“The Pendulum Swings On ESG Investments” – What is Sustainable Mean In Investments?
The podcast is an excellent update on the energy markets with ESG Investments, Carbon Capture, oil and gas, wind, solar, and even the grid. Johnathan is truly an industry thought leader and a valued resource for our industry.
Some key topics included how investment in royalties could help the solar, oil, and gas industries.
We also discussed other solutions with Debra Wold’s group: GreneLily Energy & Water. We have to have fossil and green energy without subsidies. On a personal note, her podcast downloads are off the chart and we are organizing an ESG panel discussion with Debra and Johnathan. Debra’s LinkedIn is HERE:
Please reach out to Johnathan on his website: U.S. Carbon Capture or LinkedIn Here.
For the PETA folks out there: No Mountain Lyons or podcast hosts were harmed in the making of this podcast. He has a great stuffed Mountain Lyon in his office that was hit by lightning. Pretty darn cool. –
Johnathan, thank you for stopping by the podcast. It is an honor to have your expertise on the show. – Stu.
Johnathan R. Grammer – CEO, U.S. Carbon Capture. LinkedIn Here:
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ENB Podcast with Jonathan Grammer – Episode 101
Automatic Transcription Edited for Grammar. We disavow any mistakes unless it makes us better-looking or appear smarter.
Stuart Turley [00:00:03] Hey, good morning, everybody. Today is not only a great day, it’s one of the best days I get to do. I am doing a podcast today. My name’s Stu Turley, President and CEO of the Sandstone Group.
Stuart Turley [00:00:15] We’ve got the Energy News Beat podcast. I have Jonathan Grammer here today.
Stuart Turley [00:00:21] He is a CEO of U.S. Carbon Capture a little bit of non-disclosure here I’ve had Jonathan on the podcast before and the podcast went nuts.
Stuart Turley [00:00:33] I have to say, I got to reach out and everybody was like, That podcast was pretty good. That cougar over his shoulder was outstandingly way cool. So, Joe, listen, thank you for stopping by the podcast today.
Jonathan Grammer [00:00:47] My pleasure. Thanks for having me back, Steve.
Stuart Turley [00:00:50] I’ll tell you, you know, we’re going to go into that cougar a little bit because I love that story, but that is we’re not really here to talk about the cougar we will kind of work at the end of the story here.
Stuart Turley [00:01:02] A side note, I got scared out of my boots last night, had a mountain lion screaming out here and they scream. I mean, it’s worse than my ex-wife. Oh, and it’ll scare you.
Stuart Turley [00:01:17] So anyway, Jonathan, as the CEO, you asked carbon capture. What do you really do? What is U.S. carbon capture?
Jonathan Grammer [00:01:30] Well, we I first became introduced to not only the technical possibility, but also the growing need for the capture of industrial carbon dioxide about ten years ago. And we had I don’t think I went into this in the last podcast it but I’ll be very very brief is.
Jonathan Grammer [00:01:52] We were contacted by not only an oil and gas plant, but also a utility client that was looking to reduce CO2 emissions from our power plant, oil and gas clients looking for industrial CO2 to implement enhanced oil recovery in the Texas Panhandle.
Stuart Turley [00:02:07] Yup.
Jonathan Grammer [00:02:08] And at that time I had landed Exploration Corp, which is a company that I still sit at the helm of. And we used our expertise and our knowledge and our relationships geologist to sort of put together projects that were suitable for both of those entities.
Jonathan Grammer [00:02:22] And neither one of them developed at that time. But given the changes in the climate change initiative, but also statutory guidelines that have been brought to bear, we decided it was time to sort of dust off a lot of that that that knowledge base and so we formed US carbon capture.
Jonathan Grammer [00:02:40] I think we’re now in our second or third year and the five man consulting team helping industrial emitters reduce their carbon footprint, primarily targeting fossil fuel industry. Targeting is a bad word, servicing the fossil fuel industry.
Stuart Turley [00:02:55] Oh, how cool. I’ll tell you, carbon capture is such a big market right now, Jonathan, because, you know, the ESG and oil and gas. Oil and gas has gotten a bad name, whether right or wrong. They’ve had a bad day.
