ENERGY TRANSITION EPISODE #93 – GREEN SUBSIDIES

Highlights of the podcast:

01:25 – The Financial Times
02:21 – The science was settled on climate change
04:05 – The price is a decline in industrial output in industrial activity
05:42 – The attack is on all cars.
07:14 – 8000 projects trying to attach to the grid
08:23 – The US employment reports overstated 39,000 jobs in 2023
09:55 – The US Treasury
14:42 – The drop in Germany’s industrial production and their emissions and electricity consumption.
16:13 – Increasing the prices and costs to ratepayers.
19:00 – The EVs are incapable of providing the change in the energy transition.
19:37 – The microchip problem is going to be accentuated.
21:27 – The American petrochemical industry
24:57 – The World Grid
25:40 – The direct subsidies
26:25 – The Institute for Energy Research did a thing about federal energy subsidies for fiscal year 2022
27:54 –  The subsidies that go to the renewable industry
30:35 –  The UK is doing with offshore wind
34:05 –  Governments use green subsidies for one or more following purposes.
36:03 –  The United States with respect to energy have to do with the low income assistance.
42:24 – The farmers protesting
44:40 – The hydrogen corridor
45:53 – The UK wants to mix it in with the regular natural gas
46:28 – World Economic Forum announced that they’re now going to have a worldwide water shortage
48:41 – The fed will not be able to control inflation

 

 

The Podcast Hosts for The Energy Transition

 

 

ENERGY TRANSITION EPISODE #93 – GREEN SUBSIDIES

 

Armando Cavanha [00:00:02] Energy realities. 93 green subsidies. Uh, after uh 92 episodes, the podcast is changing. Welcoming back, our great Irina Slav.

Irina Slav [00:00:19] Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I don’t deserve this, but.

Armando Cavanha [00:00:25] Uh uh uh uh uh, changing the name to energy realities that Stuart like, a lot. me too. Bringing newspaper headlines and preparing the house to receive guests in the future. Podcasts. Good morning. Good afternoon, Tammy Nemeth, Stuart Turley, Irina Slav and David Blackmon, David Blackmon is in location. He sent us his ship to sea.

Tammy Nemeth [00:00:54] I like that ship going into the sunset.

Armando Cavanha [00:00:57] Uh, yeah. Perfect. Okay, let’s start with newspaper headlines. Um, it in a place you brought some some, uh, headlines. So go ahead, please.

Irina Slav [00:01:09] Uh, that’s that’s my favorite headline this year. Uh, I think will be very difficult to top, uh, carbon emissions from research. Uh, the price we must pay to understand the world. Uh, this is an an opinion piece in the Financial Times. Uh, from from a professor in, uh. I’m sorry, I forgot her, uh, specialty was space physics. Something to do with space physics. Uh, but the arguments you put forward in this space is that, um. You know, some emissions are a bad. Most emissions are bad, but some emissions are good. There are necessary emissions from, uh, researchers who do work on on climate change. And she was worried that some of her colleagues working in this, uh, in this field, uh, were concerned about their emissions and were planning to scale down their work in order to reduce their carbon footprint, which is unacceptable because we must generate not we, but these researchers must generate these emissions. So to understand the world, I thought the science was settled on climate change. But they need to measure carbon emissions. They need to track them, and they need to find ways to reduce them apparent in new ways. Uh, as far as I can understand. So these emissions are okay. And what impressed me is, of course, the double standard, because it sounds exactly like John Kerry saying that. Oh, was it Bill gates? I think Bill gates did say this, that it’s okay that he flies around the world, uh, on a private jet because he’s, uh, spending billions on funding, uh, climate change related research and other activities. Uh, I’m not a huge fan of double standards. So this was a really blatant example of these double standards. You know, we should consume less of everything, including food, including fuel, including, you know, basic comforts such as heating and, uh, hot water or less. Researchers, researchers shouldn’t worry about their carbon footprint because it’s its emissions well spent. As the author said, I’m done.

Tammy Nemeth [00:03:36] That was awesome.

Armando Cavanha [00:03:38] You have another in German emissions?

Irina Slav [00:03:40] Yeah, I do. Related. Uh, Germany has made great strides to reduce its emissions. Uh, it has reduced its natural gas imports. Last year was wonderful for the climate change, uh, enthusiasts in Germany. Uh, but it came at a price. Uh, the price is a decline in industrial output in industrial activity, which is the media and, uh, official sources, uh, attributing to higher interest rates and weaker demand for these products, uh, at home and abroad. Uh, it has absolutely nothing to do with energy costs. And I expect the higher electricity imports of Germany, which was 62% last year, also have nothing to do with any of this. You know, with the decline in emissions at the expense of industrial output. And it’s not stagnant, by the way. It’s falling.

