What happens on one podcast when two guys with common sense get together to solve the world’s AI, energy, and geopolitical issues?
Well, they stop by the Energy News Beat podcast and have way too much fun. Tom Kirkman is a very experienced AI wrangler, and project manager and has 16K followers on LinkedIn. I truly enjoy Tom’s sense of humor and am thrilled to have Tom on the podcast at any time.
Please follow Tom for his antics and humor. – If he offends you, it probably means that I would enjoy talking with you.
Thanks for stopping by the podcast – Stu.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
02:12 – Your LinkedIn, you’ve got a bunch of LinkedIn followers and how many interactions or views have you had this year?
03:20 – Talks about Experience on LinkedIn and Twitter
11:52 – Talks about the Censoring that Tom Experienced last week and what got Censored
16:45 – Talks about Tom`s background and his expertise in Grammar and the English Language
23:44 – Talks about AI ( Artificial Intelligence ) and its bad effects
28:31 – Talks about Electrical Grid in the U.S which is exceedingly Weak
31:34 – Talks about EMP and its effects when it hits the U.S
32:18 – Talks about the Chinese Baloon
35:22 – Talks about the 2030 Green Energy Controversy
37:37 – Talks about Wind Turbines
39:33 – Talks about the Whales Dying and the Lizard that stopped an entire development project
41:11 – What point in the next few years are we going to reach a point where people are finally going to have a waking up of saying that this is actually not good for us to have all renewable but have a healthy plan forward?
45:13 – Europe is waking up a little faster because of the impact of of their horrific bad practices
48:04 – What do you see coming around the corner, Tom?
50:28 – Outro
The following is an automated transcript and may have been edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us funnier or better looking.
Stuart Turley [00:00:07] Hello, Everybody Welcome, Today’s just not a great day it’s a fabulous day.My Name is Stuart Turley President and CEO of the Sandstone Group. I’ve got one of my favorite compadres out on the Social media, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Stuart Turley [00:00:21] I’ve got Tom Kirkman. He’s a legend in his own mind and, I mean, we absolutely have so much fun ranting. We are going to have a no holds barred conversation of fun. And Tom, thank you so much for your thoughts and everything, thanks for stopping by.
Tom Kirkman [00:00:44] Well, thanks for inviting me back again. It was fun the first time let’s have a second go round.
Stuart Turley [00:00:48] I’ll tell you what. Your podcast went off the rails. It was fun. I have some great feedback. Thank you, selfishly, for coming back on the podcast. You know, I’m just a numbers kind of guy, you know?
Tom Kirkman [00:01:02] This will be fun we’ve communicated before, not just on the podcast, so it’s like, I know your mindset you clearly know my mindset. So it’s like, Let’s have that I’ll follow your lead.
Stuart Turley [00:01:16] But the funny thing is, when we sit down you and I have been around the block for at least a week and I’m for our podcast listeners. Tom has got one of the best looking beards that I’ve seen for someone in our age category.
Stuart Turley [00:01:36] I’ve got the fuzzy beard. Kind of a close thing there I’m jealous. Don’t ever fall asleep, Tom, because that beard is going to be gone and I’m going to have it glued to my face it’s a pretty cool looking beard.
Tom Kirkman [00:01:50] All you got to do is just stop cutting it that’s it it’s real simple.
Stuart Turley [00:01:54] Oh, well, tell that to my wife I don’t think so. Now. Now, Tom, I first started. You and I run in a lot of the same circles with all the folks, and I thoroughly enjoy commenting on your stuff. But for people that don’t know, you tell your LinkedIn, you’ve got a bunch of LinkedIn followers and how many interactions or views have you had this year?
Tom Kirkman [00:02:22] I’m currently it’s a 365 day rolling average that a rolling count and currently I’m around three and a half million and it’s been that way for a few months. So right now LinkedIn is going through a purge and they’re getting rid of hibernating accounts and banned accounts. So all of a sudden there’s this big kerfuffle online where people are losing followers.
Tom Kirkman [00:02:47] So I went from 15, almost 16,000 followers I was expecting to break 16,000 followers this month and then all of a sudden I’m down to 14,700 pages plummeted in the last couple of days. And other people are noticing as well. But LinkedIn has put out a thing saying that, you know, they’re purging bad accounts and stuff like that. So it’s like, okay, fine, I don’t really want bot accounts following me anyway.
Stuart Turley [00:03:10] It’s the interaction that you want.
Tom Kirkman [00:03:13] Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:03:14] And so I’m okay get rid of the bots, you know. Now my piddly little account, I only lost like 200. So it’s kind of like I think it was some of the women that were trying to keep dating me. And I’m wondering where all these women are coming from I don’t know
Tom Kirkman [00:03:34] Theyre Bots Catfishing, It’s like pretending to be something they’re not. And it’s like I get those every day.
Stuart Turley [00:03:38] What in the world could they possibly get? I don’t get the catfish.
Tom Kirkman [00:03:42] Data, my data mining. So in I’ve had extensive training in cyber security and stuff like that of phishing and basically trying to get passwords and they want to get your WhatsApp number or your personal information and then they go from there and then, you know, the goal is either steal your data or drain your bank account. So just don’t go there. Yeah, it’s nasty.
Stuart Turley [00:04:08] So it’s probably got some kind of guy with a humpback tied up and he has not no personal skills or anything and he’s using this cute picture of a young lady. Right?
Tom Kirkman [00:04:20] He’s okay with a lot of it is also driven by AI and Bots, which is why you’ll see some of my posts lately are openly mocking the Twitter AI. if you look at the latest post that it has had today, you know that they posted a question on my LinkedIn feed. Do you feel the posts in your feed are welcoming and respectful? So a Imidiately i made a screenshot of that and I made a post saying, Hey, my LinkedIn network, do you feel my posts in your feed are welcome in a respectful because conformity of thought and respecting hypersensitivity is top of top of my mind when I make posts.