Stuart Turley [00:03:08] And Oxy has really stepped up and done, you know, stepped into that area. But what are you as US carbon capture? What are you looking at as a market go to and your market for that company?
Jonathan Grammer [00:03:22] Well, that has what I’ll call kind of a bifurcated approach. And to sort of back up when you’re talking about Bill ionization, oil and gas, what really motivated our team was was not so much really advocates are enthusiasts for climate change really to give defense to the fossil fuel industry that seemed getting villainized quite a bit in the discussion and a lot of these.
Jonathan Grammer [00:03:46] Certainly all the technical expertise required for carbon capture is going to be coming through the petroleum industry and we need to find ways to help sustain it and if carbon reduction is going to be an initiative, we really got involved to help coal, oil and natural gas continue to be a viable energy source.
Jonathan Grammer [00:04:07] Once you have successfully captured CO2 and I think the answer to your question that you’re looking for is what is the market for the product that you have? It’s both a pollutant and it’s also a commodity.
Jonathan Grammer [00:04:19] You can store it underground and a classic storage. Well, you can sell it actually to an oil and gas operator that’s got a secondary water flood that’s maturing out as a tertiary objective. And it’s a topic of conversation that we go through almost weekly which one of those markets are we going try to pursue?
Jonathan Grammer [00:04:41] We’re also finding that a great many other people have the same discussion because it is in fact an emerging market, one that’s really just been throttled since August a September when they are past.
Stuart Turley [00:04:53] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:04:53] And so I hate to give you the answer. We really don’t know at this point, but we’re pursuing both. And I think I think both of them will probably be viable candidates for a market. So.
Stuart Turley [00:05:05] You know, that is absolutely fantastic and as we sit there and, you know, the some of the things that are going on with the vilainization of oil and gas,.
Stuart Turley [00:05:14] I have to hand it to the CEOs in the last year, you know, standing up to Congress and, you know, they’re getting their you know, their in their face bashed in saying, you know, will you increase production and cut money back to your investors?
Stuart Turley [00:05:33] And they’re like, we’ve made commitments to our investors and know we’re going to increase production, but we’re also going to keep giving back to our investors. That’s driving the government nuts.
Jonathan Grammer [00:05:45] Right?
Stuart Turley [00:05:46] This kind of defense mechanism by you giving that, you know, to them makes a big difference. And I think carbon capture, Jonathan, is going to be something that is viable and sustainable because I think there’s a chink in the armor with BP last week saying that they can’t get into the profitability any more renewables.
Jonathan Grammer [00:06:15] Right.
Stuart Turley [00:06:16] I think there’s huge profitability potential for carbon capture and still get into that ESG market.
Jonathan Grammer [00:06:25] I agree. And I think what’s what we’re experiencing and probably will for the next year or two is finding out where the pendulum is going to settle.
Jonathan Grammer [00:06:34] How much of a renewable component do you want to have in your portfolio and in your energy infrastructure that’s appropriate for your objective, but also is economic and right to the same extent fossil fuels, to the same extent, carbon dioxide emissions?
Jonathan Grammer [00:06:52] None of them are going to be absolute they seem to be throttled with a great deal of momentum at periodic moments and then we have to let that momentum dissipate back down to find out how much of renewables, how much solar and wind do we need and do we want and that’s economic.
Jonathan Grammer [00:07:10] We can’t have an ESG motivated pendulum shift that’s completely anti fossil fuels,.
Stuart Turley [00:07:16] Right
Jonathan Grammer [00:07:17] Letting those pendulums kind of swing back and let the market really decide,.
Stuart Turley [00:07:20] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:07:21] How much is going to be sustainable and it’s only going to be sustainable, makes money. And it just.
Stuart Turley [00:07:30] You know, the the you had mentioned the IRA and the Inflation Reduction Act, the amount of money that’s printed to do windmills and do solar and everything else.