Tammy Nemeth [00:04:46] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:04:47] Uh, surprisingly, Germany’s surprisingly, going into recession. Nobody expected this. Yeah.

Armando Cavanha [00:04:58] Good. Uh, you have another one.

Irina Slav [00:05:03] I just. Yeah. Good crop of headlines. This was just, um. Yeah. Apparently there’s a group who calls themselves the extinguishers. Um. Who? Um. Yeah. Vandalize an electric tesla, which is redundant. But anyway, we’ll, uh, forgive that. Um. Uh, yeah. They they let out the air from the tires of a Tesla. Apparently they didn’t they didn’t pay attention that it was a Tesla, or as Tammy suggested in our email exchange. The attack is on all cars. But what I found especially funny about this particular, uh, piece of news is that they’re not wrong. It’s not a gas guzzler, okay, but it is an energy guzzler. And that energy comes from hydrocarbons, from mining and processing. Uh, you know, energy demands, which is satisfied not by wind and solar, but by, uh, coal and gas. So they were right to, in a sense, to evangelize the Tesla much more right than vandalizing an internal combustion engine to.

Tammy Nemeth [00:06:27] That’s a good point. Yeah.

Armando Cavanha [00:06:29] Uh uh. But. Yeah, well, David’s not here. Let’s, uh, go directly to Stuart, please. Well,

Stuart Turley [00:06:39] You know Armando, I just love our government. I am kidding. Uh, the U.S. has billions for wind and solar projects. Good luck. Plug in the men. Uh, we are. We are printing money like you wouldn’t believe around the world. And now that we came out with the I.R.A. or the Inflation Reduction Act, um, our energy costs. And that’s in another headline that you have, uh, in and another one. But we started out in 2022 with 8000 projects trying to attach to the grid. We then, you know, fast forward to now, we have 24,000 energy projects waiting to attach to the grid. In our in team, we had a, um, in um, up in the Great Lakes area, five wind turbines, and they, uh, never installed any. They, they are giving back of the $50 million. They’re giving back 35 million. I went to OSU, so I’m going to have to do some math here. On how many millions that they did go ahead and spend on permitting and zero power. So, you know, let’s go ahead and print money. But guess who’s getting hurt. It’s the disproportionately impacted communities. It’s the taxpayers. I mean, this is anyway sorry about that.

Irina Slav [00:08:16] Uh, no, it’s. But.

Armando Cavanha [00:08:19] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:08:19] All right, so we’re back to my beloved government. The US employment reports overstated 39,000 jobs in 2023. We got somebody that not only did not graduate from Oklahoma State, they actually created crayons. Uh, this government, they’ve been going out. And every time that they have an announcement, they increase the jobs numbers. And so in the Inflation Reduction Act and according to the Treasury Department, they’re bragging about how many green jobs they’re creating. Well, if you can’t connect them to the grid and you can’t get them done, these numbers are overstated. And then the percentages of increasing is totally wrong. So the fed is over here creating financial fiscal policies based on wrong numbers on the jobs. The government is saying they’ve created all these green jobs. So it’s like, you know, this is, you know, that old game that we used to play where you have a P under three different cups.

Irina Slav [00:09:37] There’s no game.

Stuart Turley [00:09:38] Yeah. There is no P under these. And they’re doing them anyway. Uh, it’s just despicable.

Armando Cavanha [00:09:48] Good. Another one they’ll have. Oh, this is from from the past Monday.

Stuart Turley [00:09:53] In this document from the US Treasury. Uh, low Income communities bonus credit program will do 1.8GW of capacity for the 23, uh, 2023 program. They, uh, tend to allocate seven, 700MW to facilitate low income communities. Here’s the thing. None of it’s happening on the 1.8GW. And I feel like I need to be Christopher Lloyd out of back to the future 6.4GW. I mean, you know, I need to grow my hair out because this is the only in in the great Meredith Angwin has has said that we we’ve talked to and Irene, I know you you know her I believe. And so she’s so cool. And it’s less than 30% of that nameplate gets to the grid. So they’re over there saying we’re going to find 1.8GW. And and it’s like, uh, you’re only going to get, you know, let’s say 35% of that, but you’re going to pay for more because you got to have coal plants and natural gas plants to remain on standby. So she’s right in her number. She came up with a 180% increase of money that you need instead of a 20%. So. And this is from their own numbers. I mean, my crayon works pretty good from their numbers. And Tammy is great with numbers, by the way. These guys I want to give the energy bad boys a shout out. This one. Uh, these guys were great in this article. Uh. They are. Uh, look them up on Substack. Uh, they’re not as funny as Irina. Uh, but they, uh, their rates in the data sheets that they brought out is the cost for energy over the last several years is skyrocketing the amount of money that we’re putting into the grid. And then you have the f e r f e r c that Tammy’s been talking about is announcing that we are going to have blackouts. So we have different government agencies. We have our politicians, and then we have people like the energy bad boys coming out and saying, hey, wait a minute. Let’s have a little accounting session in order to go ahead and see about if this actually works. So, uh, hat tip to the energy, uh, bad boys. Here’s one of their charge that’s in there. And when you take look back in 19, um, I’m old and I can’t see that that early one. Um, you know, you really take a look at that. And so you take a look at where we are now in 2022. Um, it’s not matching up, and and the money’s just pouring out the door in the. And there’s other graphs in there as well that I didn’t, uh, uh, send over, but the dollar per kilowatt per hour is like New York and California. Uh, I’ve said this before, and that is Governor Hochul put out 20% last year, increase in energy, 20% this year in 2023 and 2024. Looks like it’s going to be a 100% increase in energy, uh, for consumers. I got to check, you know, when that’s going to kick in. Could be 2024 could be 2025. But holy smokes, Batman. That’s not good.