Tom Kirkman [00:05:02] And then I posted a screenshot of that it’s like a cop one One guy said, Tom, I’m going to rename you. What is a fluffy doll, Tom? And people. It’s just I’m just poking fun of the AI it’s like, really, really guys, you want you want everyone to act the same on here. And it’s like, I’m not going to play that game.
Tom Kirkman [00:05:24] So, I mean, I posted pictures of happy, playful kittens just to screw with the Linkdn AI algorithm algorithms because, you know, my posting history, it’s like, Yeah, Fluffy kittens is not exactly what I’m going to post about. So just messing with the algorithms, it’s like and I just posted a John Cleese interview from almost a year ago. What looks like it it’s just, look, we don’t we’re not all the same you need to allow it. Diversity of thought, diversity of opinion, different viewpoints. And my line as the moderator and two international oil and gas forums was very specific just my opinion. As always, you are free to disagree.
Tom Kirkman [00:06:04] But social media doesn’t doesn’t play by those rules they want everyone to pretty much funnel into a general conformity. And it’s like, no, I’m going to fight back within the system and playfully, not in a nasty way generally, although I’ve lost it a couple times and just pushed back against, Look, let everyone think the way they want to think and say the words they want to say, as long as they’re not promoting violence or, you know, horrible things.
Tom Kirkman [00:06:29] Disagreement is not hate speech, but they’re trying to say anything that’s not following or conforming to the leadership of what the media is saying, what the politicians are saying. It’s hate speech and know that that’s not it. We need to be able to have discussions. As soon as you can’t have discussions, we’re going into Orwell territory.
Tom Kirkman [00:06:47] This is why I’ve made the comment Linkdn now has more censorship than when I was in Southeast Asia, you know, in Southeast Asia countries and that’s scary to me because I know I know how to play. I learned how to dance the dance of the know, playing with words so as not to get in trouble.
Tom Kirkman [00:07:05] In certain countries if you say the wrong thing online, you’ll get a knock on the door from the police and they’ll arrest you. So you learn to allude to certain things without coming out openly and saying it, which is now would have sort of had to do on LinkedIn and it’s like, this is the U.S. guys are supposed to be the bastion of freedom of speech and it’s just got turned on its head.
Tom Kirkman [00:07:23] So if you disagree with our political leaders, suddenly you get named with all these horrible things and it’s like, no, it’s not true. It’s just I disagree with the people who are telling us that they must agree with that now and hope that, you know, I’m sorry. It’s in my attitude to.
Stuart Turley [00:07:39] A lot of people when I’m on LinkedIn or Twitter and and I’ll sit there and I’ll look at them, I actually have to stop and read yours because there’s a joke buried in here. Yes. I’m like, I have to go back. Wait a minute. Oh, now, Tom, that was good. I’m over here doing the elbow clap and everything else that John Cleese posed was really good. I like that.
Stuart Turley [00:08:02] I got to sit next to John Cleese while he was presenting, and I was right here. He talked for 2 hours straight never breathe I think he had gills. I mean, this is the man never stop talking. And it was the funniest time I’ve ever had in my life. John He was hoot!.
Stuart Turley [00:08:24] But I feel like our society sometimes is like how he described it in that video. And that is the the Twit walk or, you know, it just doesn’t make any sense. Monty Python was funny. I love Monty Python. Monty Python is well-accepted by a lot of folks.
Tom Kirkman [00:08:47] I don’t know why it’s just hilarious stuff and it’s like these guys are just way ahead of their time and it’s still I mean, they’re trying to stunt the life of Ryan in that scene where the guy says, I want to have babies. I want to change my name to whatever woman. And now they’re trying to censor that and John Cleese just sort of blew a gasket. And that’s sort of what I was thinking about. They were making fun of this decades ago, and now it’s become a real life.
Stuart Turley [00:09:12] It’s not what I like. I love the English because when they were dressing in dresses, they were just poking fun at it. And you know, who cares? Or, you know, Benny Hill or anything else that’s just the way it was. Who cares? And, you know, you sit back and the censorship is going to get worse, Tom. I think you point.
Tom Kirkman [00:09:35] Out that.
Stuart Turley [00:09:36] It is going to get worse.
Tom Kirkman [00:09:39] I’ve started backing off on LinkedIn, and I made that announcement fairly public yes, I’ll still put poster every now and again, but I’m not going to be spending so much time and energy. And I’ve gone to Twitter and I’ve removed that my name from there so you know who I am but most people are not. So I’m just it’s going to be a string of symbols that is not connected to my name so just that way I can just sort of cut loose and have fun.
Tom Kirkman [00:10:01] Not that not like I’m going to be doing anything even more radical I’m just going to be doing the stuff that I normally do. But I don’t have to worry so much about censorship on Twitter and it’s like I don’t use Facebook for a long time. There’s no more oil and gas forums where I can post on.
Tom Kirkman [00:10:16] And you know what being a moderator in oil and gas, International Oil Gas Forum, I mean, LinkedIn Oil Pro had over 1 million registered members and it was called the LinkedIn of the oil and gas industry you had to use your real photo, your real work experience, your real name, otherwise no one would talk to you.
Tom Kirkman [00:10:35] It was by far the largest oil and gas forum in the world, and they get shut down by competing websites. I’m not going to say which one, but it is removed from the internet literally, the server was disconnected. A group of us moderators afterwards tried to get it reconnected up and we were told by the company’s lawyers, You can’t do that. We’ve got a court order. There’s no resurrecting this. So it’s been literally erased from the Internet you can find snippets of oil pro still in the Wayback Machine, but you can’t actually read it was it was it’s just amazing.