Stuart Turley [00:07:44] It’s just amazing to see that that you and I had been talking even a little bit last week and we’re talking about the changes in the entire industry you know, we were talking about some of the fun things there. What are you seeing coming around in the industry? Jonathan.
Jonathan Grammer [00:08:01] You’re talking about in the in the oil in the in the renewable space.
Stuart Turley [00:08:07] Whatever you and I were talking about last week, I mean, it was a.
Jonathan Grammer [00:08:10] Winner on the phone. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. You know, and it was a good point and we talked about one of the things that I try to really focus on bringing is not necessarily opinions, but observations. I get.
Stuart Turley [00:08:23] Yes,.
Jonathan Grammer [00:08:24] It’s very difficult to formulate one’s position if you’re following only those things that you see on the on the Internet and usually my observations and all of our observations are very different and I’ve seen a lot of stories about.
Jonathan Grammer [00:08:41] Renewable projects that are not getting built, renewable projects and are not getting funded. I’ve seen the same thing about oil and gas development as well.
Jonathan Grammer [00:08:50] I will tell you our our oil and gas component of one of our other companies, as we talked about for grammar, land and exploration has been consumed with oil and gas work interpreting mineral estates and working interest is all going on.
Jonathan Grammer [00:09:08] Underneath solar farm province and the Permian Basin region and a lot of large scale solar projects are moving into the reaches of West Texas and eastern Mexico,.
Stuart Turley [00:09:20] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:09:21] In areas that are currently. Under existing production and are and are also slated for future production and the arrangements, the surface use arrangements that have to be negotiated between not only the mineral owners who have a stake in the surface at stake,.
Jonathan Grammer [00:09:41] But also the lessees that have, you know, operator and lease rights associated is what we’re working on, is identifying who the operators are, who the mineral mineral owners are, so that solar companies and oil and gas operators and rightsholders can work out appropriate use of the surface.
Stuart Turley [00:10:02] That’s got to be complex.Jonarthan
Jonathan Grammer [00:10:03] Extremely complex, extremely complex for a variety of reasons, not necessarily because mineral estates and working at estates can be very complicated.
Jonathan Grammer [00:10:16] But also once you’ve identified the different rocks that are colliding or unifying in a particular piece of property, you’re also bringing together two industries that are politically adverse to each other and in a large part seem to be in conflict with each other.
Stuart Turley [00:10:33] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:10:33] And so the real difficult, complicated component is trying to find out where the common ground is between two people and two industries that are approaching a scenario already neither one of them really wanting each other to be in this space.
Jonathan Grammer [00:10:49] And what we’re finding out is there are is the stranded energy synergy, I guess, is solar may be something that the fossil fuel industry is adverse to. But in the deep regions of West Texas and New Mexico, they have a transmission problem getting electrical power out there so we can carve out a certain mega wattage for their use to develop it, to continue to run their oil and gas hardware.
Stuart Turley [00:11:16] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:11:16] That seems to be catalyst to get some of these discussions going.
Stuart Turley [00:11:20] Holy smokes. You know, I’m sitting here thinking of Chris right over there, Liberty for one of the best CEOs on the planet.
Stuart Turley [00:11:28] I’ve always had a saying that a good CEO in there and you get good numbers, good numbers, good CEOs and Chris Right. I’ve had the fortune of getting a chat with him and he’s got the electric fleet in there and he’s got you know, he’s really he’s taken the ESG to heart, but he looks at it from a humanist, humanistic you know, how can low cost energy take elevate humanity out of poverty?
Stuart Turley [00:11:59] Jonathan, you just nailed on something that it’s been troublesome in that whole area out there, and that is the transmission.
Stuart Turley [00:12:09] But think about it, a fracflie , that’s electric. All electric fracflie takes power. So how can a you know, you get it run diesel generators out there to run of electrics fracflie , this is perfect.
Jonathan Grammer [00:12:29] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:12:31] I mean, wow. That that, you know, that is combining that’s a good resource you brought up the great point because that equipment is not it needs substantial power I mean, and then by the time you build an energy storage facility out there that is extremely expensive and guess who pays that one? The consumers.