Irina Slav [00:13:37] Yeah, well, they have to pay for all those offshore wind turbines, you know.

Tammy Nemeth [00:13:41] it’ll be connected.

Stuart Turley [00:13:42] You know

Irina Slav [00:13:44] They’re going to hold another ten to, to to which, uh, you know, previous hopefuls can reapply with new rates for the future electricity.

Stuart Turley [00:13:57] What’s a few billion between friends?

Irina Slav [00:13:59] Yeah, totally.

Stuart Turley [00:14:00] Yeah. I mean

Irina Slav [00:14:01]  It’s coming out of the governor’s pocket.

Stuart Turley [00:14:03] Oh, absolutely. I’d like to put a fund together, a Go Fund Me page to haul the dead whales off the beach and drop them off on the white House lawn. Wouldn’t that be fun.

Irina Slav [00:14:17] Huh? yeah but. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:14:20] Okay. Sorry.

Armando Cavanha [00:14:21] No problem. Uh, Tammy, I’m not sure you sent more than one, but this is the one.

Tammy Nemeth [00:14:27] So I just sent one, and, you know, it links back to what everyone else has been saying. And I know this article is from, uh, back in November, but it’s very. Uh, important, because part of what Irina showed about the drop in Germany’s industrial production and their their emissions and electricity consumption. This is a huge indicator. And that’s their petrochemical industry is basically being decimated. And there’s other predictions that say it’ll be gone in about ten years. And in this article that having a blast had um, referenced, uh, BSF, um report to shareholders where he, the BASF, which is the big one of the biggest chemical producers in Europe in the world was which had this great chart where it showed the drop in petrochemical production in both Europe and the United States. I think United States was -1.6, Europe was negative four point something. And then if you looked at China and Asia, China is up 12.6%. And so they were bragging about how they were building this massive petrochemical plant in China in their investor thing, saying, okay, you know, Europe is kind of the the electricity prices are too much the the cost for all of these different things. There’s all these new taxes coming on. We’re just going to offshore to China. So China’s industry is booming while Germany is industrializing and Europe is essentially industrializing. And then this goes to the taxation issues. And, um, the different things you were talking about, Stu, where they’re increasing the, the, the prices and costs to ratepayers. Now, when Germany originally introduced its, uh, energy transition plan back in 2010 or 2011, they promised it would only cost the amount of a scoop of ice cream every month for people. So it, you know, uh, a euro or 90, €90 cents a month, that’s all it would cost extra. Clearly, that’s not true. So how come 13, 14 years later, we’re not looking at those numbers and saying, you know what, this energy transition thing doesn’t work. It costs more it governments have to subsidize and subsidizing things, which I know we’re going to get into right away. Subsidies are paid for by taxpayers. So the taxpayers not only have to pay more for the energy, they have to throw away money to these vested interests, whether it’s wind, solar or battery companies or whatever, in in order to get that, um, energy that isn’t reliable anyway. So they get hit on it like 2 or 3 times over. And we should be learning from what’s happening in Europe and Germany and not make those same mistakes. And I feel bad that every Western country is going down this same pathway where all it does is cost more for people.

Stuart Turley [00:17:36] Tammy, can I add something on to your point? Your excellent point, and I’m sorry for complimenting you this morning. I know it’s Monday morning, but, um. Uh, China, uh, Governor Newsom, the guy with the good hair, which I’m very jealous about, he, uh, is sending out, um, they’re shutting down all the Petro, the downstream, and the, uh, thing to. And they’re just killing China so they can’t keep their cities clean. But when President Xi comes in, they clean up the city, they get it done, and then they have meetings. And in those meetings, you pointed out the growth in China’s, uh, downstream. Um, and you also take a look. They’re increasing in a million barrels a day that they’re able to, uh, increase in their Petro. So California and I’m trying to get a story on this, is looking at importing all their gasoline and diesel and petrochemicals from China. They’re killing the U.S. energy independence. And not only are you bringing up that we’re losing industry to China. Um, it’s a horrible thing that our governor of California is handing over, uh, highest gasoline prices in California in the EVs are incapable of, uh, providing the change in the energy transition. Tammy, your points were outstanding.