Tom Kirkman [00:11:05] So when I was a volunteer moderator there and I was the first volunteer moderator there, I know what should and should not be censored I am exceedingly aware of that. So when LinkedIn censored me and then censored me again, I’m like, Guys, really? So that’s what made me decide. It’s like, okay, I’m not going to play this game anymore. I’ll still use LinkedIn for, you know, normal, ordinary run of the mill stuff. And I can we get to have you in for my usual stuff, But I’m just going to go over to Twitter just I’m sorry, that’s it.
Stuart Turley [00:11:37] You’re you had some things that were going on the other the other week when you were talking about some. Oh, Lord, I just had a senior moment. Sorry about that, Tom. I thought it was You’re sitting there last week. You were talking about some of the censoring that you had last week and coming back around your you were saying that. Can you tell us what got censored last week? Because you you were I loved your trail of gone LinkedIn sponsors, Bad Dog. I love the way you said that.
Tom Kirkman [00:12:12] I went back and I actually deleted most of those posts because. I was blindsided. It’s like I didn’t even see this coming. I said, Pride is demonic that’s what I get censored for.
Stuart Turley [00:12:26] You got censored for what?
Tom Kirkman [00:12:29] Pride is demonic.
Stuart Turley [00:12:33] What’s wrong with that?
Tom Kirkman [00:12:36] Because I posted a picture that the CIA official CIA Twitter account posted and it said c i a p, r i d e. Uh, and people flipped out and it’s like, I just thought, I’m poking fun. It’s like, I’m not being mean about this. It’s like I regularly poke fun of stuff and it’s like. I was like, okay, so I’m making a silly joke and I’m going to get censored for it, okay this is clearly another third rail.
Tom Kirkman [00:13:08] There are certain topics I know that we cannot discuss on LinkedIn,.
Stuart Turley [00:13:13] Right
Tom Kirkman [00:13:13] You already know what topics those are there’s no point in bringing them up here because it’s just going to get them upset. But you know, that and the other things, it’s like I’m just there’s no point in posting about this just with the point of getting censored but I was just blindsided by this. I’m making a silly joke and I’ve got censorship for and I rich LinkedIn I knew and LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft and they ended up apologizing not not on not on LinkedIn, but on Twitter because I posted it over I posted a screenshot of some of the stuff over on Twitter.
Stuart Turley [00:13:46] Wow! Wow! Microsoft apologized on Twitter
Tom Kirkman [00:13:52] In a roundabout way or for their censorship on on LinkedIn. And that just made me laugh. But I decided, you know what? Let me just erase this whole trail. And so I went back and cleaned up most of this stuff just because five years from now, I don’t want to get in trouble for, you know, blowing a gasket.
Tom Kirkman [00:14:10] So and I did. I, I don’t know if you read it or not, but I took my time out and laid out the reasons why I was so upset that I got censored for making a silly joke about this just like, Look, guys, I was a moderator on the International oil and Gas forums and still tours on other people’s computers so they could avoid getting arrested by, you know, by governments for saying words we hold.
Tom Kirkman [00:14:33] I was part of the anonymous movement back in 2000, around 2008, where we helped Iranian kids bypass censorship so they could post videos on YouTube so they could see that horrible violence. You remember all that stuff?
Stuart Turley [00:14:45] Yes.
Tom Kirkman [00:14:46] And now you are going to censor me for saying pride is demonic in a joking way. Really? Okay, I’m done.
Stuart Turley [00:14:56] Yeah. And and you don’t get to the three plus million interactions or views or anything by not knowing something Tom. Your knowledge your articles are I think are always spot on. That’s that’s like your your energy knowledge and talking about those things are practical honest in dealing and you don’t get to that volume without being right.
Tom Kirkman [00:15:28] And without adding some humor most of my book is I do get dead serious some time on the oil and gas topics, but I’ll veer off but even on the oil and gas, I’ll try and poke fun of something so people actually enjoy reading because nobody wants to read somebody screaming their head off on top of a soapbox it’s like, just just go away already.
Tom Kirkman [00:15:45] So if you throw on some levity and throw in some, as you say, some hidden jokes and people read that, hey, wait a minute, that that’s that that’s what I want to get to. And it’s like, yeah, like you said, you got to read it twice did he just say that? Yes, I did.
Tom Kirkman [00:15:58] So, yes, it’s fun and that that that shows through I’m having fun and when it no longer gets to the point of being funny, then it’s like, okay, I’ll, I’ll try Twitter my frustration with Twitter and I’ll probably end up paying for a monthly account or something so I can post long form because I like long form I don’t like Twitter, short form.
Tom Kirkman [00:16:18] I like to be able to take the time and just type it’s it’s rare on LinkedIn that my posts get too long and it’s like, okay, I’m ranting too much, but I think it’s 15,000 characters on Twitter and you have to have a monthly account I’m probably going to try that.
Stuart Turley [00:16:36] Do you use Grammarly?
Tom Kirkman [00:16:39] No
Stuart Turley [00:16:42] See, I would be dead meat without Grammarly.
Tom Kirkman [00:16:45] I had four years of Latin even though I’m dyslexic and I’ve got all sorts of stuff going on. English. I used to read dictionaries and encyclopedias when I was in high school and I loved it. So I know grammar very, very well. I was originally going to be an English teacher, so I get very rich, Most people don’t even know the little words that most people don’t even know little words and I posted about this before of, it, by, near, as, and they don’t actually know.
