Energy Realities #100 – Net Zero Challenges

Highlights of the Podcast:

00:55 – What’s happening with the farmer protests
03:37 – The insider trading information
09:42 – The possible candidates for NATO
11:29 – The two-party system
14:18 – The premier of Alberta and the premier of Saskatchewan
16:19 – Expansion of the Tesla Gigafactory
18:44 – The biggest obstacle to net zero
20:09 – About net zero
21:46 – AXA IM to vote against companies lobbying against climate goals
23:32 – Environment Canada seeking climate-altering technology that blocks the sun
26:12 – EV charging void has drivers trying new routes to power up
28:12 – The EU industry calls for green shift help to rival China and the US
30:50 – EV Companies
36:54 – Climate advice columnist
41:37 – Democrats pushed climate action. Then utility bills skyrocketed
44:25 – Chicago sues Oil companies for causing climate change, points to 1995 heat wave
47:54 – CNN’s attempt to smear India for purchasing Russian oil fell flat

 

 

The Podcast Hosts for The Energy Transition

 

 

Energy Realities #100 – Net Zero Challenges

 

Stuart Turley [00:00:02] Alright. We are live.

Irina Slav [00:00:04] Yeah. We’re live. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening everyone. This is the Energy Realities podcast with David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, Stu Turley and me. Irina Slav. And today we’re discussing the challenges, to net zero. There isn’t a shortage of those, and it seems like they’re multiplying by the day. Let’s start with you. Tammy, what do you think are the biggest obstacles on the road to hell? I mean. Heaven. Net zero heaven. Sorry.

Tammy Nemeth [00:00:40] Oh, there’s there there’s so. Many, it’s hard to choose. I think the biggest one. And maybe it hasn’t got as much play in the United States as it has over here to Europe. I think it’s the reaction of the people. And if you look at what’s happening with the farmer protests that are ongoing and I guess, Emmanuel Macron showed up at a French, agricultural show and the farmers were all chanting against him, and he’s like, oh, I’m it’s okay. I’m looking out for you. We’re going to do maybe a minimum price for agricultural goods and all this kind of thing. But what they’re what they’re failing to at least put out in the news, is that the reason why the farmers are angry is that the Common Agricultural Program in the European Union paid farmers to farm, basically, and there’s a system of subsidies and so on. But now, in order to get that money, farmers have to prove that they’re, being sustainable. And there’s a whole bunch of green measures they have to prove they’re doing in order to qualify for the money they used to get for just farming. And so the farmers are like, oh my gosh, we have to fill out all this paperwork. How do we confirm to you, EU bureaucrat, that we’re actually doing all these different things? We need certification and all this. And that’s just to get paid the money that you would normally have gotten. And so the farmers are like, Holy crap, we can’t do this. We can’t afford this red tape. And how are we going to to implement all of these green measures? And that’s what the protests are really about. But you don’t hear that. Instead it’s like, oh, we’re going to double down and, be more sustainable in agriculture and so on and so forth. And so I think once people start to wake up that these policies will reduce the food supply, it’ll make your groceries more expensive, it’ll make fuel more expensive, which makes everything more expensive. Then people will get upset, unfortunately. And I have to give a shout out to Tom Nelson’s podcast because he was talking to Rupert Dahl the other day, and Rupert was going on about how it’s not like the politicians don’t have this information about the challenges, whether it’s minerals or farming or fuel and all these different kinds of stuff. They’re just choosing not to listen. They’re choosing not to pay it. To me, the biggest challenge, because it’s a road to disaster for people, because the cost of living goes crazy.

Irina Slav [00:03:14] Why would they make a conscious choice to not listen, to not take into account these considerations? You know, David.

David Blackmon [00:03:24] Well, because they’re, being rewarded for doing so in one way or another, some form of fashion, and that’s that corruption. Well, you know, in the US Congress, it’s, the insider trading information. That’s that’s quite obvious, a big racket in the US Congress. And, you know, you get promised, board seats, very lucrative positions on corporate boards when you leave the Congress, if you do certain things and vote a certain way. And it’s all about making money and setting themselves up for an easy retirement after they’ve served 3 or 4 terms. It’s why, you see, now, 20 years ago, the US Congress people held on two seats in the House of Representatives for as long as they could. They never wanted to leave. You wanted to get to at least ten terms and 20 years in Congress so that you would retire from full retirement benefits. Congressional retirement benefits today. Congressional retirement benefits are chicken feet compared to what these people can make with insider trading deals, lucrative real estate propositions that come their way for voting a certain way on certain issues. And of course, the, you know, being being paid several hundred thousand dollars a year to sit on a corporate board and work 8 or 10 days a year. And so, you know, it’s not about that anymore. It’s why we see every election cycle now, 30 or 40 incumbent members of Congress voluntarily giving up their seats, many of them leaving their seats before their term is up. You know, in order to go cash in on the deals they’ve made, in exchange for votes and supporting certain positions on bills, everything is corrupt now. The whole process is corrupt. And that’s why you see these people, you know, voting ways that seem very odd to you, in terms of how they promised to govern when they ran for office. This and very inconsistent with the supposed party philosophy in the party that they’re members of the whole proposition value proposition of being a member of Congress has changed. And I’m sure it’s the same way at the EU, being a member of the, European Commission or being a member of parliament in most European countries. The whole process has been corrupted to push these policies when these people know better. You catch these members of Congress, particularly Republicans, in private times, and have a conversation with them about it. They say all the right things. They understand that these policies are all terrible for the average person in the country, but they have all kinds of bad incentives to support these policies. And, you know, it’s it’s mainly about personal enrichment and taking care of their own families as everything goes to hell around them.