Armando Cavanha [00:19:10] But Stuart and the the the project to back back to the US, uh, chips and other um, um, items manufactured in China is is is working well.

Stuart Turley [00:19:23] The, uh, chips.

Armando Cavanha [00:19:25] Chips, for instance.

Tammy Nemeth [00:19:27] My, uh. Oh. Like a microchip.

Irina Slav [00:19:29] The bands.

Stuart Turley [00:19:30] Oh. The chip. Excuse me. I thought you were saying jeeps. And so, uh. So, no, um, the microchip problem is going to be accentuated. In fact, uh, China had an article. There was an article out this morning on China and the chips, the the, uh, this came from the or the Russian, uh, news source which Irina and I have talked about. It’s actually not bad. So, I mean.

Irina Slav [00:19:57] I know it’s not bad. I’ve commented on the air there.

Stuart Turley [00:20:00] It is. I mean, I’m like, you know, it’s pretty sad when you have to go to Russia to get the news, but, you know, um, when you sit back and it is it’s funny. Yeah. I mean, um, the chip is going to be accentuated by, uh, Z. President Z is already saying that he has acquired Taiwan and our chip sanctions and the weaponization of the US dollar against, uh, the world is pathetic. And, um, we’re weaponizing sanctions against China, and they’re calling it unfair. So I think it may be a personal opinion that it may be another, um, excuse to invade Taiwan.

Armando Cavanha [00:20:47] Uh, yeah, because the US is losing petrochemical industry, but, uh, it’s gaining, uh, the manufacturing, uh, electronics. Is it true? Maybe.

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:00] That’s a that’s an interesting point. I know that they’re trying to subsidize. If we get onto the topic of subsidies, they’re trying to subsidize the the chip manufacturing in various jurisdictions. And I noticed that Brookfield Investments in Renewables is one of the partners in that, which is a mark Carney, uh, endeavor. And now that he’s part of Bloomberg, which is kind of interesting because Bloomberg is also funding the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign, which is to shut down the American petrochemical industry. Like, I mean, it’s it’s crazy. So I mean, on the one hand, um, the United States is trying to generate its own microchips in order to reduce dependance on, on other jurisdictions, particularly Taiwan. But the thing is, okay, so you if you let’s say you home source your chip manufacturing, but you kill your petrochemical industry which you require for every other bit of defense production, and you’re going to make yourself dependent on your biggest potential imminent enemy. It’s it’s absurd. It’s beyond absurd. It’s it’s dangerous. And what the heck are they doing now?

Armando Cavanha [00:22:09] Uh, I have only one headline slot the headlines, the short video, not specifically of, uh, on energy, but that is very curious for me.

The New York TImes News [00:22:16] Is levels of impact. Your compensation could be impacted. Okay. You have to force behaviors. Force behaviors.

Armando Cavanha [00:22:28] Stuart. Um, I’m not sure that I got this point of the president of the world, but, uh, force behaviors, behaviors. What’s the meaning of this expression?

Stuart Turley [00:22:40] Do you really want to ask me this on a live, on air? Um. Uh. Hope. Hang on. I need to just take a deep breath and make sure that I don’t get thrown off the air.

Tammy Nemeth [00:22:54] Still, remember, the internet is forever.

Stuart Turley [00:22:57] I know, that’s why I’m actually my beloved partner, Michael Tanner. I I’m trying to make sure that he doesn’t fire me. So when when we take a look at the, uh, take a look at Blackrock. Blackrock, uh, is one of the most, um, nonsensical organizations on the planet because of their, uh, um, uh, uh, dealings with the world. Uh, Economic Forum and the World Health Organization. Larry Fink is at the head of this. And I also want to say that I’m not suicidal. So if that is it, that’s a joke that I don’t know that we’ll get censored. But by that comment, they are they have weaponized their investments and they have tried to cancel. Irina, has talked about this extensively on her Substack, and that is the lack of funding, uh, for, um, uh, carbon, uh, in the name in there trying to say ESG investing is good. So they try to force people to EVs to renewables by their investments. And it’s even more despicable when they force Africa to green energy and not let them use their great natural resources. So by him saying he’s going to force people is an admission, just like, um, uh, Charles Schwab, uh, saying that they’re going to take down the world, uh, in they, uh, told everybody they’re going to do a pandemic. They then told everybody they’re going to have a, uh, internet crisis and a grid crisis. I’ve got several, uh, stories on the grid crisis that is, uh, looking at cyber, um, and physical, uh, attacks on the U.S. grid. And they’re also saying, you know, as far as the World Grid as well, too. So it’s the world grid and the world that, uh, internet that they’re looking to attack. I didn’t create, I didn’t create this on my own. It’s all on YouTube.

