. And in the end, who’s the beneficiary of not allowing the West to build up its supply chains? It’s China. And I think we really need to be asking questions in the UK, in Canada, and the United States to some extent, and Europe, What is the pressure and role of China behind the scenes? That’s supporting these moves to keep Western countries dependent on Chinese supply chains? I think that’s a legitimate question that needs to be explored in more detail.
David Blackmon [00:07:50] Yes, indeed. I totally agree with that. And Irina Slav, isn’t it somewhat ironic that the green groups continue to resist mining for these and processing of these rare oak minerals, since they are so integral to development and manufacture of all kinds of renewable energy Projects
Irina Slav [00:08:11] It is kind of ironic, but they’re doing what the collective West did 30 or 40 years ago. They thought China would be this low-cost, low-labor-cost production powerhouse for the West. They could send all their dirty business to China, and China would just keep churning out the things that the collective west needed. In technology, in processed raw materials, in everything, which was a huge mistake. How so many people in leadership positions assumed that China will not be building its own economy?
David Blackmon [00:08:59] And it’s all military.
Irina Slav [00:09:01] And its own military and come to a point where it would be able to respond to pressure from the West because let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not like the U.S. Has been very, very peaceful to China for years now. But I see this, you know, a lot of China bashing, okay, you’re angry that they responsive. What did you really expect people? It was the same. It reminded me of 2022, when they started pouring sanctions on Russia, almost as if they were prepared in advance. I’m not saying they were, but almost as if they are ready to just start slapping sanctions. And when Russia responded, bad Russia. Why do they respond? Well, because of course they would. You can’t expect them to respond. Of course! Now what Tammy said that there’s been a lot of talk about French drawing, which is the stupidest word ever. It is really idiotic. That was the right thing to do. Okay, you’re very, very late in doing this, but better late than never. But now Tammy says, and I’m sure she’s right because she researches this stuff in depth and like me, there is very little that is being done because It takes time. China had… Decades to do it and it did it. And now these collective West countries, I’ve slowed the phrase, are trying to do what China did and trying to it in what, a couple of weeks, it’s not going to happen. So we’re at the, you know, fun around and find out. We’re in this sort of situation at to find out Sage. And ultimately, I think. At least I hope, people in political circles everywhere would rediscover the beauty of diplomacy, because there is more than one way to do things. But what Tammy says that investigations may be in order whether there are Chinese interests driving this sort of sentiment, although I… Personally think it’s the natural idiocy, the same kind of idiocy that is driving European politics. I know you probably disagree, but they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. That has made the European Union discuss the ban on Russian LNG when it is struggling to fill its gas storage ahead of winter and when imports of Russian oil and gas are rising. What are we doing?
David Blackmon [00:11:54] It’s a great question. It’s a great questions, too. What are we doing? What are the national security implications of all this for the United States and the West?
Stuart Turley [00:12:03] Buckle up. It’s actually a really big problem. Um, the China has gone absolutely ballistic and, but I feel very confident that president Trump’s post on truth social said China will be okay. So will we, I’m okay with that. Uh, he has a fairly decent track record going on right now, but what I’m seeing is, is president Z actually in control of China? And that is a big question because I’m saying, um, political behavior in, uh, South America that is absolutely, uh more like a kid’s tantrum than it is anything else. And so when you take a look at what China is now doing to try to keep control of the critical minerals, it’s pretty amazing. What underhanded mafia type stuff is going on right now. I think the, the biggest thing is when you have the three horsemen of energy dominance of Lee Zeldin, Chris Wright and Doug Burgum working together, it is going to be the United States regulatory issues. We can’t count on Canada. I would love to count on Canada, but good luck trying to process any ore in Canada. It’s worse than the United States. And I can’t, Tammy, I hope I didn’t offend you. I apologize. I love my Canada. I love Canada instead of Oh Canada. When they’re singing Oh Canada, I’m singing my Canada because I love Canada, but it is, they’re even worse than we are as far as trying to get the ore processed. It is a dirty business processing or, and we’d better wake up because, And we have. Gale just posted something here. Yes, Canada is not onside right now. We love Gayle.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:15] Although Carney had to show up to the whatever peace signing in the Middle East. I don’t know why he’s there, honestly.