Irina Slav [00:06:21] Yeah. But when it goes to hell around them, it will go to hell for them, too.

Tammy Nemeth [00:06:26] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

David Blackmon [00:06:27] I mean, I think there’s a general lack of it. Yeah. They think they’re going to be allowed to become part of the big club, right? The elite big club, when in reality, you know, they’re they’re going to make a few million dollars and be forgotten about as soon as they leave the Congress.

Irina Slav [00:06:43] So the things that will be insulated. But they won’t.

David Blackmon [00:06:46] They won’t be.

Irina Slav [00:06:47] Loaded. I don’t think that will be insulated either. I think that think of themselves as, you know, the the elite, the chosen ones, as was it John Kerry who calls himself and the rest of them, the chosen ones,.

David Blackmon [00:07:01] The chosen ones. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:07:03] They’ll just go and hide in a bunker somewhere and they’ll have all the food they need, because they’ll be able to afford it while we stuff and die on the streets. But this is not how revolutions work. And if they keep going this way, as Tammy said, I think people people are already starting to wake up to the reality because, I’m sure you’ve seen all the polls that say, you know, people very much care about the environment and about, climate change. But when you ask them to make specific sacrifices for net zero, they stop caring this much. Do you care about the environment, too?

Stuart Turley [00:07:42] Absolutely. But, you know, when you sit back and take a look, I get all worked up and I have to give a shout out to Thomas Step Stone. He has a Substack that went out. So any cool? Yeah. It’s great. In fact, I’d love to get him on the the the realities here, so we’ll get him on. What is the heck? What the heck is Ukraine really about? And it’s about Kerry stepson. And it goes into the hypocrisy that we’re all talking about about Heinz, about, all this kind of stuff. This is a beautiful article, and I’ll make sure that, the team puts it in the show notes on this thing when it goes out, the secret empires. And when the bad goes bad, they’re going to throw you out with the bathwater. It’s not going to happen. And I. And, Tammy, Rupert, Narwal, I reached out to him to interview him as well to a while ago. So I’m going to reach back out. I love the, topics that you were talking about with him. He’s cool. Get.

Tammy Nemeth [00:08:51] Yeah. He’s he’s really knowledgeable. He’s written, you know, green tyranny and, another book about the whole history of the climate movement and its intersection with the politics and this path to net zero that that’s that’s evolved, I suppose.

Stuart Turley [00:09:08] One of them came out, I.

Tammy Nemeth [00:09:09] Want. I wanted to point out to I wanted to point out to Irina and David, you know, and used to Mark Rutter, who lost, you know, in Holland, he’s still the leader, technically, but, you know, his party lost in the elections and so on. But he’s doing a soft landing because they’re talking him up to be the new head of NATO. So.

David Blackmon [00:09:32] Of course.

Irina Slav [00:09:33] That’s because there’s so often the lion is, in a second term as easy president. Yeah, yeah. I heard she was one of the possible candidates for NATO, but, yes. Probably busy campaigning for a second term as president to do.

David Blackmon [00:09:49] Well, I mean, yeah. And isn’t that the same thing that happened with the Pope’s guys named Timmerman? Who was the former head?

Tammy Nemeth [00:09:57] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:09:57] Who suddenly becomes, president of Poland and a very.

Tammy Nemeth [00:10:02] So. He’s Dutch, and he took over the leadership of the Left Alliance in Holland at the.

David Blackmon [00:10:10] just took over as president of Poland. Who was.

Tammy Nemeth [00:10:12] Donald Tusk.

Irina Slav [00:10:14] Tusk.

David Blackmon [00:10:15] Tusk. Okay. Yeah. I mean,

Irina Slav [00:10:18] you know, before. He’s back in power now.

David Blackmon [00:10:20] Yeah

Tammy Nemeth [00:10:20]  yeah. But I mean, with Timmermans, he could very well end up being the leader of Holland because Gert Wilders can’t form a coalition. So then it’ll be like Poland, where you have these parties that came in second, third and fourth who all get together and suddenly they’re running the show. Yeah. And even though people didn’t, you know, the more seats went to the other party, but the other party is considered toxic or whatever, and then nobody wants to form a coalition. I mean, that that’s one of the benefits, I think, of first past the post and only two parties, which has its own problems.

Irina Slav [00:10:55] Because it’s really outrageous in Bulgaria. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the the two parties that formed the coalition were campaigning against each other in the run up to the elections. Yes.

Stuart Turley [00:11:09] Really?

Irina Slav [00:11:10] Yes, really. Wow. Imagine how many voters got stung. They got lied to, and then they pretended it didn’t have. It was necessary to have a regular government. No. It wasn’t. No. This way. Well, corruption, as David, very aptly.

David Blackmon [00:11:28] And the two party system doesn’t really insulate you from that. I mean, we’re already seeing now articles in publications, Democratic leaning publications like The Atlantic, New York Times, Washington Post, Setting the Stage, and the rationale for a Democrat majority in Congress, assuming the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives, refusing to certify a Donald Trump victory next January in the Electoral College. Because Donald Trump led this fictional insurrection in 2021 that they have, you know, maintained this fiction for all these years now. You know, and so the two party system doesn’t really insulates you from that. If you as long as you have people who are audacious enough and willing to corrupt and ignore the institutions that have formed this country and govern this country for ever. As long as you have a political party that’s willing to simply I mean, we just saw Joe Biden brag about ignoring an order from the Supreme Court on student loans last week. I mean, they brag about it. So as long as you have it, when you have a political party that’s willing to just discard everything and a Justice Department that refuses to enforce the law. Yeah, you can you know, the two party system doesn’t really insulate you from the same thing. Problem is, you end up with a parliamentary system.