Armando Cavanha [00:25:10] Perfect. Tammy, we talked about the history of subsidies a few weeks ago, and, uh, not specifically for green subsidies. Uh, are there wind subsidies and fossil fuel subsidies? Uh, how does it work?

Tammy Nemeth [00:25:28] You know, that’s a really good question. And I think it requires a lot of research and whatnot just because there’s different, um, different incentives out there. Right? So you have the tax incentives, then you have the direct subsidies where they’re getting loan guarantees or grants, like actual grants that they don’t have to pay back or whatever. And I’m going to try and share my screen. We’ll see if. If there’s some work. Uh. Okay. Select window. I’m going to try, um. Okay. Is that working?

Armando Cavanha [00:26:07] You look good.

Tammy Nemeth [00:26:09] How about this? Can you see that?

Armando Cavanha [00:26:12] Not yet.

Stuart Turley [00:26:13] You still look

Tammy Nemeth [00:26:14] Okay. So. Yes. Thank you. Um. It’s saying StreamYard has blocked it. So anyway, um, the Institute for Energy Research did a thing about federal energy subsidies for fiscal year 2022, and they published this back in August, and it showed that renewables received, um, up almost 50% of all in subsidies and incentives, and the majority of the subsidies that renewables received, and that’s wind and solar are direct grants. So the petrol, um, the petroleum industry and coal and nuclear combined received about 15%. And it was mostly incentives. So tax incentives are when, uh, a jurisdiction will encourage you to move their or um, will offer different sort of tax, uh, write offs and whatnot. A lot of the, the incentives for the oil and gas industry have to do with exploration and production. So if you’re out there, um, exploring or exploration development, you can write off certain wells or whatever that were not productive or something and, and various other elements along that, that sort of operational chain and, and other tax incentives are ones that almost all businesses get to deduct from their taxes. So when you have a tax incentive, it’s something that allows you to, um, uh, you’re maybe not paying as much taxes as you might have been, but it’s not money that is handed out from government at the front. A lot of the subsidies that go to the renewable industry, particularly wind and solar and battery manufacturing, um, are direct subsidies. And so the government is actually giving money, taxpayers money to companies to build or, um, hire people or do any of these things. And a lot of that money, it doesn’t have to be paid back. Um, or sometimes it’ll say, well, maybe you should pay it back, but then they don’t really they go out of business or, or whatever. And so what I find interesting is that historically, there’s been a shift in the definition and meaning of a subsidy. So before if you had different business tax arrangements or whatnot, that would be considered, um, a tax issue, but now it’s being counted as a subsidy, and that’s so that you can put numbers together in order to demonize the oil and gas industry in comparison to the renewable industry, and trying to say, sort of like what I was talking about with respect to the emissions, some subsidies, um, are better than others, right? So if you subsidize wind and solar, that’s just okay. But definitely don’t give any kind of tax incentive to the oil and gas industry. And one last point I wanted to make. There’s countries like China that, um, subsidize their own industries significantly in order to squeeze out potential international competition and also to provide an advantage in the export market. So I think there’s lots of different ways that subsidies are implemented within, um, the, the energy space. And a lot of it depends on whether it’s state run or private entities and so on. But in the end, taxpayers suffer.

Stuart Turley [00:29:40] Excellent.

Armando Cavanha [00:29:41] Excellent. Irina, uh, help us please  subsidies incentives. Non, uh, return financing is a kind of donations, uh, money for friends.

Irina Slav [00:29:54] Uh, that’s a great way of putting it. Yeah. We’re going to support only the industries we like, and we’re going to accuse the other industries of being bad and not deserving. This support essentially does come down to donations. But these donations, I mean, donations sounds voluntary. Yeah. You know, these are not exactly voluntary because as Tammy said, they are coming out of our pockets, all of our pockets, just because somebody in the government decided that these are the industries we’re going to be supporting, whatever, uh, happens, you know, which is what the UK is doing with offshore wind, which is what the US is doing. Well, the state of New York at least, is doing with offshore wind. You know, wind developers said this was the most blatant example of the nature of these green subsidies to me. Offshore developers, wind developers said this is getting too expensive for us. We closed our contracts, we close our deals at, uh, you know, much lower prices for our electricity when everything was different and raw materials were, uh, cheap and everything was cheap. Uh, borrowing was cheap. And now this has changed, which absolutely nobody could have anticipated, because obviously there’s no such thing as inflation or, uh, in. First rate hikes. Or raw material inflation. Really? Uh, so we can no longer afford to develop these projects and break even and make a profit on them. And the governments. Instead of saying, well, sorry, make them cheaper. They say, sure, we’ll just give you more money. Just apply again in Attenders, which is what the New York governor, the governor did. Let’s, you know, do another attender and we’ll we’ll agree higher prices for your electricity. I’m sorry, wasn’t the wind supposed to be one of the cheapest source of electricity in the world? And the media keeps repeating it, even though it’s not. I mean, BP and Equinor gave up a project, an offshore wind project in New York, because despite the governor’s plan to re hold the tenders, apparently they would still not make money from it. So they just quit it.