Jonathan Grammer [00:12:57] Right. And we’ve talked about this before. You know, we need to frame up these conversations appropriately before we we start to. But I don’t mean necessarily you and I with the energy conversation and I and fortunately, I think framing up a conversation correctly to make progress,.
Jonathan Grammer [00:13:19] Something we seem to be struggling with in society right now. I think we like to talk a lot about a lot out of motion and we like to talk a lot out of our political lobby.
Stuart Turley [00:13:28] Right
Jonathan Grammer [00:13:28] But before you begin a conversation, it’s deciding, okay, what is the actual landscape? And you said something just a moment ago to think about this, and that is it requires a tremendous amount of power to run a fraction of frightfully.
Stuart Turley [00:13:45] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:13:45] It it’s requiring a tremendous amount of power to do just about everything that we’re doing from this point forward, certainly in the state of Texas and I always want to remind people that are listening that I certainly don’t and I don’t think anybody needs to be leveraging for one particular energy source over another.
Jonathan Grammer [00:14:07] I think that’s a really unfortunate component of the conversation, is where do they all meet together? Everybody’s got an economic component to their energy source. That’s not good,.
Stuart Turley [00:14:19] Right
Jonathan Grammer [00:14:19] It’s got a tax component that incentivizes. It’s got a risk component. It’s really finding where the middle ground exists in all of these things appropriately meet together and this is what we’re having to do where we actually have joint clients we represent oil and gas operators, and we also have people that we’re doing it for solar, trying to find out where that balance is going to exist rather than trying to push each other off, literally off the landscape.
Stuart Turley [00:14:48] You know, I’m going to sidetrack for half a second because this is such a fantastic conversation, Jonathan.
Stuart Turley [00:14:55] Deborah Wall and she is the CEO of Green Lilly and Green Lilly is a ESG power company. They can take waste, they can take anything, and they are a European company that has also come into the U.S. in the U.S. company.
Stuart Turley [00:15:15] They’re working with cities that are working with everything else in all of their waste to fossil fuel is ESG. I mean, they can make ethanol, they can make diesel, they can make anything using advanced technology. But it’s also it’s not demonizing the fossil fuels because it’s a way to make it. You know,.
Stuart Turley [00:15:40] Right now, biodiesel and ethanol are more expensive to make because it takes more to cook it. But using technology, it just is a waste. I think we ought to ban ethanol, if you want my honest opinion, because it’s such a horrible product and engines take more energy and everything else.
[00:16:03] And Deborah is just like your podcast. Her podcast went nuts as well to people want to hear that story of ESG, invest in energy, low cost energy without subsidies. Jonathan, you nailed it. You absolutely nailed it.
Stuart Turley [00:16:25] If you can’t make money to deliver low cost, the lowest cost kilowatt per hour to the consumers, this is like with the least amount of impact on the environment. It’s kind of a worthless conversation. But this education is important.
Jonathan Grammer [00:16:43] Right? Right. And, you know, the objective is to do not the objective is to make this work long term and. And so, you know, as much as we probably like to talk about maybe more philosophical momentum, it’s easy to attach larger social issues to an initiative.
Jonathan Grammer [00:17:07] You’ve got to start with the economics. And you really have. You really do. And it’s not a very popular topic to talk about it that way, but it should be certainly if you want things to last long term and you’re relying heavily on some sort of tax incentive, it just begs the question, you know, what is in fact, are your economics there to begin with? It doesn’t necessarily conclude that they’re not.
Stuart Turley [00:17:35] Right,.
Jonathan Grammer [00:17:35] But it certainly can work to take away that economic conversation that you have to start with is what is your law? How do you make this make money long term?
Stuart Turley [00:17:43] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:17:44] That is the problem. That’s the growing pains with ESG, Right. Is finding out, yeah, I think you’ve got a good product. I think you really do. It makes a lot of sense. It’s great technology.
Jonathan Grammer [00:17:55] But before we get there, we really have to analyze the economic impact of the market that you’re stepping into. Is the market ready? Is it by right now is the time?