Tammy Nemeth [00:13:00] Yeah, it’s still corruption, right. Because they’re they’ll they’ll enforce the law against, people they want. You know, it’s two tiered justice. And so, it’s the erosion of the democratic values. Right. And I think part of the thing with net zero is that that too, is an erosion of democratic values. People say they don’t really want it. They they say, why aren’t you looking at the engineering studies that say, we don’t have enough minerals to do what you think we need to do? And all these different kinds of things. And so then I think that creates this idea that democracy’s failing. And you see that a lot coming up in the news that, oh, democracies in question, democracies not working. Capitalism’s the problem. It’s like, well, no it isn’t. Capitalism’s fine. Democracy can be fine. It’s the people that are running this show who are choosing not to be democratic and choosing not to follow the so-called capitalist system we’re supposed to be under, but haven’t really been for ages. So.

Irina Slav [00:14:01] Yeah,.

David Blackmon [00:14:02] I’ve been.

Irina Slav [00:14:03] Ignoring all these challenges. They’re ignoring all the all the problems.

David Blackmon [00:14:07] Right?

Irina Slav [00:14:08] How long can this continue, I wonder?

Tammy Nemeth [00:14:12] I don’t know. Good question. I mean, but so, you know, in Canada, they were saying that the premier of Alberta and the premier of Saskatchewan were being lawless because they were saying these are these resources are our constitutional jurisdiction, and we’re going to keep the power plants going because we have an obligation to our citizens, and it’s within our rights in the Constitution to do it. And Trudeau and his, his environment minister, Stephen, people were saying, well, you’re being lawless, you’re being lawless. And and then you have the case that you’re talking about, David, where here you have the left being completely lawless and bragging about it. Right. And so I find it interesting that there are they accused Donald Trump of having incited an insurrection, but isn’t it an insurrection to not certify the results of a duly elected candidate?

David Blackmon [00:15:09] Of course it is. Yeah. But I mean, they they engage in projection like that all the time where they.

Tammy Nemeth [00:15:14] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:15:15] You know, they they’re being accused of acting in a certain way and they accuse their opponents of. Being the ones who are really doing it in order to deflect attention from their own malpractice. And when you when you own 98% of the news media, you can get away with that, which is the case with the Democrats in the United States. I assume it’s probably that way with Trudeau’s party in Canada as well.

Tammy Nemeth [00:15:40] Well, they pay the media thanks. They support it.

David Blackmon [00:15:42] Yeah, they actually funded the media, which Congress wanted to do through the IRA. And luckily that language got stripped out of the IRA.

Irina Slav [00:15:49] But all that was financed by the same people as the media.

David Blackmon [00:15:53] Right?

Tammy Nemeth [00:15:53] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:15:54] Yeah. And it’s basically, they’re making it official that there’s a double standard, each one standard for us because we’re the good guys and there’s not a standard for the bad guys and the bad guys. The ones we say, the bad guys. Thanks for clearing this recent example about, those those citizens of a town near Berlin who voted against an expansion of the Tesla Gigafactory because it would involve clearing. What was it, a hundred acres of forests. And people were against it. And it’s it’s just the latest example of these double standards. Deforestation is very, very bad. But if we’re expanding a Gigafactory for EVs, that is why it’s necessary. And no, 90 from from the government. And that’s why these these challenges we mentioned are not going to go away. They’re only going to get worse.

Tammy Nemeth [00:16:54] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:16:54] Well, we’re going to see.

Tammy Nemeth [00:16:57] Something similar happened where there’s the government is funding these these big EV battery factories. And there was one in Quebec where they would have to, you know, destroy a bunch of forest. And it’s not like Canada’s lacking forests, to be honest. To be fair. Kind of. It’s true. We’d have we’d have to cut down a whole bunch of, forest area in order to build this, this battery plant. And the environmental groups got a court injunction to stop the building of the battery plant while they do an environmental impact assessment on, you know, cutting down the trees that. So, like you said, it’s a it’s a bit of a double standard where the government wants they say they want people to stop cutting down trees, but then they’ll do it for EV factories.

Irina Slav [00:17:42] And yeah, but it’s good that the environmentalists stepped in because some environmentalists don’t care about this. You know, they say it’s good to cut down trees if it’s for. A good purpose, such as a Navy factory or whatever, or a wind farm. But at least these environmentally are the right kind. That they protect nature as it is.

Tammy Nemeth [00:18:06]  yeah.

David Blackmon [00:18:07] Stu, you’re trying to get in a minute ago.

Tammy Nemeth [00:18:10] Sorry.

Stuart Turley [00:18:10] I’m just having a lot of fun this morning. Guys, you guys are on a roll. I’m usually the one about left field. You guys are doing quite well without me. A good morning to Robert. I, I would really. Yes, yes. Don’t want to butcher his name. I saw him come rolling through.

David Blackmon [00:18:31] They. Dominico. I’m sorry, I said to Dominicos de Dominica. Sorry.

Stuart Turley [00:18:37] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:18:38] Morning.

Stuart Turley [00:18:39] And.

Irina Slav [00:18:40] It seems that it’s the oil and gas industry that’s the biggest obstacle to net zero. Don’t you think? Oh, yes. Oh, just the bill. And it is the biggest problem.

David Blackmon [00:18:55] Victor Garcia hits the nail on the head here. Net zero a wealthy elites dream.