Stuart Turley [00:14:22] And, and Patrick, we love, Patrick’s.
David Blackmon [00:14:24] Probably there too, and he did nothing but try to undermine.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:27] Yeah, exactly.
Stuart Turley [00:14:30] Um, yeah, we love Patrick. Not only do they resist mining, they rolled over and played dead while Obama and Biden steamrolled regulations to implement renewable projects. And, and we have talked about this for years on this podcast and that is renewables are critical, minerally mineral fossil fuel, uh, hogs. And it is amazing to me how people think that they’re still lower cost energy. When it’s actually, it makes my head hurt having to explain it over and over again, how much damage the United States is on the hook for right now for wind turbine. I’ve said it before, 79,000 wind turbines. We have about an $85 billion land reclamation bill coming due very quickly. Once we get rid of the subsidies, these things are starting to fail. I drive by them in between the houses and I see all these wind farms in Texas. And the blades are actually starting to wilt. Guess what happens? They’re not replacing them as fast. You know why? Because the subsidies have dried up, they get less productive, so these things are now, they’re not going to work nearly as much.
David Blackmon [00:16:02] No, that’s right. I mean, and they’re going to dilapidate and it’s going to become an enormous eyesore in West Texas and all over Oklahoma, too, and most parts of the country where where these projects exist. For those who may not be aware that the big thing with critical energy minerals with the military is that these minerals are used to manufacture. Incredibly effective and high powered magnets that go into most of the sophisticated weapons systems. They’re used in military, not just in the United States, but all over the world. They’re critical, they’re crucial to everything we do in the military and the fact that our country has been allowed to deteriorate its national security to become so reliant on China. For this need in particular is scandalous. And of course it’s up to now President Trump to try to remedy the situation very quickly. That’s not gonna be easy to do, but it’s one reason we’ve seen the Pentagon entering into these equity ownership relationships with various miners and also with MP materials, which is based near the border between California and Nevada and Southern California. That is the only sizable processor of rare-earth metals in the United States and manufacturer of those kinds of magnets. So, you know, we’re going to have to build that capability and part of the deal between the Pentagon and NP materials is that they’re going to double or triple their capacity to manufacture these magnets at that facility, but you’re going to need many more of those. It’s not a need that a single magnet maker and processor can supply, we’re going to need dozens of those kinds of operations in the United States, and we’re gonna need to have them come up very quickly. So this era of regulatory regimes of the federal government delaying these kinds projects for decades on end because there might be 10 acres of some. Some endangered buckwheat adjacent to the project. Those days are over. And people are gonna have to understand that the United States government is gonna have to get out of the business of kowtowing to the demands of these radical left-wing climate alarm groups. And it’s gonna be very controversial here in the United states. Tammy, I assume it’ll be controversial in the UK and Canada as well, although I’m not sure the UK government. Is going to do much about it. I don’t know what is the temperature of the Starmer government towards all of this.
Tammy Nemeth [00:19:01] The Stammer government is, I don’t know what they’re thinking, they’re so in bed with China and there’s a lot of concerns being raised about its relationship with China. There’s this group called the 48 group and they were created in 1954 to sort of do trading economic relationships between the UK and China, in 1954, and their… They’ve been behind the scenes working on different things that have not necessarily been in the best interests of the UK and the Western Alliance. And so, for example, there was a spy issue, two Chinese spies, they were going to court, and the UK basically said, China’s not an enemy state, so drop the charges. So they dropped the charges, and it was like significant spying. And so this is what’s blown up in the past week. And then there was the issue with this massive Chinese embassy that they want to build in London that is just, it’ll be catastrophic what they do. Just it’ll this center for spying. And the labor government’s going to let it go forward. So I don’t know. I think UK’s compromised. I don’t think Canada’s any better. Sam Cooper has been doing significant investigation into the the sort of relationships behind the scenes by Chinese, I wouldn’t say spies, but people who are pushing the agenda for the Chinese government in Canada. And it’s, the tentacles are quite deep. So I’m not sure what will transpire, but like when it comes to, if I switch back to the sort of regulatory structure, Canada has said that they want to expand critical minerals mining and so on and processing. But the problem is dealing with, say, Chinese non-market behavior. So you’ve got Chinese companies that are backed by the government that can stockpile and then flood the market, which is what happened with the cobalt mining in America. So, you know, they wait for Western companies. To put in all this investment, then they flood the market and make it so the companies have to hold or sell or whatever. They lose everything, which is why you have the American government now saying, well, we’re going to take a 10% fair and provide a floor price. So it’s like… You can we can try to say we’re going to do all this stuff. I would like to know what’s going to happen with litigation because even if they say well we’re gonna expedite this process to make sure that we can do these kinds of things. The minute something gets approved it’ll go to court and how long does court take and so then you can drag it out and then the around for this. I don’t know. It’s like that road in Alaska where they’ve been holding it up and holding it up and then finally Trump said no we’re going to build this road. I’m waiting for the litigation to kick in before they can even put the boots on the ground for that. And with respect just to finish up my point with what Irina was saying. I think China takes advantage of the incompetence in the idiocy. In western governments and so you’re right i don’t i don’t know if they’re they’re not necessarily directing stuff i think they help support those who are behaving in an idiotic manner because and it’s like well i get complete cover just by supporting this sort of
Irina Slav [00:22:53] More because the Western political elites have put themselves into this situation when anyone with the scabby to take advantage would, sorry.