Stuart Turley [00:18:06] When you’re out there taking a look at these big projects. Jonathan And you’re one of the things I really like about interacting with you and having fun is you’ve got your in my case, since I went to Oklahoma State University. Head to the ground or head to the pavement means I usually get in a gravel in my forehead well, I’m you know, I’m not as smart as those.
Stuart Turley [00:18:31] But you’re hearing things out there. Where do you think the oil and gas industry is going or the energy going? What are you hearing from other CEOs? I mean, what do you think the biggest trend is right now?
Jonathan Grammer [00:18:48] Carbon capture is the biggest trend right now, and that’s decarbonization, I guess I should say, not necessarily carbon capture, but we represent work with a lot of different types of energy clients. And whether it’s it’s a utility company that ours there provides their product from natural gas or coal, whether it’s an oil or gas company that drills in the able for operators in the mid con,.
Jonathan Grammer [00:19:15] Everybody seems to be talking about decarbonization. And so to call it a trend, a movement, I do believe maybe it’s dissipating a little bit is some of the more economic issues.
Stuart Turley [00:19:28] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:19:29] Come to the forefront, which is true of any emerging market you know happened to me. I’m not making it an overstatement and comparing it to the US space program. But when that got off the ground, it had a lot of lofty political and patriotic initiatives and found out very quickly it’s going to be really expensive and a lot of problems started getting ultimately we were successful.
Jonathan Grammer [00:19:50] Decarbonization will be is the exact same. We’re taking a lot of now in technology that’s never really been implemented in a market before to see what will work, what won’t, what’s possible and when.
Stuart Turley [00:20:03] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:20:03] So the answer your question that that’s probably still the number one trend is is decarbonization still what I’m seeing though from oil and gas.
Stuart Turley [00:20:15] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:20:16] Based on my own observations are an increase in midsized operators in the Northern Eagle. And that’s only because we’re doing a lot of work in carbon sequestration, Southeast San Antonio, South Texas, and have encountered quite a bit of new drilling activity in that sort of Austin Jaguar Eagle Ford formation, which surprised me. If you followed the narrative on social media, I was on that oil and gas.
Jonathan Grammer [00:20:46] We pretty much shut down for various different types of reasons, but there seems to be a great deal of activity in that southeast Texas region oil, because that’s that’s where I’m currently working right now.
Stuart Turley [00:20:59] Well, you know, you got to go where the money is. But yeah, know, with the Freeport LNG area coming up, are you over in the Haynesville that far over in the Southwest or no. The Eagle Ford is in more in the middle. It’s not nearly in the Haynesville.
Jonathan Grammer [00:21:14] Not no further south. So yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:21:17] Yeah. The boy with Freeport coming back on line, do you have any take away that heads into that area. If I’m not sure if I can’t remember which hub they’re using but Freeport and a lot of Bcf coming out of that thing to go to island.
Jonathan Grammer [00:21:35] Yeah. No I really don’t. Not specifically to Freeport Freeport. I will tell you I’m a huge natural gas fan. I mean, I think residential is enormous and. And. It’s so enormous that I really couldn’t tell you where the limits might be. I never thought I would say that ten years ago, that we’d be talking about such a focus and elimination of natural gas future.
Jonathan Grammer [00:22:03] But I think where a lot of the issues that are born out of the renewable discussion and a lot of the conversation that’s borne out of decarbonization, the reliability that’s going to be necessary, the amount of storage of reliable energy that’s going to be required. I think natural gas, certainly what we’ve seeing going on in the EU with Russia, in the Ukraine, I just think natural gas is probably poised to be the energy source of choice.
Stuart Turley [00:22:33] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:22:33] In the next 10 to 20 years and there’s still tons of it there’s tons of in Texas we know where it is. It’s easy to store, it’s easy to transmit we’ve got that and it just it starts rolling the dominoes off of my thought process,.
Stuart Turley [00:22:49] Right
Jonathan Grammer [00:22:50] When you start talking about natural gas.
Stuart Turley [00:22:53] You know, Jonathan, I think you’re at the the the key core that is an intersection that I really had been hoping for but hadn’t seen. And that’s why I get so excited about our conversation.
