Weekly Daily Standup Top Stories
Why gas prices in California ‘have gone ballistic’
Gas prices have been on the rise nationwide, but for California drivers, they’ve skyrocketed in a short amount of time. The Golden State’s average at the pump surged by $0.23 to $5.27 per gallon on Friday […]
Critical impact — ChatGPT consumes 500ml of water for every 50 texts you send it
As we ramp up towards a world of constantly generating content with AI, we are being asked to consider the environmental cost of its production. hen the Internet undersea cables on the West Coast of […]
Exxon’s Expanded UK Refinery to Supply First Diesel in Early 2025
While other international majors are closing down refineries or converting them to biofuel production, ExxonMobil is expanding its UK site and will start delivering diesel from the expanded Fawley refinery in early 2025. ExxonMobil is investing $1 […]
Global Elites have no master plan to replace crude oil other than lining their wallets!
The elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is that crude oil is the foundation of our materialistic society as it is the basis of all products and fuels demanded by the […]
The U.S. Urgently Needs a Bigger Grid. Here’s a Fast Solution.
One of the biggest obstacles to expanding clean energy in the United States is a lack of power lines. Building new transmission lines can take a decade or more because of permitting delays and local […]
Big oil and gas firms deepen investment in carbon capture
Carbon capture companies find themselves in an odd position. They exist because of the threat of climate change, a problem created largely by fossil fuels. At the same time, the firms that extract and […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
01:06 – Why gas prices in California ‘have gone ballistic’
04:23 – Critical impact — ChatGPT consumes 500ml of water for every 50 texts you send it
07:28 – Exxon’s Expanded UK Refinery to Supply First Diesel in Early 2025
09:10 – Global Elites have no master plan to replace crude oil other than lining their wallets!
11:34 – The U.S. Urgently Needs a Bigger Grid. Here’s a Fast Solution.
15:20 – Big oil and gas firms deepen investment in carbon capture
18:20 – Outro
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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Michael Tanner: [00:00:14] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome into a special edition of the weekly Energy News Beat recap here on this gorgeous Saturday, April 13th, 2024. As always, I am Michael Tanner. We got a busy week, guys. A lot of stuff happened. You know, we saw, you know, the likes of everything made a great deal. Spotlight that dropped on Wednesday. Go ahead and check that out. But news was all over the place. I rocked to solo shows, talking a lot about bricks and and big oil. Stew was in the chair Sunday. Monday. We were talking a lot about just some of the crazy stuff. The eclipse stopping solar. Of course, we had just flipped one of those stories in there though, but I’m going to let the team reaching the barrel find some of our top segments and play them for you today. As always guys, just remember all the news and analysis news brought to you by the world’s greatest website, Energy News v.com. Appreciate it guys. We will let you go. We’ll see you on Monday. [00:01:05][50.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:06] Why? Gas prices in California have gone ballistic. You gotta love a good ballistic story. The Golden State average at the pump surges $0.23 to 527 per gallon on Friday from a week ago, according to the triple AA. Tom close, ahead of the energy analysis at Ups’s refinery challenges the main culprit for California’s surging prices challenges. I call it a shotgun to the crotch, is what I call it. Throw in regularly scheduled maintenance that will occur at two critical refineries in May and then normal pennant for speculative buying and global markets in the second quarter. And you have wholesale prices that have gone ballistic. I guarantee you’re going to see more and more diesel and gasoline being bought from Michael. Hold on, hold on. China. [00:02:02][56.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:03] Russia. [00:02:03][0.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:05] No, they’re buying it from China. You heard it here. Second. First you heard it here in first from Newsom and presidency in California. Any student of petroleum history recognize that these relationships won’t persist, say closet correction for gasoline and perhaps crude looms. And it also will occur in the next 30 days. It is absolutely abysmal what they’re doing. [00:02:30][25.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:31] Oh, yeah. I mean, they they don’t want people to drive. This is legislation through regulation. I had an opportunity to go to a great event, hosted by, Texans. I think it was, who Genevieve Collins, who she part of. [00:02:44][13.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:45] Americans for prosperity. [00:02:45][0.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:46] Americans for Prosperity. [00:02:47][0.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:47] In. [00:02:47][0.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:48] Great Bay. [00:02:48][0.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:49] She’s a. [00:02:49][0.