David Blackmon [00:23:09] What’s what happened? this where the term useful idiots arose? Vladimir Lenin’s famous quote that U.S. Liberals are happy fools and useful idiots, you know, that we can use to our advantage. That’s from 110 years ago, I guess.
Tammy Nemeth [00:23:30] And the fellow travelers. And you have the fellow traveler. So like Rodney McInnis made a point about like it’s a Fabian thing. But there is a Fabian society in the UK, and they’re the ones that the Labor Party came out of. So Keir Starmer and all those guys are part of the Fabian Society, which is this kind of incremental move towards socialism, communism, whatever. And the Labor party is an unabashed socialist party. And so if you have ideological alignment with a country like China, then you’re a fellow traveler, right? Even if you there’s people who are useful idiots who, you know, whether they think they’re getting an economic gain out of it or whatever. But there’s also those who agree with you know maybe the try. How many times have we said heard these Western leaders say, Wow, you know, I admire how China can get things done. Why can’t we be more like that? Why do we have more state owned things? That’s not necessarily a good thing. And so you know what are we sacrificing in order to compete with a country like China that’s willing to throw government money behind things in order to distort markets. I think this is the conundrum that Trump has found himself in. How do we compete with these non-market actors? And so then now we’re in this kind of public-private partnership that’s going on and having floor prices. So I don’t know if that’s the best solution long term, but maybe that’s what needs to be done temporarily at this point.
David Blackmon [00:25:06] Irina, did you have, before you were interrupted, you were in the middle. That’s okay.
Irina Slav [00:25:12] What was I saying? I can’t remember. Yeah, we don’t need to… You know, I think people have this tendency to create stories, which is how conspiracy theories start, because they are well-structured. I don’t think reality is so well- structured, and appealing as the idea might be that somebody is whoever. Down the wall, deep face or something like this. Orchestrating absolutely everything, it’s not, because no one entity has the capacity and the resources to orchestrate absolutely everything. So they do what Tammy suggested that China is doing, it is taking advantage. It’s not just China, this is just one example. We need to kick the idiots out of government, especially if, as Tammy said, there are investigations showing actual things. Between Chinese interests and Canadian politicians. I mean, we really need to take these people in.
David Blackmon [00:26:19] Well, our problem in the United States is we tend to replace the idiots with more idiots, right?
Irina Slav [00:26:26] And apparently they’re doing the same thing in Canada, not to mention in the UK. I don’t know why this is, but we keep doing it, and I guess the old refrain we have been repeating for years, ever since this podcast started, it will have to get much worse before it starts getting better, little by little. I’m sorry, but… Sad but true. It seems inevitable at this point.
David Blackmon [00:26:56] Stu can it get any worse?
Stuart Turley [00:26:58] Yes, but I think we, I think we are on track. Um, I want to take just a moment. I tomorrow, the staff is absolutely, uh, releasing the interview that I did with general Flynn. And I mean, general Flynn had some outstanding points on what it’s going to take to fix the energy type stuff. Uh, with your permission, I’d love to play this. Uh… But 30 seconds here. Okay. Let’s get it going here.