Jonathan Grammer [00:23:05] Right
Stuart Turley [00:23:06] The intersection between solar and oil is huge. The intersection between the fact that in COP26, I was the first one really to start coming. There was language buried in there that natural gas was going to be accepted because it has to be,.
Stuart Turley [00:23:24] You know, it’s the least amount of, you know, if you replace all of it and then, you know, get rid of the coal plants and then go through.
Stuart Turley [00:23:33] What’s happened over the last year with the energy crisis, coal’s gone through the roof and everybody’s burning coal again. It’d be a lot better if we were using natural gas.
Stuart Turley [00:23:45] And in Jonathan, the pipelines back east, they just put out this morning, I think it was yesterday or this morning, I saw the article and back east in New York City, the gas is hitting an all time high again because of all the cold weather and and everything else this morning. But for New York City in that area,.
Stuart Turley [00:24:08] They don’t have pipelines from the Marcellus and they’re having to use LNG off of the international market coming in to the Boston Harbor in order to do that. They’re not getting that low cost. We’re at 250 something on U.S. gas you know,.
Stuart Turley [00:24:27] They’re having to bring it in at a lot higher cost in Texas. We got pipelines. We got people that will say we need is a pipeline, we need is this. And and that to me makes your life a little easier with permitting on these projects, don’t it? Or do you just.
Jonathan Grammer [00:24:51] I don’t know. When I hear when I hear permeating reform again, there’s two places that I go. One is the school transmission and the other one is going to be is going to be carbon capture sequestration. Again, that’s just because those are the areas that I worry.
Jonathan Grammer [00:25:07] And those areas. Yes and I believe that for a long time we’ve done quite a bit of electrical transmission work in West Texas. They’re it’s takes it takes garlic. And, you know, if you’re going to continue to develop renewables, which I think the state of Texas has long committed itself, that’s where we have the potential and need to be pursuing that.
Jonathan Grammer [00:25:33] What’s holding back. A great deal of it is we don’t have adequate transmission. Transmission we have, which is highly statutory.
Stuart Turley [00:25:40] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:25:41] And the permitting process to build new lines is not, I think is probably one of the more efficient the country, but it takes entirely too long.
Stuart Turley [00:25:50] Correct.
Jonathan Grammer [00:25:50] Certainly the permitting process that’s going to be required for collapsed sequestration, underground storage of carbon dioxide in Texas as it exists right now.
Stuart Turley [00:26:00] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:26:01] Definitely. And I think a lot of that reform is actually going on right now, probably as we’re speaking.
Stuart Turley [00:26:07] Nice
Jonathan Grammer [00:26:07] The floor of the legislature at the state level in Austin.
Stuart Turley [00:26:11] Nice.
Jonathan Grammer [00:26:12] As far as the federal permitting reformation that I think has been incorporated, Some of that legislation, I don’t really know enough about the national infrastructure, need to know if permitting reform is is needed or not.
Jonathan Grammer [00:26:30] Certainly what I’ve seen of my work always use a little bit more streamlining to get things done. And so if we’re going to have, again, the momentum that follow, Gary, we’re we’re going to, I think, completely revamp our energy infrastructure using all these different safeguards and all these different energy sources and moving this power round.
Jonathan Grammer [00:26:52] We’re going to have to move a little bit faster than we have and that’s that’s going to need a little bit of regulatory boost given the other component that we’re dealing with in Texas that is relevant and that is a population explosion that just won’t stop.
Jonathan Grammer [00:27:09] We’re running power lines and pipelines through real estate that 15, ten years ago was was littered with cattle and now they’re little littered with subdivisions.
Jonathan Grammer [00:27:22] It’s really getting congested in the state of Texas whether that’s good or whether that’s bad, that’s a matter Opinion but in order to get transmission pipelines moving power, we need it to be in the next five years. I do believe we’re going to need some permitting expedite the permitting process.
Stuart Turley [00:27:43] Right.
Stuart Turley [00:27:44] You know, I love your point. You’re you’re being a little more politically correct. I would like to say all of the people moving into the state. We love you. Come on in. Leave your voting practices behind. I can’t be any more serious. You know, those voting practices are destroyed. California.