Irina Slav [00:19:00] That’s the wealthy elites who have forgotten what it is to not take things for granted. Because they take everything for granted.

Tammy Nemeth [00:19:08] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:19:10] Be. Be happy because I tell you to. I think that’s like being a husband. right.

Tammy Nemeth [00:19:20] Isn’t that the thing? You’ll have nothing and be happy.

Stuart Turley [00:19:23] I think so.

David Blackmon [00:19:23] You will.

Irina Slav [00:19:26] If you really say this.

David Blackmon [00:19:28] Yes. He did. Absolutely. They say that.

Tammy Nemeth [00:19:33] 2016 28.

David Blackmon [00:19:37] Yeah. No, that was, Klaus Schwab. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:19:40] Peter just said, have you, malaise speech? Is that this one?

Irina Slav [00:19:47] Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:19:48] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:19:52] All right. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And in his speech at CPAC over the weekend, too. He made many of the same points.

Irina Slav [00:20:02] Okay. Shall we go to the headlines?

Stuart Turley [00:20:05] You bet. Let me show you what this is what I feel about net zero. And and I and we we have to. I visited with Gregory Wright Stone, several times in the CO2 coalition. So let’s just leave off the table whether CO2 is actually bad or not, because plants actually like it. And in Scotland, was it a couple of years ago, they had to pull 14 million trees down for their wind farms?

Tammy Nemeth [00:20:34] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:20:34] So

Tammy Nemeth [00:20:35] And Scotland doesn’t have a lot of trees.

Stuart Turley [00:20:37] No, I found that kind of amazing. But here we go, guys. This is the road to Nasty Road today only on the Energy Reality podcast.

David Blackmon [00:20:55] Wonder what the carbon footprint of that.

Irina Slav [00:20:56] It’s it’s probably is sabotage from the oil industry.

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:02] I’m sure it is. Yeah. And so yeah.

Irina Slav [00:21:05] I mean, you know, there’s they never, never get fire on them or somebody forgot to oil them.

Stuart Turley [00:21:12] Wait a minute.

Irina Slav [00:21:13] Won’t it.

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:14] Feels bad.

Stuart Turley [00:21:16] This is the Biden administration calling for Irina Slav. They need a new press secretary, and they want it.

Irina Slav [00:21:22] Oh Come on.

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:26] Maybe it was a kamikaze bird.

Stuart Turley [00:21:30] A bird strike.

Irina Slav [00:21:31] A climate denier. Birds?

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:33] Yeah. For sure.

Stuart Turley [00:21:35] Okay, so are we doing the stories now?

Irina Slav [00:21:37] Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:38] Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:21:39] Okay. Who’s the first victim?

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:41] Okay, so these are my stories. And, the first one is AXA investment managers are going to vote against companies that lobby against climate goals. And I found this really interesting because basically if a company. Says, okay, you know what? We’re going to have it. We have a net zero plan. We’re planning for 2050, and this is our process for getting there. But then the government changes the goalposts and says, no, no, no, no, we want you to do it until 2035. If the company then lobbies the government to say, you know, but we have this other plan for 2050, and you said that was the original goal. So we would like to continue moving towards 2050. Axa would vote against them because that would be considered lobbying against climate goals. And they the way it’s worded, it’s very vague. So that you get this, the power of these institutional investors to be telling companies you cannot lobby for your best interests and the interests of your shareholders if it goes against whatever arbitrary climate goals are being set by governments. So that is extremely problematic. And and one of the the things in Canada is that there’s actually a bill before the Canadian Senate was introduced by a very radical senator, and it seeks to put that into law that will basically ban companies from lobbying against any climate goals. And if a company is found to be lobbying against it, they would be there would be fines. And therefore you couldn’t have board members who lobby in this kind of thing. So, I mean, it’s really terrible. And then the second headline there says Environment Canada is seeking climate altering technology that blocks the sun. And so Environment Canada has actually cut down the number of. Weather stations that they fund in Canada. So they’ve closed weather stations down. They’ve cut the funding for weather stations, but now they’re they they’re investing in research to put chemicals in the sky to block the sun. And go wrong. I just, I just what could go wrong. Right?

Irina Slav [00:24:06] Nothing.

Tammy Nemeth [00:24:07] So it’s, you know, for one, if they’re mad about CO2, they’re mad about methane, both of which are naturally occurring and actually help, trees grow and plants grow and so on and so forth. But now they want to fund research into putting other particles into the sky that, that could actually, could potentially be devastating. So.

Irina Slav [00:24:31] But those will be good particles because the goal is noble. We’ll have these double again. The double standards.

David Blackmon [00:24:39] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:24:40] Irina, I still think you would make a much better press secretary for the president of the United States than what we have. Well done. Way to say it. Great job.

Tammy Nemeth [00:24:50] Yeah. Good job.

Irina Slav [00:24:51] Stu the neighbors. Ten year old grandson will make a better. Play than the. Person currently in this position. Honestly, this is. I’m so sorry for you guys. I’m so sorry this is happening in your country. Honestly,

Stuart Turley [00:25:08]  I didn’t vote for.

Irina Slav [00:25:12] Yeah, well, but she is still a government employee. You know, of your friends pay for it.

Tammy Nemeth [00:25:19] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:25:20] Yeah. You pay her salary.

Stuart Turley [00:25:23] Repeatedly.

Tammy Nemeth [00:25:24] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:25:24] We thought. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:25:27] All right.

Irina Slav [00:25:29] Who’s next.

David Blackmon [00:25:30] Who’s up next. Oh.  Wait wait wait. That was a good point. anagrams.