Video Speaker (General Mike Flynn) [00:27:35] So the president is going to have a massive America first energy summit and then plow new ground. This is politics usual. This is the takeover of our country. The president of the United States declares a national emergency and says, for federal elections, here’s how we’re going to do it. Let’s fight for peace instead of continuing this long drawn out war.
Stuart Turley [00:27:59] Oh, so, so I love that. That’s awesome. Yeah. It was a great conversation. And I’ll tell you being invited to go to the Washington DC with David Blackmon is kind of fun, uh, so that we, uh go visit with them about their policies, it is a big deal, but what he brought up was it’s energy. Politics are all related and we have got to get rid of those voting machines. And the dominion voting machines, I think we’re just bought by a, uh, new group of people that happened to vote for Trump. That’s going to cause everybody to go to paper ballots.
David Blackmon [00:28:42] God, I mean, there’s hysteria among the American left over that right now.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:49] Liberty vote it was bought by Liberty
Irina Slav [00:28:52] You can just throw out a bunch of paper ballots too, I mean, it’s easy to manipulate, that’s what they did in Moldova, I’ve seen Bulgarian elections, this happened on live streaming because all the ballot counting sessions need to live stream the counting of the votes and I saw them pick and throw it away!
David Blackmon [00:29:16] Yes. Yeah. Yeah, we’ve got to eliminate mail-in ballots. For elections to be really secure, we have to eliminate them. But getting rid, or at least hamstringing the dominion systems and their algorithms, in which we know for absolute fact that they often don’t even count the votes, they just perform these calculations, these logarithmic calculations of what the vote was anticipated to be and turn that into the Secretary of State. So if we can put an end to that, that’s a big piece of the problem. We are at the halfway mark. And any last words from anyone on the rare earth minerals?
Tammy Nemeth [00:30:00] Yeah, I wanted to give a shout out to Patricia Adams, who’s a Canadian researcher, who has, she’s written commentary for the Financial Post, Epoch Times, whatever, but she’s produced like two or three different reports for the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK. One is called China’s Energy Dream, and the other is called the Red and the Green, China’s useful idiots and She really takes apart a lot of and tracks how all this stuff has been working over the past, you know, 20 years or so. Really, I highly recommend her reports there just to understand it better.
David Blackmon [00:30:43] Irina, any last words?
Irina Slav [00:30:45] Well, no, I rant is all I wanted to rant about.
David Blackmon [00:30:50] Stu? On the rare earth minerals. Any last words?
Stuart Turley [00:30:54] As long as we can get Lee’s Eldon, uh, to really hammer in the United States, the regulatory processes so we can process. We have months to get this fixed, not years.
David Blackmon [00:31:10] Yeah, it’s gotta go fast. Just a shout out to our friend Robert Bryce for those who want more details on what’s happening with China and the US on this rare earth issue. Robert had an excellent piece detailing the elements of the new crackdown by China that he published on his substack on Friday. I believe it was also republished at Real Clear Energy. It was really good. I also published a lengthy post on my Substack that’s not behind the paywall. It kind of goes through the history of the last five years on this issue that, you know, people are free to read. There’s no cost to that. And there’s a lot of other good information out there on Substack about this. So with that, let’s move to our Articles of the Week. Dr. Nemeth.
Tammy Nemeth [00:32:03] Okay, well, I guess the first one I’ll go with is the fatty beer all op-ed in Time magazine. Basically doing I guess I’ll read the title here, I gotta make it bigger. Nations rally to stop the 1970s oil crisis. It’s time to do the same for critical minerals. And here he’s making a pitch that the IEA, the International Energy Agency, is the place for international Western coordination. Of the critical mineral supply chain and he pitches that they’ve been building this up for the past five years or so and they’re really what they can make this work like they did during the energy crisis in 73 and 79 and sort of during the first Gulf War. I don’t know, I think he’s trying to remain relevant and he’s been pitching this for a long time. And I guess he figures now’s the time to get the Trump administration and the other Western countries to pony up cash to do it.