Jonathan Grammer [00:28:05] I’m with you. No, no, you don’t have to be it. Yeah, you’re right. No, I. I completely agree.
Stuart Turley [00:28:11] You know, And I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican If you’re not, I don’t either. You know, if this is a right or wrong discussion. But it does leave those those ideal ideologically. Never mind. Okay. I can’t even talk. I’m talking your cougar behind you is talking for, you know, better than I am.
Stuart Turley [00:28:31] For our podcast listeners. Our podcast listeners, you’re going to see I’m going to have a picture of John, a screenshot of Jonathan in there because Jonathan, I got so tickled. Not only are you an industry thought leader, people were dig in your your mountain lion behind you in your office. You know you’re sitting there. Yeah,.
Stuart Turley [00:28:52] He’s got a beautiful mountain lion. It looks like he’s just running down the road. Tell us the story again for that mountain lion.
Jonathan Grammer [00:29:01] Absolutely I will. It it’s it’s it is it’s a it’s a faux pas, if you want to call it that. It’s definitely a no no in the hunting and taxidermy world. I think to display an animal that you didn’t take yourself and I can’t move my camera around.
Jonathan Grammer [00:29:21] My office has got several white tailed deer and turkeys and rattlesnakes and things that I’ve shot or the big outdoorsman I’ll sandwich a lot of really enjoy hunting in the outdoors of Texas. But this is the last exception and anybody who’s known me in the business over the last 18 years has seen this cougar and in fact, anybody who’s ever been night we used to exhibit down there and we took this cougar with us for the very reason that I bought it from a collector who had got it off of a rancher that was on King Ranch.
[00:29:55] And I it has been killed by lightning. And the side profile picture, which you can’t see, it’s got a burn mark that goes from the front left to the rear right paw. It’s a female is. I displayed it in front window of my business when I opened it up in West Texas. I didn’t know about it.
Stuart Turley [00:30:12] Right.
Jonathan Grammer [00:30:13] I didn’t know any particular writers did know anybody in the gas industry. And so I thought the best way to get people to stop and introduce and sell was to stick a mountain lion in the window killed by lightning.
[00:30:26] And I had. And then when we started traveling. Going to trade shows. Nate was one in particular. We would take it with us and set it on a table in front of our booths and people would stop and ask questions, much in the same way that you did here almost 20 years later.
Jonathan Grammer [00:30:44] And now it sits in this window right here. My kids have enjoyed playing with it over the years and in a way it’s kind of become the grammar and the exploration for us carbon capture in several businesses. It’s become the mascot.
Stuart Turley [00:31:01] That is Cool.
Jonathan Grammer [00:31:01] And to add to your point, previously, I have never taken a shot, but I have seen many a in my life and I’ve heard all of it in the middle of the back of my line as well. And they are, they penetrate too.
Stuart Turley [00:31:18] So in fact, I was out last night. In full disclosure, I’m up here, we call it Bear Country, because we had an overpopulation of bears and we’ve over the last 25 years, we’ve seen the mountain lions. 15, 20 times.
Stuart Turley [00:31:35] And I had one pretty name, if anybody’s ever heard. There’s two things in life you really get a little nervous about, and that’s the freight train of a tornado. There was 2 of them here and then the scream of a mountain lion.
Stuart Turley [00:31:50] So that scream of a mountain lion kind of got both of my hairs on the back of my head up last night when I heard that.
Jonathan Grammer [00:31:56] There’s no mistaking when you hear the challenger.
Stuart Turley [00:32:00] And it’s kind of like it’s worse than my ex-wife. So, Jonathan, what’s next for you in you has carbon capture coming around the corner?
Jonathan Grammer [00:32:11] Well, I think Q1 of 23. I’m on a plane to Houston this week, as a matter of fact. Easier question. A lot of the projects that we looked at right before during the passage of the I.R.A.,.
Stuart Turley [00:32:33] Right,.