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:50] Great person. I opportunity to go to an event hosted by them where Congressman Austin Pfluger who’s a the congressman from Midland Odessa. Great guy. We need to get him on the podcast. And RT Trevino, we love our. He’s, he’s a president of Trevino family resources, Pecos country operating. He had an opportunity to have two minutes in front of the congressman, and I’m so glad he did this. He sounded exactly like you do. He pointed out that small operators and small businesses are getting regulated out of business because of all this stuff. And this is exactly this goes into exactly what they’re talking about. They’re trying to add in more taxes, more regulations, more things that make that gasoline more expensive. So there’s the the only the only place you’re going to be end up going to get gas is a California national gas station. [00:03:36][46.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:37] Owned by presidency and Newsom. [00:03:39][2.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:03:40] Yeah, a joint venture between California and China. If I ever have to cover that on the deal spotlight, I’m just jumping. I’m just going to go jump out the window. [00:03:50][9.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:50] Mom, you remember an apartment? [00:03:51][1.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:03:52] I’m just going to dive in headfirst. [00:03:53][0.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:53] Do you remember three years ago when you and I were covering the tanker shortages and they were lined up in the bay? China says you all know, what going on. And they wanted to come on our show. They wanted to interview us for the China mainland TV. Do you remember that? [00:04:11][17.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:04:11] Yeah. Because on, you goes on top of being Putin’s political advisor, you’re also g. Yeah. President. His political advisor. [00:04:18][6.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:19] They they were like he taught truth. Critical impact chat GPT consumes 500ml of water for every 50 text you send it. Miss, producer, could you call this picture up? I about threw up when I actually saw this one. There it is. A gruesome looking picture. For our podcast listeners, it is a, modern looking C3po that actually looks kind of scary with a human looking tongue drinking some water. So that’s got to be a cyborg looking kind of a thing. But anyway, that was generated by ChatGPT. So if you’re not thirsty before or after, before you see that you are thirsty after looking at that scary thing, here’s where it gets really scary. Sean ran a. Researcher at the University of California, Riverside, and one of the authors of the paper cited saying that training GPT three and Microsoft, state of the art U.S. data centers used 700,000l of clean, fresh water. But the real problem is going to come when the public becomes increasingly obsessed with asking their AI assistants questions. And so that’s a lot. And when you. [00:05:36][77.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:36] Here’s what it this is the scariest part. The paper goes on to say that global AI demand you know, forecasting obviously global AI demand may mean that we draw between 4.2 and 6 point 6,000,000,000m³. And that’s three. That’s that’s multiply that by three because you’re talking about meters two feet okay. Because this is a UK study. So 4.2 to 6 point 6,000,000,000m³ of water in 2027, which is half of the current water use in the UK. Oh you think there’s a drought now? You ain’t seen nothing yet, which is I. When I read this article I was like, I had no idea. [00:06:13][36.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:14] I didn’t either and it just absolutely abound. It’s scary. The only way AI is going to work, Michael, is nuclear. Period. [00:06:24][10.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:25] Now you still need to cool it. I came across an interesting company recently, Hedge Resources, that has a modular, bitcoin mine that they call it, using the produced water from an oil well and it evaporates. So not only do you not have to use fresh water, but you can also save on your produce water costs. Instead of having to truck it off, you just pipe the pipe it through a Bitcoin mine and it evaporates towards the end that we’re going to have to innovate like things like that are going to have to become more mainstream. In order for this stuff to work. [00:06:58][32.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:59] I need to I need to visit with him on the podcast I want to learn more about. [00:07:02][3.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:02] Yes, we’ll get you hooked up. Chris and Andrew over there, very, very great guys. But no, you’re going to the market’s going to have to come up with solutions like that to solve this problem. Because this is a this is a second, third order effect that everyone’s talking about electricity. Nobody’s talking about water. [00:07:18][15.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:19] Oh no. Water is huge. And especially when you get carrots, you are up there going, you will have no water and be happy. Honestly. Yeah. He said that Exxon’s expanded UK refinery to supply first diesel in early 2025. Michael, this one is actually a smart move by ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil is expanding its UK site and will start delivering diesel from the expanded Fawley Refinery in early 2025. The diesel producing unit could be reconfigured later to make jet fuel or sustainable aviation fuel from vegetable oils. Okay, I’m going to go I’m going to borrow some buddies. Never mind. There’s a lot of molecular magic we can do with this kit. I think that’s great, but diesel is going to be around for a while, and the fact that this is a newer investment into downstream that can be used in multiple different ways, is the way it should be done. [00:08:24][65.