David Blackmon [00:33:09] Well, I mean, I think at least the notion notionally, he’s correct. The IEA would be a logical institution to kind of lead that sort of rally. But I think it would have to be under new leadership and not his leadership. He’s lost all credibility with, you know, with anyone who understands anything about this. So I just I just laugh every time I see his name.
Tammy Nemeth [00:33:34] I know, I know. And you know, honestly, it’s kind of putting the carpet before the horse, because his his pitch is that once countries have critical minerals, he the IEA can help manage when there’s a cut off like what China is doing. But the countries, the Western countries don’t have a supply. So how can they manage, coordinate the trading of these supplies when they don’t have them yet? So until you take care of the regulatory thing, limit the litigation from environmental groups and so on, you’re not going to have a supply in which to trade. So interesting idea. I don’t think he’s the guy to do it. I think you need a more credible person in charge of the IEA who hasn’t been, you know, um being a sycophant to the transition. So I don’t know. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the near future. And then the other article was by Dennis McConaughey where in the Calgary Herald, where he calls it Carney’s dead end for Alberta oil. And he’s talking about Mark Carney’s repeated admonition that the only way Alberta can sell more oil is if it’s decarbonized. And he kind of goes through what that means. What does decarmonized oil mean? And he talks about the Pathways Alliance, which is the six large oil sands producers and how they put all money into how you would capture the emissions from production. Build a pipeline, put it into fields, and all these different kinds of stuff. And he makes a really great point where he says, no credible entity is willing to pay for it. And so these companies would have to absorb all that cost, which they can’t recover, because oil prices are set in world markets. Nobody else is doing this, only Canada would be doing it. And so you’re already pricing Canadian oil, like how are they supposed to make any profit out of this when all of their profit would be turned in to do decarbonizing, just to allow to keep going. So he’s like, do you expect the government to subsidize this or do you expect the companies to do it? And if you listen to the environmental groups, they expect the companies to absorb this cost because they’re like, why are they paying shareholders? Why are they paying dividends? It’s like because that’s why people That’s why people invest in these companies, pension plans invest in these companies to get a return on investment, not to break even, but the environmental groups don’t think in terms of capitalism. They think a company shouldn’t be making profits and if they do make profits, those profits should be determined by government. You’re allowed to make 2%. And so it’s very frustrating to see that this is the rhetoric. And, you know, Carney’s been very cagey on details, so we’ll see what happens in the November budget.
David Blackmon [00:36:59] He’s a cagey dude!
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:01] He’s a cagey dude. And you can find me on Substack, TheNemethReport.substack.com. And my podcasts are there and I put links to my publications in other publications in addition to writing my own things on Substack.
David Blackmon [00:37:29] Oh, I’m next. Okay, foreign billionaire pours millions into US politics to push radical green agenda. Yes, well, this is becoming a common tail. There’s all kinds of foreign billionaires. This is about one particular one, but I mean, this a pretty common theme in the US climate alarmist movement. Much of their funding is coming in from China today. You know, 20 years ago it was coming in from Saudi Arabia first, which saw that US natural shale gas is a. Natural competitor to their markets. And then it was coming in from Russia because Putin saw the same competitive competition coming in, from Shell oil and gas to his market share. And now it’s coming in from billionaires from all over the world who just want to kill the oil and gas business in the United States. And so this is no surprise. And just another in a long line of stories like this. And there’s a couple more on the next slide, I think, Stu. China versus America on rare earth and critical energy minerals. That’s the piece I posted Friday on my sub stack. Again, it’s not behind the paywall, so it’s open to everyone. And then this third gem comes from Ferrari, which slashed its 2030 electric car plan in half. They were going to be 40% electric vehicles in compliance with EU regulatory demands. By 2030, and now they’ve said, well, we can’t do that because nobody wants to buy electric Ferraris. So now we’re only committing to 20%, I’m sure in the next year or two, we’ll see them cut it even further than that because who wants to a $250,000 electric vehicle? I mean, when you can get a perfectly fine gas-powered model for much less than that from another maker, it’s just, this is just emblematic of how the EU’s regulatory, this obsession over carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is destroying the European car industry and there’s other side of it is they’re letting all these cheaper Chinese electric vehicles come onto the market and these car makers in the Europe, EU sector, they’re gonna all be gone unless something changes and that will all be gone very quickly. Anyway, it’s a sad situation, I think. So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:06] Can I add, when you’re talking about the Ferrari one, there was a story about this Australian mining company Fortescue and the guy who owns it is like, he’s suddenly become this green whatever guy, he signed on to the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, but he was going to have the UK produce these electric mining trucks and then he was invited to China. And he went to China and their entire production is robotic like they have humanoid robots that that put it all together so he said you know what I’m gonna have it all designed in the UK they will make the prototypes and then I’m going to turn commercial production over to China okay so so here we are we’re going to be all green and whatever and oh yeah the West and this kind of thing. And he’s going to have China build all these autonomous my electric mining trucks. What could go wrong?