Tammy Nemeth [00:32:25] So what you’re saying is that the energy reality is that wind and solar are not cheaper, and they’re not giving up handing out subsidies.

Irina Slav [00:32:34] It’s an amazing revelation. I know that we all know it. They’re not cheap and and they clearly cannot stand on their own panels and, you know, turbine posts. Because governments need to continuously pour more and more money into them because they can, you know, they can turn in a profit without these subsidies.

Armando Cavanha [00:33:03] Yeah. Stuart, affordability. You are a guy that are speaking this term a lot of times and that. So green subsidies may affect the social equity or energy policies. Uh moving money to uh benefit some groups of interests is money for friends.

Stuart Turley [00:33:25] Um. Well, yes. Uh, it it appears that when you take a look at the investors in, um. Um. I’m just trying to see what Tammy was doing here. Bear with me. This should bring up. Uh, number five, slide five from, uh, the World trade, uh, rules. And it even describes, uh, it says it’s sharing. But, um, there is one, uh, line in here. Governments use green subsidies for one or more following purposes. Enhance public goods. Enhance quasi public goods. Is knowledge base capital to redistribute income to compensate for market failure, to compensate for government failure? Uh, I’m I, I thought this was ah, this is almost like an investor relations person writing this or a novelist. I’m not sure which, uh, giving subsidies is generally considered part of the domestic policy space of governments. And in the US, there are people that have great heart for the disproportionately impacted communities. But solar, I think there’s more, um, room for solar than there is wind. It is still none of them are recyclable and sustainable. Uh, but even by the World Trade Organization, their definition is wealth redistribution into the rich. Did that answer that question?

Armando Cavanha [00:35:14] Yes. But at the same time, the argument that the, uh, people, uh, have is that, uh, you can create new jobs and you can reduce greenhouse emissions. What this approach means for you.

Stuart Turley [00:35:31] The only reason the U.S. reduce their carbon emissions. I think Tammy brought this one up on one episode was the elimination of coal plants, um, and increasing natural gas plants, and now they’re trying to kill natural gas plants.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:47] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:35:49] Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:49] So if I could just link to what Stu was saying about, uh, helping out the redistribution of wealth and so on, a significant portion, probably 25 to 30% of the so-called subsidies in the United States with respect to energy have to do with the low income assistance. So people on the lower end of the of the income scale who are having difficulty paying their electrical bills and their, um, heating bills, and they basically any of their energy will get a subsidy from the federal government in order to help them make their payments. Right. And quite often in developing nations, that’s what you see when they talk about eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, they mean eliminating any kind of assistance to the people that keeps the price low, because what the people pushing the energy transition often don’t want to talk about is that they’re very keen on making all energy more expensive. And I hate to say it, they lie. They lie about it, but they keep repeating the lie that wind and solar is cheaper, and if we just build more, it’ll be cheaper. But it isn’t the. As I Rena pointed out, it’s not just the cost of the, uh, the facilities themselves and the redundancies that are required. It’s the money that comes from the taxpayers in order to build them in the first place, which you shouldn’t need to have to do. And so ultimately, it’s all about making it more expensive for everybody and then providing a little bit of help.

Irina Slav [00:37:24] And then providing help. Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:37:26] And providing help. Right.

Irina Slav [00:37:27] Yeah. Yeah. Because we’re going to make your electricity five times as expensive. But we will help the poorest among you with a special fund that is going to be filled with money from. The higher electricity prices.

Tammy Nemeth [00:37:46] And that you in the middle are

Stuart Turley [00:37:50] And who’s getting richer? Why is it that we have al Gore?

Irina Slav [00:37:55] The elected officials are getting rich and their friends?

Stuart Turley [00:37:58] Uh, al Gore is one of the richest dudes around, and he’s not worked today in his life, so I’m kind of concerned. You know, I’d like to see his w-2s. Sorry. Did I just say that? Did I say this?

Tammy Nemeth [00:38:13] His generation investment company goes around and and, uh, provides funding for a lot of these initiatives, such as Octopus energy. And, you know, he’s they’re pushing governments to embrace this transition than investing in companies that benefit from it. John Kerry did the same thing. Al Gore does the same thing. I know Mark Carney does the same thing. And then it’s like, is that not a conflict of interest?