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:08:25] Yeah. I mean, this is what you should be doing in terms of an R&D fund. You know, as an oil it is an integrated oil and gas company like Exxon. These are the type of investments you should be making, in my opinion, versus, you know, doing what Total Energy does, doing what Equinor do is going and buying and BP going and buy all these wind farms. This is a much better type of investment. Is integrated oil and gas coming. So I applaud this. And the UK needs the diesel. [00:08:52][26.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:08:53] So yeah. And local low sulfur I’m all in. I am all in for the low sulfur diesel. And 40% could reduce imports into Britain. That is huge. that is absolutely well done. And hats off to ExxonMobil. Yeah. Oh the pictures absolutely horrific. I don’t know who did it. [00:09:13][19.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:13] Who did this that this producer. Can you pull this one experience? [00:09:15][2.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:16] Speaking of a eclipse today? Okay. Global elites have no master plan to replace crude oil other than lining their wallets. This is actually from Bronstein, and I’m interviewing him next week on the 16th. And this is actually he’s a good friend of the show. The elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is that crude oil is the foundation of our materialistic society. It is the basis of all products and all fuels demanded by the 8 billion on this planet. To only 1 billion existed less than 200 years ago. [00:09:55][38.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:56] Wow. Yeah, it’s I mean it crude oil. [00:10:00][3.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:00] This is some people forget Michael. Crude oil’s almost never used to generate electricity. But when manufactured into petrochemicals, it is used. As for virtually everything else, even Diablo Canyon, like we just talked about, you know, you can’t make, you know, half of the stuff. You can’t use the petrochemicals for your microphone, for your, you know, your iPhone or any of the things you need. Yeah, you can have power, but you gotta have oil to make your iPhone. [00:10:31][30.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:32] No, you you absolutely need it. [00:10:34][1.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:34] So crude oil products are essential, and I I’m all in for doing this. Without crude oil, there’d be nothing that needs electricity. What? Line from run on everything that needs electricity to function like iPhones, computers, data centers, X-ray machines is made with petrochemicals. Gotta hand it to him and then. Miss producer, if you could bring this up. Life without oil is a graphic. That is amazing. Yeah. You can have nuclear. You can have wind farms, but you ain’t gonna have medicine, cosmetics and. Holy smokes. You know what? There’d be a lot less wrecks on the highway if we had no cosmetics. Women would not be putting makeup on in traffic. I think that that would be phenomenal. What do you think? [00:11:23][48.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:11:25] I’m more worried about the medicine, to be honest with you. I’m more worried about no medicine. [00:11:28][3.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:11:29] But. And as. [00:11:30][1.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:11:31] Really unbelievable. We love Ronald Stein. [00:11:33][2.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:11:34] We do. [00:11:34][0.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:11:34] For the U.S. urgently needs a bigger grid. Here’s a fast solution. You know, one of the biggest obstacles to expanding clean energy in the United States is our massive lack of power lines. Building these new transmission lines can take basically more than a decade. It’s absolutely unbelievable. But according to a recent report released Tuesday, they’re actually use a cheaper solution. You can actually go in and replace these existing power lines with state of the art materials. That could roughly double the capacity of the electric grid in many parts of the country, making room for much more electrical capacity. This technique, and I’m reading directly from the article right now, this technique, known as advanced re conductor, is actually widely used in other countries, but many U.S. utilities have been slow to embrace it because of their unfamiliarity with the technology, as well as the regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles. According to the research. This is unbelievable. This is a senior Simon quoting now a senior scientist, Amol Radack. He’s out of the University of California, Berkeley, who said we were pretty astonished how big of an increased capacity you can get by re conductor. Actually he scores. He goes on to say, quote, it’s not the only thing we need to do is upgrade. It’s not the only thing we need to upgrade the grid, but it can be a major part of the solution. What’s crazy, though, is that this has already been proven not only around the country, but in the United States. So in 2011, AEP, a utility in Texas, urgently needed to deliver. And