Irina Slav [00:25:38] Playing with letters.

David Blackmon [00:25:41] Net Zero anagrams to eroz ten. Sort of like erase one of ten decimate. And it’s followed by that summation was Roman military punishment practice of killing every soldier.

Tammy Nemeth [00:25:53] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:25:54] Well it’s a good thing there’s only four of us today.

David Blackmon [00:26:00] We’re not. We don’t qualify yet. Right?

Stuart Turley [00:26:01] You know. Qualify.

David Blackmon [00:26:04] Oh, my goodness, that’s hilarious. Thank you Robert.

Stuart Turley [00:26:07] Great job Robert.

David Blackmon [00:26:09] All right. Irina start.

Irina Slav [00:26:11] Oh EV charging void has drivers trying new routes to power up. This comes from the UK where there are not enough public chargers and not enough people owning EV is, living in their own houses where they could charge their EVs. So there’s a whole new business booming, in the UK, people renting their chargers, their house, charges to other people in the area, I presume. There’s also something called mobile charging, which wasn’t elaborated on. So I have no idea how this works.

Stuart Turley [00:26:53] Oh, that’s a diesel generator waiting to happen. What that sounds. Like.

Irina Slav [00:27:00] I didn’t think about that. Yeah. Going mobile? Yeah. No, you know, via Wi-Fi, I don’t know, but

Tammy Nemeth [00:27:09] Solar. Panels.

Irina Slav [00:27:10] These are, that these platforms, unlike platforms, emerging where you could get connected with a charger owners so you can, you know, drive past the house, and, charge your car. I’m not sure how it works, because the article also mentions that home chargers don’t really charge very quickly. So if you’re. I don’t know. If you’re doing this. You’ll have to leave your cars for the whole day. For the whole day. Or maybe the night. I don’t know how this works, but people are finding ways people really want their EVs, and they’re finding ways to charge them in the absence of sufficient public charging capacity available.

David Blackmon [00:27:55] And that’s it sounds like we need a Tinder app for chargers. Right?

Irina Slav [00:28:00] That’s exactly how people can say. Yes, I was thinking about that. The name of the thing and the dating app for chargers. Yeah. Meanwhile, across the channel, the EU industry calls for green shift to help to rival China and the US.

Stuart Turley [00:28:20] Sorry, Irina, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but watch this. This is.

Irina Slav [00:28:24] Mobile charging.

Stuart Turley [00:28:26] Yeah, this is EV charger on diesel.

David Blackmon [00:28:31] Of course.

Tammy Nemeth [00:28:35] Well. It’s mobile.

Stuart Turley [00:28:39] Sorry. I didn’t mean to. In moving your. Sorry

Irina Slav [00:28:45]  Yeah. Let’s keep it simple and we can make it as complicated as possible. Yeah. So? So European businesses are calling on Brussels to do a. What was it, an industry, an industry and European industry or something. But they’re basically asking for more money. They want more money. They want cheap energy and they want more climate, change, targets. I’m not sure how all these work together, but they’re really insistent that they want cheap energy. And I loved, I admit I loved when I read this because, you know, we want cheap energy. Give us cheap energy. How.

David Blackmon [00:29:26] Yeah, Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:29:31] How, exactly.

Irina Slav [00:29:33] I mean, the European Union has done its best to give them cheap energy. All this winds all this solar capacity, and still they’re not happy and they want their energy even cheaper, and they want more money and less bureaucracy.

David Blackmon [00:29:48] Right?

Irina Slav [00:29:48] Union.

Tammy Nemeth [00:29:49] And protection from Chinese competition.

Irina Slav [00:29:51] And protection and more and more subsidies.

Tammy Nemeth [00:29:55] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:29:56] To be able to compete better with U.S. and Chinese products because of all those subsidies that the US and China are giving out to companies and the EU is not. Am I mad? Or is the animal giving out plenty of money in the form of all sorts of subsidies? And still it’s.

David Blackmon [00:30:21] Never Be enough. Not. It’ll never be enough. It’ll never be me. They will always come back for more. And when the companies start going bankrupt, they will come back in for bailouts on top of the subsidies.

Irina Slav [00:30:33] Yeah, because their fault is not the company’s fault.

David Blackmon [00:30:36] Right?

Tammy Nemeth [00:30:36] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:30:37] Energy is really, really very expensive. And this makes products and services services noncompetitive.

Stuart Turley [00:30:46] Irina. Do you think with the things that are going on we have Ford, you have Mercedes-Benz, you have all these others that are now canceling their EV plans and starting to follow in Toyota. Toyota’s got the, hybrid model that they’re really rolling. I’ve been a big Toyota hybrid fan. Let’s support. You know, hey, if I’m going to land on 60 miles per gallon on gas but not having to stop by a charger. But do you think with Mercedes-Benz backpedaling and Ford backpedaling, those are the two biggies that are saying that they’re having to really cut out of EVs.

Irina Slav [00:31:29] Whereas not just them, it’s everyone in the car making business. Yeah, I’m really saying it already. Everyone is admitting it because it’s impossible to hide. They’re losing money and they’re losing a lot of money, so they have to admit it they have shareholders.

David Blackmon [00:31:46] And the. Ford.

Irina Slav [00:31:47] Is not very happy with them.

Stuart Turley [00:31:49] And the last thing this week, this past week, they said 80, 80, $100 for the, GE model, the the Mustang. So it get it down to $50,000. However, it does not qualify even though it’s an American made car for the $7,000 tax incentive. So they had to reduce the price on. They’re losing $64,000 for every EV they. So they’re now losing $93,000 for every Ford E model that he said. I was like, I can’t I cannot even imagine this.