Stuart Turley [00:38:42] May that go back to.

Irina Slav [00:38:43] The good conflict of interest? I’m sorry, Stu, that we can ignore in the same way that we can ignore the emissions from climate research. Yeah. That’s right. This is different.

Stuart Turley [00:38:54] The legal. I’m sorry. Uh, the legal document that I was reading from is from the European University Institute. The working papers, um.

Irina Slav [00:39:05] European University Institute.

Stuart Turley [00:39:08] Institute for working papers by Robert Shamoon and, uh, global government programs. So, uh, I’ll forward it to you guys.

Armando Cavanha [00:39:19] Uh, let me go to another points. Very quick offer for me in Brazil. Um, some people say that green subsidies involve local content. Local content means America first. Uh, Germany recovering industries. How do you see local content in this? Uh. Let’s see. Environment, energies.

Stuart Turley [00:39:44] Who do you want on that one? America’s not, uh, in a U.S. first. Um, yeah. Uh, it’s just, uh, it goes back to this discussion and I’m all for subsidies, as Tammy, uh, described for the disproportionately impacted communities. But that goes back to the Al Gore’s and the Carrey’s of the world, because they elevate the price of the energy and then it goes back. So, um, America’s not first.

Irina Slav [00:40:17] Yeah, but they’re trying I mean, they’re trying to build all new supply chains that will depend less on imported commodities, uh, materials. Now, this will take decades, if it’s possible at all.

Stuart Turley [00:40:28] No, it’s going to China, Irina. I mean, the money that we

Irina Slav [00:40:35] I know Stu I know Stu I know, you know, I know this.

Tammy Nemeth [00:40:37] I mean, I. Think say it. That they’re saying that in order to try and prevent the people who support the America First thing from being angry because you have to follow the actions, right? You know, they say these things, oh, we’re going to re shore and, and French shore and all this kind of

Irina Slav [00:40:57] Yeah Exactly, it’s absurd, Its it’s absurd. I mean who will believe them. I mean yeah, there are many people who would believe them because they watch them news their media, uh, and they hear it repeated all the time. But yes, basically it’s what some developing countries are doing with their natural resources, like Indonesia. Years ago they remember when they banned nickel or, uh, exports. Yeah. In order to force the foreign companies mining that or to build processing plants in Indonesia, which is absolutely a great idea. They shouldn’t have had to force them, but they had to. Yeah. Uh uh um uh um, sure, other resource rich countries will be doing the same thing demanding local content. I don’t know how local content will work. Uh, with regard to cost, uh, if Europe is any. Indication, it’s not going to work well, everywhere because, uh, you know, Europeans, uh, trying to develop, also develop their own supply chains in wind and solar, but is just too expensive.

Armando Cavanha [00:42:04] Expensive. Yes.

Irina Slav [00:42:06] Very expensive because of energy costs.

Tammy Nemeth [00:42:08] Yeah. And with their all their new ESG rules that kick in this year, I really don’t see how they can do it. Which is why you see BASF and the other chemical producers and whatnot offshoring.

Stuart Turley [00:42:20] They went to China and now we have the farmers protesting because they can’t get fertilizer.

Irina Slav [00:42:29] No, that’s requesting the removal of, uh, diesel, uh, subsidies.

Stuart Turley [00:42:34] Yes

Tammy Nemeth [00:42:37] Tax incentives. Right. Because they were. Yeah. Tax incentives.

Stuart Turley [00:42:41] I’m all in for supporting the farmers. I’m all in. I think if the oil and gas industry paid for farmers. Diesel. I’m all in. I think that if we could do that, that would be a fabulous way. And it. But you see, that would not be a redistribution of wealth that would actually be helping the food supply as opposed to that, and take some of the profits from oil and gas and give it to the farmers. That would help reduce costs. If we do the subsidies, it comes from the governments and they skim off stuff. This goes back to our earlier discussion of the US jobs. Mhm. 40 an estimated 40%, whatever the numbers are that they’re creating are government jobs. That’s not good.

Armando Cavanha [00:43:31] Yeah. Uh, Tammy, uh, I suppose I got your link here. Can you see this? Yes.

Stuart Turley [00:43:39] Oh, there you go.

Tammy Nemeth [00:43:40] Yeah. So that’s the EU, um, European University Institute that, uh, Stu was talking about. And then I think Stu sent the publication there. He sent a link to it.

Armando Cavanha [00:43:55] Okay. And there was another one that to show this. No, sorry. This one. No. No. Sorry. Uh, let’s see again,

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:11] Oh, that. That’s from 2014, Stu

Armando Cavanha [00:44:14] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:44:14] It was still applicable.

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:16] Yeah. For sure.

Armando Cavanha [00:44:17]  There. Just two comments. Presentation.