Irina Slav [00:41:06] Yeah, just like the green hydrogen ambitions, the plan is completely lost. Yeah, they slashed their investment plans for green hydrogen and he keeps hyping it. Come on, stop.
David Blackmon [00:41:23] By the way, on green hydrogen, I’m hearing that at least one of our big oil companies that has hydrogen hub plans, at least on the books right now, will soon be announcing a dramatic scaling back of that endeavor.
Irina Slav [00:41:41] Really?
David Blackmon [00:41:42] And, you know, so there’s quite a few of those projects on the books right now. So it’s any, anyone can guess which big oil company that is.
Stuart Turley [00:41:51] I wonder if the hydrogen corridor in the EU is actually going to get built. I have a feeling that the EU’s going to fail before that happens.
Irina Slav [00:42:05] I haven’t seen anything about it recently. They’re busy now with Russian LNG bands.
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:13] Oh, my gosh.
David Blackmon [00:42:16] Yeah, that’ll work. Irina, it’s your turn.
Irina Slav [00:42:22] Yeah, I don’t actually have stories because my dentist only called me at eight last night. But I have a couple of stories I saw today, both very funny. I think these are two stories. Do you want to go first?
Stuart Turley [00:42:34] Oh no, these are years off a year substack, but I can go ahead and go if you want.
Irina Slav [00:42:39] Sure, go on. Why not?
Stuart Turley [00:42:43] China and Iran seal oil for infrastructure deal to bypass U S sanctions. This phenomenal lady has once said, sanctions don’t work as intended. And I believe that lady is Irina Slav and Irina, I absolutely love that quote, a t-shirt and all China and I ran seal oil, for infrastructure. This is huge. Because they are trading outside the US dollar and again you weaponize the US dollar and people find ways around it. I also did not have Phil Mickelson on my bingo card. He is a famous golf guy and he has said if you want to save the beaches in California drill for oil because it is a scientific fact. There’s so much oil in California that if you don’t release the pressure tarballs won’t show up on the beach anymore if you actually drill. I did not have Tarballs or Phil Mickelson on my bingo card this week.
David Blackmon [00:43:53] Well, Mike Umbro, our friend Mike Umbro told you and me the same thing on our podcast episode last week. Right.
Stuart Turley [00:44:04] You bet. Um, and so you can find me on the energynewsbeat.substack.com or energynewsbeat.com and we have a lot of fun there.
David Blackmon [00:44:15] Irina, you said you had a couple of stories you wanted to talk about.
Irina Slav [00:44:19] The first story from Financial Times is that Greenpeace has threatened the Crown Estate with a lawsuit because it says the Crown estate, which is the company, the entity that manages the Royal Family’s properties, was asking too much money for offshore seabed leases for offshore turbines. And this has made building offshore wind turbines very expensive which is bad for consumers and bad for wind power developers so bad bad crown instead and if you don’t mend your ways we’re going to take it to court this is what Greenpeace says so we have a new culprit for exorbitant crisis for offshore wind energy and that’s the royal British family featuring Charles which is such a staunch defender of the planet, of the environment and he’s very green and everything. So what does King Charles have to say for himself? We will never know. The second story was something about the European Union and energy, but it just slipped my mind. I’m trying to find it. Using voices, and it wasn’t about the LNG ban, but… I don’t know. I mean, the story I wrote today was about gas and how Germany is going to suffer economic losses of 40 billion euro if the cold, if the winter is colder than usual and it cannot bring its storage to 90 percent. Even if it does bring its storage to 90%, however, it will still suffer losses to the tune of 14 billion euros, which is better than 40 billion euros because that’s the difference of 24 billion euros in losses. It’s the differences between no economic growth and recession, guys.