Tom Kirkman [00:17:18] But I’ve gone through dictionaries, college dictionaries, and understood every single way of using every single definition in its proper grammatical context. So once you understand that reading becomes easy, it’s really easy to much the words you don’t know. Most people sort of have a haze of not really understanding is the little words that are the full crumbs that move the big words.
Tom Kirkman [00:17:43] And for example, as a lot of times means basically because but I’m hesitant to use it in using it in that way because most Americans are not familiar with it being used that way. It’ll just confuse them. So I choose my words carefully. But yes, it’s I have and I write glossaries for fun. So the job that I just started, I’ve been there for five months now. I compile glossaries and I’m almost at 7000 acronyms and technical definitions. I do this I don’t I don’t write it I copy and paste from where I find it but this is just something I do.
Tom Kirkman [00:18:19] In the beginning. I keep that Excel spreadsheet open, and every single acronym acronyms are the worst words I can look technical words specific to a specific industry. It’s a little bit harder to find, but acronyms are the worst. So I normally do it for acronyms for that company because you can’t find them anywhere.
Tom Kirkman [00:18:38] And a lot of times the company website is fairly useless in locating this stuff. So I want to know and understand every single word on the page that I’m reading or writing. And people go into meetings sometimes and just throwing out acronyms and I ask, What is this? It’s like, I don’t know. Well, how can you be discussing this if you don’t know what the heck we’re talking about?
Tom Kirkman [00:18:59] So when I write or when I read, I want to read and understand every single word and every single acronym on the page. In the beginning, it’s hard to do when it started because everything’s new. But now it’s to the point if there’s an acronym, I don’t know, I write it down on my Excel spreadsheet and the same thing with any technical words,. But I pretty much got them now it’s rare that I run across in this company anything that I’m not already familiar with and don’t already have a glossary.
Tom Kirkman [00:19:25] So what people people say, if you want to fall asleep, read a book well, that just means you don’t understand what you’re reading,.
Stuart Turley [00:19:32] Right
Tom Kirkman [00:19:32] You’re bit of mental haste so because because of that moderate dyslexia that I have, I sort of have to do this because if I don’t, I can’t think straight. It’s like I call them covert holes. So if you’re if you just keep going past words that you don’t understand, you sort of leans attention and you fuzz out and it’s like you don’t want to do that anymore. It’s like, no, you’ve got to back up and understand every single word.
Tom Kirkman [00:20:00] And what most people don’t get is it’s not just big words most people don’t have a thorough understanding of the basic small little words of the English language of, it, by, as,.
Stuart Turley [00:20:13] Right,.
Tom Kirkman [00:20:14] Look, just open up a dictionary and it’s like a college dictionary and just look at one of those words and it’s like, do you actually understand every single one of these definitions? And if not, maybe you’ll go down the rabbit hole and starting to learn this stuff and increase your reading capacity.
Stuart Turley [00:20:28] You and I have a lot of different thinking similarities as well but I also can look at a page and skip the small words.
Tom Kirkman [00:20:38] There are the Falcons, I don’t do that.
Stuart Turley [00:20:40] Don’t do that. I can run through books and everything else quick and not really focus on the little words.
Tom Kirkman [00:20:49] I get it. I don’t focus on the little words, I focus on words. So I’m already confident in the literal words. So I’m not really focusing on the little words I already know what they are. It’s the other words that I run across that’s new or used in an unusual way or used in an unusual grammar format.
Tom Kirkman [00:21:04] So some of my post, I will deliberately mangle my grammar just to make a point. It’s like it’s not like I’m ungrammatical or make up words or make up phrases or deliberately misspell something. You know, one of the going on LinkedIn post climate catastrophe and using K instead of a C climate with a k, you know, just just it that’s not a misspelling it’s like that’s poking fun of this stuff.
Tom Kirkman [00:21:29] So when I, when I, when I screw up on grammar, it’s deliberate I know grammar inside, backwards and forwards it’s like an with a little words inside out, backwards and forwards and I try not to use too many big words that people don’t understand because this is an international audience and English as a second language.
Tom Kirkman [00:21:44] And being in Asia for 20 years, I’m around people where English as a second language. So I go out of my way not to use complicated words or use unusual grammar just because I need to make sure that, you know, the people that I’m talking to understand what I’m saying.
Tom Kirkman [00:22:00] Because in Asia, I mean, I was out in Vietnam some time and one time and we were doing some welding repairs. And the guy out there is like he’s wearing flip flops and he is wearing jeans and a t shirt and it’s like he’s he’s holding a pair of sunglasses and it’s like he’s not wearing gloves. It’s like, really?
Tom Kirkman [00:22:18] And it’s like, So I had to explain to him, You can’t do that. And and it turns out he didn’t actually speak any English and the supervisor wasn’t around so I went. He’s not wearing a hard hat and it’s like he knows that you have to communicate in a way that you know, that other people understand.
Tom Kirkman [00:22:42] And some people try and get really, really fancy and use really big words in an unusual way to show off their breadth and depth of wordsmithing. And it’s like, that’s fine. But for social media, people don’t want to have to stop and, you know, figure out what what you’re saying. So try and keep it simple and you can still prove that you use and abuse the English language, you know, right put in wrong, put in wrong grammar just to catch people’s attention and poke fun of it.
Stuart Turley [00:23:10] Well, here’s the other thing you’re AI arguement, having fun I thoroughly enjoy that and want to ask you some questions. Google is is shadow banning my sites I get between 20 and 60,000 people a day on the site. And I know because I look around at the FCO, around the world and how it hits that site. I know how Google is doing it google’s changed their analytics and everything else again, it’s going to get worse and I mean.
Tom Kirkman [00:23:42] I know world.