Irina Slav [00:32:24] Isn’t it great that they’re still selling a lot of internal combustion engine cars to, you know, to offset the losses from their EVs?

David Blackmon [00:32:32] Yeah. And that’s, you know, that’s a good racket. Well, your shareholders and investors are willing to put up with it, but they’re you know, they’re going to have a limited patience with that. And I think I think that’s why we’re seeing these automakers began to back off of these aggressive goals because they’re, you know, they’re investors are saying, hey.

Tammy Nemeth [00:32:51] It quits. You know.

David Blackmon [00:32:54] $5.7 billion in losses. I don’t care if I made 12 if we made 12 in the gas models, you know, we’re still down to $5 billion profit when it could have been 15 if we weren’t doing all this EV crap. And investors and shareholders are going to have very limited patience with that. And it should, by the way. They should have very limited patience with that.

Tammy Nemeth [00:33:20] Well, I, I put in the in the little chat there the wise words from doom burg which is energy is not an input into the economy, it is the economy. And I think that that ties into what you were saying, Irina. But, you know, these EU companies want all this assistance, you know, to lower energy costs because that’s the economy. If you don’t have reasonably price to energy.

Irina Slav [00:33:44] Exactly.

Tammy Nemeth [00:33:45] Sucks.

David Blackmon [00:33:48] And you can’t work

Stuart Turley [00:33:52] We are seeing that with the deindustrialization of Germany.

Irina Slav [00:33:56] Exactly.

David Blackmon [00:33:57] Yeah, yeah. Rivian will go bankrupt. Robert, you’re right about that. They’re on the verge. Fisker will go buy every pure play EV company. Making cars in the United States will be bankrupt by the end of next year. Take it to the bank. The companies that are legacy automakers who can offset the multi-billion dollar losses on their electric models, with profits on gas powered cars, are going to be able to continue to do that as long as their shareholders and investors allow it. But we’re already seeing the investors and shareholders start to rebuild. And so this whole everything other than Tesla is going to have a complete retrenchment in the United States over the next two years. And in the meantime, Mexico, I mean, China is establishing factories, EV factories in Mexico to provide their gateway into the United States because the US, Mexico, Canada trade agreement contains all these exceptions and and and openings that contradict the stuff in the air. Right. That that was designed to prevent China from coming into our market. They can come into our market in the US through Mexico. And that’s what’s going to happen. And so as these EV companies are going bankrupt and out of business, cheap Chinese EVs are going to start pouring into the United States just as they’re pouring into Europe right now.

Irina Slav [00:35:26] Yeah, well, there’s still won’t be enough chargers. So, you know. won’t be. But look how serious, you know, run into the same problems that current EV hopefuls are running into with the only advantage is price.

Stuart Turley [00:35:49] Robert had another good comment. Whatever. Coffee, Robert. You’re on. I’d love to have some.

David Blackmon [00:35:58] EV Business reps. I’m sorry, Stu. We were chatting at the same time there. EV business. Like buying eggs at a dime apiece, selling them for a nickel and expecting make up the difference. Yea yea

Tammy Nemeth [00:36:09]  yea.

David Blackmon [00:36:10] That’s a great business. What?

Stuart Turley [00:36:12] Whatever. Coffee you’re Robert, you’re on. I want some.

David Blackmon [00:36:16] Yeah. Must be black rifle.

Stuart Turley [00:36:20] I think so. He’s actually smart. All right. Who’s next? Next.

David Blackmon [00:36:27] Your or me? Its me, Oh boy Oh.

Stuart Turley [00:36:35] The bunny

David Blackmon [00:36:36]  the bunnies. Oh my God. You know, hopefully many of you viewers, got to read the op ed in the Washington Post written by a guy who, I swear to God, I kid you not. His job title is. What is it? Climate advice columnist. Okay. He is the Dear Abby of the climate movement. Okay. He’s his job is to give you advice, personal advice on how to control your your carbon footprint. And this week’s advice was to get rid of your dogs and cats. I guess you just put him to sleep or whatever, because they their carbon footprint is too big because they are carnivores and they eat a lot of meat and that’s bad. You know, me eating meat is bad. I’m sure this guy’s a vegan himself. And you’re going to replace your dog with a damn rabbit. Okay. Because rabbits are vegetarians. I swear to God, that’s what I. Eat. You just can’t make this stuff up. It’s the greatest thing I ever read and the worst thing I ever read at the same time. Because he’s dead serious. I mean, this guy, this is this guy lives for this kind of stuff. Okay? And so you’re good. You’re good. You replace Fido with Mr. Squeezy. The bunny. Who, doesn’t do anything except sit around eating hay and ants and leftovers.

Irina Slav [00:38:05] All the time.

David Blackmon [00:38:07] And being. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:38:10] I mean, if he said that, one of the good things about a rabbit, though, is they will use a litter box, so you’ll have that going for you. You get to repurpose your cat’s litter box for your rabbit. So, you know, you save money there and you save carbon. And they probably don’t toot as much. So there’s not as much methane because they’re not eating meat. And and and here’s the thing about this, okay, we laugh. We joke about this stuff. That story did not materialize in this climate advice columnist. This little tiny brain. Okay, that story was handed to him by some activist group who got the idea from the sessions, literal sessions that were held at Cop 28 and the WEF conference in Davos this past year. Okay, this is serious stuff. There’s going to be a movement to pass laws in the next. In the coming years, your governments are going to attempt to pass laws denying you the right to have a pet dog or cat because of their carbon footprint. And you may laugh about this and say, I’m a, conspiracy theorist that I would guarantee you check back in with me in five years and tell me that some, some member of your state legislature or member of Congress or member of parliament in Canada or one of the European countries, check in with me five years from now, tell me this hasn’t happened because it’s going to happen. This is this is a very highly organized effort. So don’t just chuckle about this.