David Blackmon [00:46:20] Holy smokes, holy smokes. Well, you know, but that can be cured by that donut of prosperity that
Irina Slav [00:46:29] I didn’t have one. What’s the dawn of the prosperity?
David Blackmon [00:46:33] It’s all these stupid, ridiculous, left-wing notions that you can replace economic growth with environmental purity, and it all comes out in the wash, right? Yeah, sure.
Stuart Turley [00:46:46] You know, you know what I think of that doughnut of prosperity, I think of a hemorrhoid doughnut that you sit on.
Tammy Nemeth [00:46:54] I know that’s what I was thinking
Stuart Turley [00:46:57] Dr. Nemeth, I am so glad that you and I are on the same same track there.
David Blackmon [00:47:02] Preparation H
Tammy Nemeth [00:47:07] Oh my gosh. Well, you know what’s interesting, Irina, when you talk about Greenpeace wanting to sue the Crown Estate or whatever for its offshore thing, that money actually goes to the UK Treasury. So it’s like the UK government gets royalties, which helps plug the black hole in the UK finances, which apparently we all have. And so then I’m thinking, well, they’re complaining that maybe they need a sovereign wealth fund. I would suggest that Crown Estate is the equivalent of a sovereign wealth fund, but instead of investing that money, it just goes to the UK Treasury, which they then spend on whatever.
Irina Slav [00:47:48] Where does the money of the Crown Estate come from, except from properties that generate income, such as the seabed?
Tammy Nemeth [00:47:57] Right, so the Crown estate is like, it’s like royalties that a government gets and it’s held in lieu of, so it’s royal, but it’s owned by the monarch in right of the Crown, but it actually, the money goes to the UK treasury.
Irina Slav [00:48:23] So basically Greenpeace wants less money to go into the finances of the country because so it would seem maybe they don’t know this but i’m sure they do they think they know decent lawyers yeah
David Blackmon [00:48:40] Well, Greenpeace hasn’t had a great record in litigation over the last year. They got hit with that $660 million judgment last year, so they’re looking to recover some of it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:51] Well, but they did win in the EU and in Norway, where they backed court cases against oil and gas development, where countries that have a transition plan are now obligated to do it, otherwise they’re affecting the human rights and future of children or whatever. We really need laws. Yeah, so they’ve had successes and the Greenpeace was successful in getting the approvals of North Sea oil and gas projects revoked in the UK, so the Conservative government had approved stuff and then Greenpeace sued them and said it violates the net zero plan and those approvals were revoked, so.
David Blackmon [00:49:46] Well, you know, litigation is never ending in the United States as well. But we, we’ve been having some good results in this climate lawfare thing. It’s been managed by the sure edling firm out in San Francisco for the past six, seven years, and they’d keep losing case after case after case, and eventually I think the Supreme court’s going to have to jump in and put an end to that nonsense, but, you know, they’ll just come up with the next campaign after that. And I think we may have run out our string here. We’re 10 minutes early, but.
Tammy Nemeth [00:50:22] Woo,.
Irina Slav [00:50:23] Very efficient today.
David Blackmon [00:50:25] We have another topic we want to raise or wait until next week. Give Stu 10 minutes to recover before his next podcast at the top of the hour.
Stuart Turley [00:50:34] You got to run. So I think it’s a lot of fun. We’ve had a lot a great comments again from our great listeners. Uh, a shout out to all of them, Patrick, Gayle, Rodney, Tom, uh, bunch of great folks out there.
Irina Slav [00:50:51] Thanks, everyone. Thanks for the comments.
David Blackmon [00:50:52] And Tom, who is a new name on our list. Welcome, Tom.
David Blackmon [00:50:59] And thank you everyone for joining us. We appreciate it. We know we conflicted, I think, with the end of President Trump’s speech to the Knesset this morning, which was wildly entertaining. And everyone should go watch the first 30 minutes of it because it’s better than any comedy routine you’ll ever see on late night television. And with that, I wish everyone a wonderful week and we will reconvene this panel again next Monday at the regular time.
Irina Slav [00:51:25] Have a great week!
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