Stuart Turley [00:23:43] Does not care. But on your AI, I and I’ve noticed that Google likes articles better when they are like true speech like my transcribed articles do better. If we do a podcast and they’re transcribed into human speech, the AI articles don’t do as well if they’re sitting there and you turn those because then how fast is AI going to start picking up that they got it from Chat GPT and they’re writing an energy article and then they’re going to realize this was generated by Otto.
Tom Kirkman [00:24:25] A I recognize it because it’s robotic. A.I. is simply regurgitation.
Stuart Turley [00:24:31] Yes.
Tom Kirkman [00:24:32] And free thinking this is what catches the attention of a either in a good way or in a bad way. If you’re like, Ooh, this is interesting. Oh, no, we got to ban this this guy is like, he’s is like his his thinking like way bad thoughts. No, no, no ban him.
Tom Kirkman [00:24:47] So AI can recognize, you know, robotic A.I. is not intelligent in any way, shape or form. It’s just a large computer that sucks up all sorts of information, recognizes patterns and spits out regurgitation of what it thinks people want to hear. It’s not smart in any way, shape or form. Just like a computer is not smart. It’s really great at making calculations.
Tom Kirkman [00:25:10] So ChatGPT I’ve read some of the stuff. It’s that people are losing interest in it just because it’s not the new shiny thing, but it’s like it is not smart this is what people don’t get. All of it was regurgitating.
Tom Kirkman [00:25:23] I remember when I was in high school I had to write ten page papers for, you know, history class and stuff like that. And it’s like these it back in those days you had an encyclopedia, so everyone grabs the same encyclopedia, looks the same thing, and then reworded the article in their own words. But it’s basically it’s using different words, but it’s essentially copy and paste that is what AI is.
Tom Kirkman [00:25:48] It’s taking an encyclopedia of information and rewording all of that stuff. It does not have an original thought in its body. It’s it can’t it’s not intelligent A.I., Artificial Intelligence there’s no intelligence involved in it it’s computing Artificial computing is what it should be called, is not intelligent People believe, Oh, AI will say this. No, no.
Stuart Turley [00:26:10] This is the best conversation. It’s just I get worked up because when you sit back and take a look at this time, it’s a falsehood. And everybody I was looking at an article the other day and Tom, I didn’t mean run, but I was sitting here looking at this and I was like, they’re pulling data from a spreadsheet and they’re calling it a AI. So they go, I’m like,thats a Spread sheet. Oh, it’s a AI.
Tom Kirkman [00:26:35] That’s all I is, is just massive amounts of spreadsheets loaded into a super massive computer, and it’s spitting out what it sees as patterns. It is not thinking. People can think right. Animals can do better than a I can think because they can recognize dangers and you know, playing.
Stuart Turley [00:26:53] Right.
Tom Kirkman [00:26:54] You you can tease a kitten. Last Sunday, I went down to the animal shelter and just went around and playing playing with the kittens because I was thinking of hosting, you know, stray animal animals because they don’t keep in the shelter and it’s like, okay, I’m only going to pick kitties. They will play with you they can think they’re not just reacting they will think ahead and try and pounce on the little toy that you’re throwing up.
Tom Kirkman [00:27:21] A.I. is just a glorified computer it does not think it does not come up with anything new or original full stop, even when it comes up with a new language which everyone thinks, Oh, that’s intelligence. No, it’s simply piecing together groups of thousands of different languages and coming up with a new language based on a composite of all these other languages. They are not inventing anything new that is not intelligence. Computers cannot be intelligent they never will be intelligent they’re just going to be really good at making massive amounts of calculations people can think computers can’t full stop.
Stuart Turley [00:27:59] With your security background and AI I’m we’re not.
Tom Kirkman [00:28:05] Exactly but I well I for fun I used to 20 years ago 15 years ago I used to fix up people’s virus infested computers neighbors and stuff just for fun, because I know how to do it. So and I. I know what not to do on the Internet it’s like you don’t click on certain suspicious links and all this other stuff, and if something does happen, I can get myself out of it.
Stuart Turley [00:28:31] But do you think the grid, the grid I’ve seen is wide open? And when we sit back and sit here and take a look at energy in the U.S., we saw that China was trying to take us take us out in 5 minutes.
Tom Kirkman [00:28:46] But that all it would take actually would be an EMP Electromagnetic Pulse. You know, a a bomb exploded, you know, a couple of miles above the continental U.S. and it’ll cause havoc. And this has been talked about since, I think, the 1970s in the federal government and everyone just sort of ignored it.
Tom Kirkman [00:29:04] But the the electrical grid in the U.S. is exceedingly weak the security protocols in in them. And I’m right, this is a topic I know quite a bit about actually. It’s fairly easy to bypass now. If you remember maybe half a year ago, there’s the people that were going around and shooting shotguns at transport to substations. Yeah, that’s a penetration test. They’re waiting to see what’s going to happen. They didn’t steal anything. They just wanted to see what’s going to happen.
Stuart Turley [00:29:34] So it’s just.
Tom Kirkman [00:29:36] Yeah. Yes. So what? What’s going to happen? So the the the Internet protocols guarding our electrical infrastructure are massively weak, similar to the way that the protocols for oil and gas and offshore platforms are massively weak. I know this because when I used to go out to oil gas platforms, I’d stick in my thumb drive because I’m trying to transfer, you know, the daily workers and stuff in there and it would, in fact my thumb drive. So that means the whole platform, everything on the platform is infected and it’s like, yeah, you guys don’t know computer security.
Tom Kirkman [00:30:11] So if somebody really wants to hack into it, just like when the U.S. and Israel hacked into that, the Iranian remember that it’s the rods. I can’t remember the name of it nuclear is the same thing. They could do the same thing here, but they’re probably more concerned about getting it traced back to them in the US, dropping a bomb on their heads.