again, I’m reading directly from the article, urgently needed to deliver more power to the Rio Grande of the lower Rio Grande Valley to meet soaring population growth. It would have taken too long to acquire land and permits to build towers for new transmission lines. Instead, they turned to this refactoring idea and replaced about 240 miles of existing line with these advanced conductors. It took less than three years and increase the capacity carrying capacity of the lines by over 40%, which is unbelievable for you wind and solar junkies out there. You should all be for advanced conductor because it can absolutely do exactly that. So why hasn’t this really happened yet? Well, there’s an interesting article, or part of this article where basically it says, you know, the incentives are also a little bit mismatched. I’m going to go back to reading straight from the article now. Because of the way in which utilities are compensated, they often have more financial incentives to build new lines rather than upgrading existing equipment. Well that’s sweet. I’m glad that’s the incentive so that we can have a suboptimal grid. That’s great to know. Conversely, now back reading from the article. Conversely, some regulators are wary of the higher upfront cost of advanced conductors, even if they pay out for themselves in the long run. Many utilities have also little motivation to cooperate with one another on long term transmission planning. And that comes back to the fact that the United States is run on three grids by over 3200 different utilities and a massively complex patchwork network of regional planners and regulators. So trying to get anybody on the same consensus is super tough. But if those are the only two things holding us back from a better grid, we already knew this. We’re idiots though. We’ve got to. I was reading this article like it’s already here, the text proven we’ve already actually used this in Texas. It’s unbelievable folks. It makes you think they don’t want the grid to get better. It makes you pause and think, do they actually want to make the grid better or do they want to? Or what do they want to do? I don’t either, I won’t even speculate on what they want to do. The point is, I have a feeling they’re either dumb. They’re not dumb. So. Which means they must know. And it means they’re there’s other quote unquote mismatched incentives. So absolutely crazy article guys. We can have a bigger grid. [00:15:19][225.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:15:20] Big oil and gas firms deepen investment in carbon capture. You know, this is a really interesting I love the first line of the article here. Carbon capture companies find themselves in an odd position. You know, obviously everyone thinks they’re here too. You know, they’re the ones and taking the brunt of this climate change debacle that’s going on. But ironically, they’re also the people that are on the forefront of this new carbon capture futures market. You know, in an age, you know, this this article, you know, kind of basically says that that attention is now I’m going to read straight from the article on full display in the recent acquisition of fireworks earlier this month, the carbon capture startup I on clean energy raised $45 million in series A funding round led by Chevron. Iron says its Ice 31 liquid ambient solvent stays intact longer, and captures more carbon dioxide from the common emission streams, than conventional options can. Chevron says it plans to integrate Ice 31 into its going carbon capture and storage, otherwise known as CCS, as in 2023, we all remember that they bought 50% stake in the Buy You band, which is a large carbon capture storage facility in Houston and invested in the carbon capture tech from Carbon Clean Solutions and another one of the 70, some brigades also getting in on the app was on it. You know, earlier this year, they bought an 80% stake in the CSE tech provider, Carbon Capture that was worth about $400 million in March total. Went ahead and dove in and bought Talos Low Carbon Solutions for about $150 million. That the main asset in that deal in toe to toe Dow’s low carbon solutions is this 45% stake in that famed by U-bend Ethan are also owns another 25% of the project. You know it’s pretty crazy. And I think the other interesting thing that this article points out is that this while it looks like it’s accelerating, it’s not actually entirely new. BP is an investor in CO2 minerals startups for over ten years. You know, U.S. steel has, as you know, or they decide to do with us to start called and capture. You know, this is a trend that has been going on for a while, but recently has ramped up quickly. And I think it shows the dichotomy of, you know, diversifying your asset base. If you’re Exxon Mobil right now, you’re Chevron, you’re one of these large oil. And you know, you know, international IOCs, you’re you’ve got excess profits right now with $85 oil. It does probably behoove you to go ahead and say, okay, let’s maybe dive in and look at what and some of these alternative sources, because, you know, there’s tax deductions around and we know there’s funding available from the government. You’re going to get great tax benefits because of it. But also it may diversify you. And a little venture money never hurt anybody. Because if it does take off grid you’re an exact position. You capture some very interesting big oil and gas funds, deepening their investment in carbon capture. [00:15:20][0.0][878.4]
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