Stuart Turley [00:39:49] David, I don’t know, but we don’t need a yeah.

David Blackmon [00:39:55] Yes, Oh yeah, This is some edit video

Stuart Turley [00:39:57] This is what Irina love Tammy Now this is too long. But there’s whip in here. What is.

David Blackmon [00:40:11] there’s an

Stuart Turley [00:40:15] Right. Okay, I’m going to stick around just for time.

Stuart Turley [00:40:42] Sorry guys, I had to be it.

Irina Slav [00:40:44] But I agree with David. It’s really it is serious and it will happen in one form or another. Maybe they’ll make us pay, taxes for cats and dogs, carbon taxes. And it goes with the activist push to discourage people from having children because children have a massive carbon footprint, too.

David Blackmon [00:41:07] Right, exactly.

Stuart Turley [00:41:08] When you got a chance. That’s a heck of a footprint.

David Blackmon [00:41:12] Yeah. And that’s that’s a, you know, a big part of the rationale. But behind the Malthusian part of the climate alarmist movement, you know, you want to reduce the population because of their climate footprint and carbon footprint. The other story there is about. This was another piece that was written, I think it was in Politico. And the writer is incredulous, you know, that in states where the Democratic Party has succeeded in pushing its climate action, regulations into effect, utility bills have skyrocketed. And the writer was genuinely perplexed. Okay. Because, you know, wind and solar are cheap. And he just couldn’t understand why utility bills were were rising faster in the states were Democrats, the blue states were Democrats. Rein then in the red states where Republicans got okay and haven’t adopted these policies, at least not as rapidly as the Democrats have. And there’s literally and this is classic legacy in mainstream news media reporting on on climate change. It is that, well, you know, wind and solar are cheap. So the bill should be going down. Why aren’t they going down? There’s zero understanding that when you overload your grid with all this wind and solar, you have all these opportunity costs that are lost and you’re having to essentially fund two separate grids because, yeah, you’re, you’re you’re funding the weather dependent grid. That doesn’t work. And it particularly doesn’t work during times of severe weather events. And you have to have the second grid that you’re also paying for that actually keeps the lights on and your heaters running, you know, in the middle of a big, polar vortex or whatever we’re calling those things now. So anyway, that that one just cracked me up is a classic, classic piece in our legacy media that shows zero understanding of what’s really happening on our power grid.

Tammy Nemeth [00:43:16] Well, David, interestingly, in Canada, because they’re really pushing heat pumps and of course, heat pumps don’t work when it’s cold. And so. The. The solution is that you have to have two heating systems. You have to have the heat pump and then a backup, which is what they want to do with the grid. You want wind and solar, but you have to have an equivalent system ready to go when it’s not working. So which of course doubles the costs, if not more. And then people wonder why is why is energy so expensive?

Stuart Turley [00:43:46] The great Meredith England’s book Shorting the Grid and the formulas come out, to 180% times instead of a, a 20% increase, in additional, requirements for downtime or emergencies, 20%. We can understand that. Gotta have 180% when when you add that. So, shout out to Meredith Angwin. One of my heroes. Oh, sorry.

David Blackmon [00:44:20] Okay. I’m done. Your turn to.

Stuart Turley [00:44:22] All right. All right. Let’s start with. Chicago sues. Oil companies for causing climate change. Points to 1995 heat wave. I don’t even know where to start on this one. We’re sitting here talking about net zero. The man has got one of the worst. Oh, crap. I mean, holes in in the United States for a city thanks to his running it. And he’s leading a lawsuit against fossil fuels in the big oil companies to save the planet. The man is destroying Chicago. And in the name of net zero, he’s trying to go after Big Oil. Mayor Brandon Johnson, it seek relief in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars, dollars in consent and loss of use, damages and penalties for fines for violations. Unbelievable. This man is just. Absolutely. Vic Shear is a partner at Shear Building. Speaks to the climate litigation he’s involved with. This guy. Looks. Like he got to be entertainment.

Irina Slav [00:45:49] Yeah, well, they got to make some money, you know, easiest way to big oil. They have money.

Stuart Turley [00:45:54] Well, yeah

Tammy Nemeth [00:45:55]  you got to be first. But if you win, you get some money off big oil.

Stuart Turley [00:46:01] And anyway, I’m

Tammy Nemeth [00:46:03] The only. One. They’re not the only one. They’re trying to put together a class action lawsuit in British Columbia to suit oil companies for the forest fires.

David Blackmon [00:46:13] Oh, sure.

Irina Slav [00:46:15] Turn them into.

Stuart Turley [00:46:17] Are you. Serious?

Tammy Nemeth [00:46:17] Dairy cows? Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:46:19] They’re. The environmental groups are going around trying to get the different cities and towns and municipalities to do a class action lawsuit against oil and gas companies, and they’re using that attribution science, which is like I’ve read some of the studies and they’re just ludicrous, but they’re using those as a justification and rationale to sue the companies.

David Blackmon [00:46:44] Put it up Stu

Stuart Turley [00:46:45] words. But, you know, I can’t. I got videos of the helicopters with napalm going by, and they had of the arsonists that were up there. Most of those were started by arson, left wing Greenpeace, tree hugging people that were trying to do that. So now they’re trying to sue the oil and gas companies for arson.