Tom Kirkman [00:30:31] But it is not that difficult to penetrate the security for either oil or gas or electricity. Nuclear is probably more secure, but the electrical grid infrastructure is woefully inadequate. As far as security, in my opinion, there’s lots of people that will disagree. Oh, we’ve hardened it. Yeah, well, no. Yeah, you can. I can see by the look on your face like, yeah, I don’t believe it either.
Stuart Turley [00:30:53] That it’s like the Colonial Pipeline what, two years ago and boy, it caused the whole nightmare and the EMP
Tom Kirkman [00:31:02] Imagination was happening at the same time, Imagine China does happen at the same time.
Stuart Turley [00:31:08] Yeah. I try. Interviewed a Energy Grid person not too long ago I think of her name here in just a minute. But there’s such a supply shortage, Tom, about the the the.
Tom Kirkman [00:31:25] Transformers 2 to 3 years
Stuart Turley [00:31:26] Thank you. Yes. It would take years to bring those back let’s say we take out a you know, an EMP takes out several thousand miles of Transformers years.
Tom Kirkman [00:31:40] Well, an EMP, the studies that date back to the seventies and eighties state that is an EMP actually exploded over the middle of the US and took out most of the US within three months. 90% of the US population would be dead because most people don’t know how to live in big cities without access to food and water there would be riots and all this stuff 90% think about that.
Tom Kirkman [00:32:05] Not a bomb on a city, an EMP bomb over, you know, the middle of the U.S. It can be done. The problem would be, how do you get that bomb? You know, pass the security protocols. But then again, I think about that Chinese balloon that just sort of slowly drifted across the US.
Stuart Turley [00:32:23] Do you think that. Do you think that was like them shooting into the substations to see what.
Tom Kirkman [00:32:31] They’re gathering yes. Yeah and the thing is, it went through four days without anyone even saying anything and Biden was aware of it and he let it drift off the coast before he shot it down. So I, I don’t want to say too many bad things about Biden and China and Compromised and Manchurian Candidate and other things. But Manchurian Candidate, it’s like, yeah, this guy’s still compromised it’s not funny.
Tom Kirkman [00:32:57] So this balloon was this was not a good thing so, yes, just like people taking a shotgun and shooting out electrical substations to see what might happen. Is China taking this balloon across the continental United States on a very slow course and they would linger over, you know, military sites and all this.
Stuart Turley [00:33:18] It would move directions around. It would move.
Tom Kirkman [00:33:21] Yes, I know it’s controllable. China said it’s not controllable, but that’s bullshit, which I know they were controlling.
Stuart Turley [00:33:29] And I saw Fox News last night on Brit Baird. I didn’t watch it my dad was watching it and I was like, Dad, can I have the remote? And I don’t like Fox. And I was I was trying to personal opinion, but I was sitting there and I was I was want to put on the Flintstones or something that I could really enjoy as opposed to politics or news. And so I was sitting there and they said that, oh, the Chinese balloon President Biden said that there was no communication back from the thing. And I’m like, Oh, no, that’s hogwash.
Tom Kirkman [00:34:08] Give me circling around military sites if they’re not going to transfer that information back in real time.
Stuart Turley [00:34:14] Yes,.
Tom Kirkman [00:34:14] I think that the technology is there. It’s like now like I believe anything the White House says right now, if they deny, you know, it’s true. I mean, but this goes back decades. I mean, the French I can’t remember the guy is like, you know, wait until there are this official denial from the government, then, you know, it’s true. So there’s the official denial so, you know, it’s true. So just like the cocaine, which, you know, the case got close because they just can’t figure out where it came from.
Stuart Turley [00:34:40] Man. If I were you and I went into DC, we they’d sit there and go, you know, they’d have us for sneezing. I mean, it would be, Oh, your mask wasn’t on or, you know, you’re. I mean.
Tom Kirkman [00:34:55] By showing this, by telling us, by not telling us who it was, they’re telling us who it was. I mean, it’s so obvious they’ve closed the case already so just another dig there. But.
Stuart Turley [00:35:10] So what if we are if the 2024 election is such a big target and I’m going to spin us around on this one. Everybody’s targeting 2030 for the green energy and everything else.
Tom Kirkman [00:35:29] It wont happen.
Stuart Turley [00:35:30] Yeah, and I’m I’m over here kind of going, look, we can’t even pay for what we got now. How are we going to get here with no electric vehicles? I mean, we know in internal combustion and then they’re going to force all this. There’s not enough copper there’s not enough enough. I mean, it’s not going to happen.
Tom Kirkman [00:35:52] It’s physically impossible and the EU only has around 20% and I think 10 to 20% of the money they have to meet their current climate goals for 2030 they don’t have the funding is simply not going to happen. It is. It’s not going to happen we don’t have the minerals.
Tom Kirkman [00:36:11] China is laughing about this they’re they’re laughing Is the Western world is stopping using oiling oil and gas and coal and nuclear.
Stuart Turley [00:36:22] Right.
Tom Kirkman [00:36:22] And going to it replacing reliable high density energy with unreliable, very low density energy and buying these materials from China. They control around 80% of the materials that are needed to make this stuff. And somebody commented to me because I mean, I made a comment, you know, I went off.
Tom Kirkman [00:36:45] Somebody in another thread said, Sunshine is free and I said, Well, sunshine and breezes are free. But harnessing sunshine in wind to make solar power panels and wind turbines, that’s definitely very, very expensive then you add in also battery backup for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun is on the other side of the world and you know, it’s night and when it’s cloudy and then also adding in, having reliable baseload energy of either natural gas and coal or nuclear and it becomes very expensive indeed and they didn’t like that.