Jonathan Grammer [00:32:34] Where people were still scratching their chance. A lot of internal policy still being formulated about how to implement carbon capture. We’ve known about the technology for a long time, but a lot of this just showed up, even for your larger government still formulating their plans. Looking at the economics,.
Jonathan Grammer [00:32:53] I think is now that 2023 budgets have now been approved as much January and I think what we’re seeing at our office is we’re ready to open up the checkbooks and start a little bit more work than we did last year when we visited.
Jonathan Grammer [00:33:08] So I think we’re starting to see momentum thankfully, dissipate from the I.R.A. It’s kind of a frenzy. We’re all over the place. It’s all News, and now it’s a little bit more of a practical and more digestible discussion about carbon capture.
Jonathan Grammer [00:33:28] I cannot talk about it, though, without mentioning what I think is getting a little bit more attention and I think what has slowed down a little bit of the momentum that that started after the Reduction Act was passed is the same companies that were talking about decarbonization and ESG this time last year are now talking about layoffs and potential recession.
Jonathan Grammer [00:33:50] Whether or not those things happen or not, we can’t really talk about any market, whether it’s real estate or movie production or auto sales, without talking about the rumblings of a potential recession and second quarter of 23 or maybe Q3 and.
Jonathan Grammer [00:34:07] Whether or not that happens and you’re starting to see The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Microsoft laid off 10,000 it’s going to this year.
Jonathan Grammer [00:34:13] What impact are we going to see from elevated interest rates? Is it going to slow down the economy too much?
Jonathan Grammer [00:34:20] So that’s that obviously is influencing conversations about carbon capture and storage, but it just about everything else as well.
Stuart Turley [00:34:28] You know, I’m sitting here, this whole marriage between and the oil, solar and everything else you just nailed. And I got it in my head. Kind of turn in here for a second. I know we’re just about out of time, but yeah,.
Stuart Turley [00:34:48] 1031 exchanges. I have tons of people asking about 1031 exchanges to get out of an exchange of a big property, oil and gas excuse me, a multi-family home, an apartment complex.
Jonathan Grammer [00:35:02] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:35:02] It would be so interesting to see about those 1031 exchanges into your royalties and looking at those royalty projects from a standpoint of helping out the housing bubble that I believe is coming around the corner.
Stuart Turley [00:35:18] And for the real estate and then going into this perfect marriage of solar royalties in oil and gas. Holy smokes, that just I just had an epiphany here, if you would.
Jonathan Grammer [00:35:32] Yeah. It’s an outstanding. You know, 1031 you’re the first person that’s really brought that up and I think that would, again, not one of your more exciting topics of conversation, but I think one or you’re more value. Mechanisms that exist, as are 1031 exchanges.
Jonathan Grammer [00:35:53] And I don’t think a lot of people understand the relationship that with oil and gas or oil, you talk about 1031 exchanges usually. So real estate transactions.
Stuart Turley [00:36:01] Exactly.
Jonathan Grammer [00:36:01] But there is an interesting crossover, as you mentioned.
Stuart Turley [00:36:05] And I’m sitting there, I’m talking to several very, extremely large investors and this whole thing is just Jonathan really spurred a whole thing rolling in my head. So.
Stuart Turley [00:36:18] Being able to visit with industry thought leaders is one of the biggest joys I have as a podcast host. So, Jonathan, thank you for stopping by and I’ve already got a few more things.
Stuart Turley [00:36:29] I’ve got a ESG panel of how ESG interacts with oil and gas and so your your topics just really accelerated that coming in a little bit sooner. So I’m going to extend the offer for you to be on that panel because you bring some great thought leadership into this thing. So thank you. And one last thing. How do people get a hold of you?
Jonathan Grammer [00:36:58] You can go to either one of our website which is the US carbon captures USdeskccs.com and the grammar land and explorations grammarland.com That so there’s contact submission forms and all our information on website.
Stuart Turley [00:37:11] Sounds right.
Stuart Turley [00:37:12] Those will all be in the show notes and down on the house. See you soon.
Jonathan Grammer [00:37:16] All right. Appreciate the conversations do I was giving to.