Irina Slav [00:44:26] Hi. Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:44:28] You know what a great. Uh. Oh, it, uh, does. And I apologize for butchering your name. Um. Great question. Um, uh, hydrogen, the hydrogen corridor that Irina and I laughed about the other day, that they’re putting it in hydrogen. From a technical aspect, Irina has written extensively on the amount of water that is needed, how difficult it is to put it in pipelines. I love the idea of hydrogen, but I believe that hydrogen may pull a Hindenburg on the consumer.

Irina Slav [00:45:04] It will sooner or later.

Tammy Nemeth [00:45:08]  and the UK is investing Heavily in it. Yeah.

Armando Cavanha [00:45:13] Uh, and then, uh, us was the same. Yeah, but hydrogen is not an energy source. It’s, uh, like a battery. Uh, so you need to manufacture fabricate hydrogen. It’s a different approach.

Stuart Turley [00:45:28] A lot of energy is fabricated.

Tammy Nemeth [00:45:31] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:45:32] Oh. Sorry. Tammy.

Tammy Nemeth [00:45:33] No. Go ahead, go ahead. You’re right.

Stuart Turley [00:45:37] The second time in my life.

Irina Slav [00:45:42] Is dangerous. Hydrogen is dangerous.

Armando Cavanha [00:45:45] That’s. That’s a good point. Yes. And expensive.

Tammy Nemeth [00:45:48]  You pay that. That’s right. It’s expensive. And it’s. And it’s volatile. And the UK wants to mix it in with the regular natural gas and, uh, put it through the pipelines to people’s homes.

Irina Slav [00:46:01] Yeah, but they gave up on two of these projects. Yeah, because people rebelled.

Tammy Nemeth [00:46:07] Yeah. And now they’ve released some new statements. Um, just before Christmas.

Stuart Turley [00:46:12] Can I can I throw this one out? Irina, you had a Substack article that was phenomenal. I did not know how much. Uh, sorry for complimenting you, but I did not know how much water it took in order to create hydrogen. And the World Economic Forum announced that they’re now going to have a worldwide water shortage because they’re going to be controlling water in Idaho. They just said that if you have a water source on your land, if you don’t claim it within X number of time period, the state now controls it and will, uh, govern it. So it is now a water grab. They failed it. Covid they’re going to go worse than Covid and then they’ve even announced it. So if they told you the pandemic is coming and then they have told you they’re going to do this, you kind of listen to what they’re saying with their actions. And why is hydrogen gaining speed its side? The second order of magnitude of hydrogen is a water catastrophe. Irina brought that. That’s her point.

Irina Slav [00:47:27] I didn’t.

Armando Cavanha [00:47:28] Yeah. Very good. So, um, the conclusions, uh, may be that, uh, green subsidies are. What?

Irina Slav [00:47:39] Obscene.

Stuart Turley [00:47:40] A wealth distribution.

Irina Slav [00:47:44] There are money grab.

Armando Cavanha [00:47:45] money.

Stuart Turley [00:47:47] I want to give back to the disproportionately impacted communities. I don’t want this to be seen as, uh. I’m all in. Uh, and it goes back to Africa being taken advantage of. Africa is being taken advantage of by the West again. And I applaud Africa for standing up. Let’s. I mean, it’s like Germany. Tammy brought up such fantastic points about the economic failure of Germany because the low cost energy, um, it’s all about the global effects. Like George McMillan has been on. My podcast of power of energy is Why People go to War. Yeah, it’s also why we can’t fight, uh, inflation until we get energy prices low. The fed will not be able to control inflation. And I’m sorry I’m such an energy fan, but I’m also an energy humanitarian that wants to eliminate poverty, energy, poverty and poverty around the world. And none of these policies are doing it.

Tammy Nemeth [00:48:59] So it makes it worse. And I think, you know, when you say that you would like to help, the ones who can’t afford energy shouldn’t be that expensive in the first place. And that’s the problem, right? Is that with all of these subsidies and taxpayer redistribution or whatever. All it does is drive up cost. And that hurts everybody, especially the people at near the bottom. So it shouldn’t be that high. Period

Armando Cavanha [00:49:21]  It’s not solution. Yeah people, thank you so much. Irina was a pleasure to have you back home.

Irina Slav [00:49:29] Likewise.

Armando Cavanha [00:49:31] And David, we are waiting for you from your vacation. So come back soon.

Stuart Turley [00:49:37] If that was his ship. I’m hanging out with the wrong guy. And you know, he didn’t invite me on his boat. Uh, thank you all very much.

Tammy Nemeth [00:49:46] Thank you.

Irina Slav [00:49:47] Have a great day. Bye bye.

Armando Cavanha [00:49:49] Bye. bye

Irina Slav [00:49:49] Bye bye.

 

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