Tom Kirkman [00:37:19] But it’s like, I’m sorry. No. Yes, sunshine is free I’m not going to argue with you, but can you heat your house on sunshine in the middle of winter? No, sorry, but that’s just a straw man it’s just a silly argument. So we don’t have the minerals necessary to do it.
Tom Kirkman [00:37:36] I just read an article on LinkedIn earlier today where they said in some country if they wanted to run it on wind and solar, one third of the landmass would be taken up for wind and solar. One third.
Stuart Turley [00:37:51] One third.
Tom Kirkman [00:37:53] One third. So just think about that, there are people going to put up with that? Do you want to live next to a very noisy wind turbine? I can’t the low frequencies drive me absolutely bonkers. Ultra low frequency subsonic strikes me bonkers I can’t sleep.
Stuart Turley [00:38:10] In the meantime, between failure that I’ve found on the wind turbines is less than eight years. And everybody should and they’re saying it’s supposed to be ten years is there supposed to last 30 years hogwash.
Tom Kirkman [00:38:24] The grapevine.
Stuart Turley [00:38:26] Well, man.
Tom Kirkman [00:38:30] Somewhat the same person came back and I think it was the same person gave the analogy of, okay, you spend all this money buying a house, but after you build the house, it’s free. I said, Yeah, but it’s got a design life and 30 years after that, you’ve got to take down all of these solar panels, make a toxic landfill for these hundreds of millions of solar power panels which are not going to disintegrate.
Tom Kirkman [00:38:48] Same thing that’s similar with the wind turbines and then build and re-install and spend all that money all over it this is not free once it’s done. And what happens during a hailstorm or something like that? No, there’s no such thing as a free lunch there’s no such thing as free energy that the wind and solar and…
Tom Kirkman [00:39:08] Offshore wind to this day loses massive amounts of money it has never turned a profit. It never will turn a profit because the amount of electricity generated cannot make up for the cost of installing these things. The only reason they get away with it is because of government subsidies. So government subsidies do not make them workable it just makes them very expensive it means taxpayers are supporting a money losing proposition.
Stuart Turley [00:39:31] Now the whales are pretty darn.
Tom Kirkman [00:39:36] they’re dying.
Stuart Turley [00:39:38] They’re.
Tom Kirkman [00:39:38] They’re dying.
Stuart Turley [00:39:38] It’s clobbering the whales man it breaks my heart. You know, you sit back and kind of think what about saving the whales? You know, we hold up oil field for a lizard that is all over the Midwest. I mean, it’s millions of these lizards around and they stopped an entire development project just because of a lizard.
Tom Kirkman [00:40:06] Because the EPA is weaponized to destroy the domestic oil and gas industry overseas. Oil and gas is fine, but domestic oil and gas. Oh, no, that’s horrible.
Stuart Turley [00:40:16] So we’re the cleanest in the planet.
Tom Kirkman [00:40:18] I know that. Well, yes. And I don’t know if it’s the U.S. or Canada. Not not the oilsands, but Canada, I think, runs a close second. Australia is up there as well. But the Western oil and gas I’m not talking about China or a few other countries I’m not going to name names.
Tom Kirkman [00:40:37] But yeah, the Western world is exceedingly good and environmental concerns for oil and gas and shutting down domestic simply means that we’re going to be importing oil and gas from countries that really don’t care as much about the environment. Go to places in Africa. Again, I’m not going to name names, but I know people that have worked in Africa and they tell me stories of what goes on there.
Stuart Turley [00:41:04] So what point do you think hypocrisy equals or what point in the next few years are we going to reach a point where people are finally going to have a waking up of saying that this is actually not good for us to have all renewable but have a healthy plan forward? When do you think we’re going to wake up?
Tom Kirkman [00:41:32] When we get regular rolling power blackouts? I started predicting this last summer and I said, Welcome to the summer rolling power blackouts. And it didn’t happen last summer. And then I this summer I said, well, I was a year too early. So I still think it’s going to be a rolling power blackouts in the United States.
Tom Kirkman [00:41:48] But at some point. It’s going to happen and when I living in Asia, our blackouts were not that uncommon. You learn to live with the candles in the house you use buckets to store water because when there’s no electricity, it’s hard to get an order so you got to push the toilets and so you get used to it.
Tom Kirkman [00:42:06] But the U.S. is not familiar with that only when there’s like a tornado or a disaster or a hurricane or something like that. But just during hot weather and I’m sorry, but the electrical load and the electricity grid in the United States keeps expanding and while the grid is being slowly but surely upgraded.
Tom Kirkman [00:42:26] It’s going at a fairly slow pace because the materials needed to upgrade the entire, you know, the poles replacing wooden poles, the steel poles upgrading the it’s called conductor, you know, the wires they call a conductor. So, for example, going from a 69 kilovolt line to like 148 kilowatt line, you know, basically doubling it that’s a lot of copper.
Tom Kirkman [00:42:50] And then the transformers, we’re looking at 2 to 3 years and that’s going to be pushed up some more. And people say, oh, we’ll just build a factory in the United States that builds transformers. Yeah, that’s going to take ten years and all the environmental restrictions for building a new factory to manufacture this stuff there and find out this is not possible.
Tom Kirkman [00:43:08] So there’s also something called electrical, electrical steel, which is really, really thin electrical, really, really thin metal that is used in the electrical equipment. All of that’s manufactured overseas, none of it manufactured in the U.S., to my knowledge.
Tom Kirkman [00:43:27] So we’ve got supply chain problems globally and since the Western world has gotten so complacent with just in time, which is horrible, by the way, I hate just in time, I have been bitten in the butt so many times on projects by this whole just in time. Oh, yes, sorry we’re going to have to add six months to the delivery times and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Tom Kirkman [00:43:48] Just in time. It’s horrible you need to keep the stuff stocked in warehouses. The problem is the government taxes, stuff that gets stocked and warehoused for more than a year. It’s like you guys are penalizing forward thinking.