David Blackmon [00:47:09] Well, Of course.

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:10] For making the air so dry that the, forest fire quicker.

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:16] That’s the reasoning. The dry it’s drying out the air. It’s dry. That therefore dries out the forest and makes it easier to start on fire.

Stuart Turley [00:47:24] Irina, I think you’re off the hook. I think you’re off the hook. I think we got to get Ahold of that legal department. There are new spokesperson for the U.S press secretary.

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:36]  Chicago doesn’t go back and sue Standard Oil for the great Chicago Fire.

David Blackmon [00:47:43] Oh one.

Stuart Turley [00:47:43] Oh, wow. Wow. If that happens, everybody here heard it here. That’s a great idea to me anyway. All right. CNN’s attempt to smear, India for purchasing Russian oil fell flat. This really doesn’t have anything to do with net zero. I just put it in there because I was like, this is absolutely the the Russian. The Indian prime minister was absolutely dead on. Right. And he said, basically, we’re we’re doing the best thing we can for our country. Have a great day. And CNN was just absolutely ludicrous. So anytime we can actually publish something from CNN and it’s bad on their own self, you gotta publish it. There. That bad. They thought it was a good story and you’re like, no, you’re an idiot. You just publish that. You’re an idiot. So anyway, that’s it for me.

Tammy Nemeth [00:48:43] Did you know that that is part of net zero, though, because the West has been pushing India to invest in solar and wind and all this other crap, and, and, I the Robert Bryson, his previous, documentary went to some of these places in India where the, the environmentalist did this big thing where they had some solar panels and, and while they got to charge their phone for ten minutes or something like that before it was all gone and, and then the people rioted and said, we want to be connected up to the grid where it’s where it’s reliable from coal. And there were all these riots going on in the Indian countryside. So, you know, Modi is kind of straddling that line where he wants the Western money to push the net zero agenda, but he still wants reliable energy and keeps investing in coal and buying oil and gas or whatever from from Russia.

Irina Slav [00:49:34] So it looks like a smart man. Maybe he’ll he’ll make the right decision. That really is more important when you have more than a billion people.

Tammy Nemeth [00:49:46] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:49:47] In an.

Tammy Nemeth [00:49:48] Election year.

Irina Slav [00:49:49] Election this year.

Stuart Turley [00:49:51] I applaud world leaders that take care of their country first. And and, this wonderful authoress, let’s see, Saudi Arabia can no longer raise oil output for cash. I think her name is, Irina Slav, I think. But that was a great article talking about how the whole financial system of, the billions of dollars of Saudi Arabia, they are really sitting back and saying, hey, we’re not going to put in the CapEx right now. Why should we let a good price hike coming around the corner? In your.

Irina Slav [00:50:29]  like this.

David Blackmon [00:50:30] I don’t think I don’t think Irina. Wrote that piece. I saw that piece, though. That was a good story. That he was at all price.com.

Irina Slav [00:50:40] Yeah, it must’ve been there. But what was it about the project or.

Stuart Turley [00:50:43] Yeah, it was about, Ben Solomon noted that thanks to the, current production curbs, there was a pretty soft cushion of around 3 million barrels of spare capacity. So they don’t have to.

Irina Slav [00:50:54] Bother investing a lot of money in that.

Stuart Turley [00:51:00] And in trillion to. Exactly. But they’ve got, a way to manage it. They’re not going to put the money back into the oil and gas yet. They’re going to let the price grow. Their reserves are going to grow in value.

Irina Slav [00:51:13] They don’t really have a choice if they want to continue with these projects. They need high prices, right. They will just withhold production. Okay. Well, does anyone have any closing remarks?

David Blackmon [00:51:28] Yes, yes. Before we go. Before we go, I just want to give everybody a heads up that next Monday morning, we will be joined by the great Robert Bryce.

Tammy Nemeth [00:51:36] Yes.

David Blackmon [00:51:37] Yes. We’ll get his views on what’s going on with the energy transition right now. Talk about his new, wonderful documentary. You need to go watch this. It’s free on YouTube. It’s called juice power politics on the grid. And it is one of the best, documentaries about energy that has ever been, really, that’s ever been created. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that I don’t give praise lightly. And, it’s really a fantastic product that everyone needs to watch. So we’re really looking forward to having Robert with. Us next month.

Irina Slav [00:52:11] Yes we are.

Stuart Turley [00:52:14] That would be. Fantastic. Well, Irina, a great job.

David Blackmon [00:52:17] Oh yes, great job today. Irina trying to improve over the last week.

Stuart Turley [00:52:21] I mean Tammy is so mean and holy smokes. So we’ve got Robert Bryce next week. Yay. I love Robert.

Irina Slav [00:52:29] One thing to definitely look forward to. You will have a great week then, everyone.

Stuart Turley [00:52:35] See you guys Later.

Tammy Nemeth [00:52:36] Thank you everybody. Thanks for all the comments.

David Blackmon [00:52:38] Bye everybody.

 

 

Sponsorships are available or get your own corporate brand produced by Sandstone Media.

David Blackmon LinkedIn

DB Energy Questions 

The Crude Truth with Rey Trevino

Rey Trevino LinkedIn

Energy Transition Weekly Conversation

David Blackmon LinkedIn

Irina Slav LinkedIn

Armando Cavanha LinkedIn

 

ENB Top News

ENB

Energy Dashboard

ENB Podcast

ENB Substack

 

Our Podcast Sponsor

The Sandstone Group.