Tom Kirkman [00:43:59] So the U.S. government I don’t want to get into a rant about the US government here in order to talk about it, but it’s like all these things that penalize good thinking and promote and reward bad thinking and bad policy, just like renewables that’s bad policy it’s not workable it will never work, ever.
Stuart Turley [00:44:15] Let me throw this squirrel at you. And so if the supply chain is breaking and you have the geopolitical stuff going on around the world, the geopolitical stuff is the fracturing everybody’s bringing their factories back home. Let’s take the EU for an example they have lost a significant chunk of their manufacturing capabilities because their plants can’t run.
Tom Kirkman [00:44:42] Natural Gas.
Stuart Turley [00:44:43] Yeah, no, I wonder how that happened and I and so I was on the phone with some folks and they they’ve got big contracts. Everybody’s signing those long contracts, 20 years, 30 year contracts for LNG, natural gas.
Stuart Turley [00:44:59] But if you take the loss of business that the Europe is having right now because of energy in it, it seems like Europe is waking up a little faster because of the impact of the of their horrific bad practices. Is that a fair?
Tom Kirkman [00:45:26] yes, yes that Europe is going to wake up sooner probably than the US because the euro, the US people mostly think, oh, we’ll never have regular rolling blackouts in the power blackouts in the United States because, you know, we’re number one in the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah well, guess what? It’s coming.
Tom Kirkman [00:45:43] If we keep going out, we’re shutting down natural, natural gas plants prematurely we’re shutting down coal plants prematurely. New York State is shutting down, I think 37 natural gas emergency stations because they’re not going to meet the new environmental requirements.
Tom Kirkman [00:46:01] So that, in other words, when there’s a crunch in electricity, they can fire up temporarily these natural gas power plants to temporarily generate electricity. These are going to be they’re going to be shutting down 37 of them in New York state and they’re not replacing them with anything except solar and wind. You think solar and wind is going to be able to replace natural gas power plants that can generate electricity? 5 minutes, you know, 5 minutes later when you flip the switch? No.
Stuart Turley [00:46:28] No. And the sad part is New York is buying their LNG from Trinidad, Russia and one other coming into the Boston.
Tom Kirkman [00:46:40] They’re not buying from Russia anymore they were they were they stopped they were.
Stuart Turley [00:46:45] But they are buying from Italy or Spain diesel and that’s coming from Russia and being refined in there. So they’re still getting Russian diesel and refined products because Russia is now refining it around. But they’re LNG I didn’t know that they hadn’t gotten any shipments on that.
Tom Kirkman [00:47:08] Now that that stopped about a year ago, I think and India has been specializing in taking Russian crude and making gasoline and diesel out of it and reselling it to Europe. But you know, it a good profit and calling it, you know, it’s not Russian products anymore because we refined it, but it’s Russian crude. And I don’t blame them for doing it I don’t blame them at all.
Tom Kirkman [00:47:30] And California buys their energy island you know what I’m talking about. Oh, yeah, they don’t. So California, most of their oil comes from Central America around the Amazon area that renders polluted.
Stuart Turley [00:47:46] 75%, 72%. Tom They buy 72% of the oil out of the Amazon and that Amazon is mostly China company. Yeah.
Tom Kirkman [00:47:58] So again, it makes no sense out of sight, out of mind.
Stuart Turley [00:48:02] We’re about out of time, Tom but what do you see coming around the corner?
Tom Kirkman [00:48:07] Rolling power blackouts. We’re heading into we’re heading into August. People I just adore CNN’s the 4th of July week. We had the three hottest days ever in the in the history of the planet. It’s like. No, no, we didn’t this happens every summer and I poke fun of it.
Tom Kirkman [00:48:27] Irena was saying Irena Slav was saying something about she’s going on vacation. I said, well, welcome to millions of people dying from, you know, extreme climate heat, otherwise known as summer. It’s like, oh, it’s like this happens every year.
Tom Kirkman [00:48:46] So but the thing is, what’s happening now is the amount of electricity we’re using is increasing, while the amount of electricity generation that we’re making from reliable resources from oil and gas and coal and nuclear are reducing and increasing dependency on intermittent wind and solar while reducing electricity from dependable sources makes no sense that’s bad energy policy right there. And people are not going to wake up in the U.S. until they get hit hard in the head with multiple persistent rolling power blackouts. That’s the only thing that’s going to wake up the U.S.
Tom Kirkman [00:49:22] Europe will probably wake up sooner than than the U.S. because they’re probably going to get hit harder because they don’t have their Russian natural gas anymore. Regardless of the politics, they don’t have they don’t have the energy that the businesses have closed down their. It’s just it’s going to be a mess that the Western world is committing suicide, energy, suicide. They’re replacing reliable, dependable, consistent, high density energy with unreliable, inconsistent, low low density energy. And it’s just that’s a recipe for disaster it’s only a matter of time.
Stuart Turley [00:49:54] Oh, absolutely. So. Well, we’re going to put this down on the Crayon here for the prediction. Rolling blackouts. Hey, we could have a movie on this time. What do you think? No, I think it was already made. It was called the Omega Man with Charlie Charlton. I saw.
Tom Kirkman [00:50:10] That. I saw that.
Stuart Turley [00:50:12] I love that movie. Well, Tom, thank you so much for stopping by the podcast. And we’re going to have some more fun with you next time, because I really enjoyed the day. So thank you for stopping by.
Tom Kirkman [00:50:23] Thanks. It was fun talking with you as well Have a good one thanks. All right. Bye bye.
