How Far Will They Go to Enforce Net Zero?
Governments are pushing harder than ever to enforce Net Zero, but what does that really mean for households, businesses, and the global economy? From court rulings on oil and gas projects to soaring energy bills and the heavy reliance on subsidies, we break down the contradictions and real-world impact of these policies.
We had a lot of fun covering key points around Net Zero and hypocrisy.
We also played a Lee Zeldin video that really articulated New York’s problems with Net Zero. The financial ruin of countries and states is now a pattern.
There are numerous moving parts in the world of Net Zero, and we examine the current issues facing the business world concerning Net Zero and the complex regulations.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Introductions
02:11 – How Far Will They Go to Enforce Net Zero?
05:41 – Scope 3 & Hypocrisy
08:03 – Windfall Taxes & Nationalization
10:35 – Economic Growth vs. Emissions
13:12 – Consumer Costs & Wind “Stilling”
15:40 – Household Emissions & Policy Contradictions
18:48 – Subsidies vs. Tax Incentives Debate
22:42 – Energy Alternatives & Iceland Example
27:44 – Lee Zeldin Clip on New York Policies
32:49 – Grid Reliability & Pricing
36:36 – BP defies Ed Miliband to reopen a North Sea oil field
37:43 – Jack Mintz: Is Canada the most European non-EU country? Let’s hope not!
42:00 – UN report finds United Nations reports are not widely read
45:29 – German offshore wind auctions draw no bids
50:38 – The global struggle to meet renewable energy goals
51:49 – UK heat wave cuts wind output, exposing power supply gaps
52:42 – Peace in Ukraine & Defense Spending
56:39 – Looking Ahead
How Far Will They Go to Enforce Net Zero?
Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Stuart Turley [00:00:10] Hello everybody, welcome to the Energy Realities Podcast. My name’s Stu Turley, President CEO of the Sandstone Group. Today is a special day. We actually let David Blackmon out on vacation. I’m not sure how that’s going to turn out, but we’re going to have an absolute blast. We have Irina Slav from Bulgaria. How are you this morning, Irina?
Irina Slav [00:00:30] I’m great. Thank you, Stu.
Stuart Turley [00:00:33] And how is everything in Bulgaria?
Irina Slav [00:00:37] It’s alright, the wildfires, I think, have subsided.
Stuart Turley [00:00:42] Which is good. Oh, nice. Are they arson or climate related?
Irina Slav [00:00:46] I think a lot of them were arson, I don’t think any of them were climate related, you know, wildfires happen during summer because there are irresponsible people and people who set fires, you, know, deliberately.
Stuart Turley [00:01:03] It’s funny how that happens. And then we have Dr. Tammy Nemeth. Are you in the UK or are you in Canada today?
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:11] I’m in the UK today. Thank you, Stu.
Stuart Turley [00:01:15] All right, now is everything from the Nemeth report.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:19] It’s good. All is good. Yeah, we’re enjoying cloudy weather today. Maybe we’ll get some rain, but I doubt it. So I think the West Coast and Scotland’s getting rain as usual, but, I don’t know if we’ll getting any, but it’s quite dry here.
Stuart Turley [00:01:37] I think the mood in the UK might be a lot better today because Harris Starmer is out on the way to the United States to hold president Zelensky’s hand and begged for a war to continue. I think is what I heard. I could be wrong.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:54] Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, when he goes away, there’s a there’s a bit of a relief, but there’s so many other people who carry the weight for him when when he’s gone that yeah, you can’t catch a break.
Stuart Turley [00:02:11] Today’s topic is how far will they go to enforce net zero is really a code for how far are they going to go to reinforce net zero because we’re sitting here kind of going they’ve gone quite a ways and Tammy, what are your thoughts on this?
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:30] Well, you know, it’s interesting to think about it in those terms. How far will the European Union, the UK in particular, and Canada, or any of these other nations that have sort of codified net zero into their legislation to some degree? UK for sure, EU for sure. Canada a little bit. And the thing is, you know, when you it starts out trying to persuade the public. Persuade the public there’s a crisis, they have the solution, the solution is cutting the emissions in this way, which is mandating EVs, reducing industry in that nation, doing all these different things. When the public starts to waffle and say, you know what, I don’t think this is a good idea. If we do a cost benefit analysis, you I think the costs outweigh the benefits. We shouldn’t do this then it moves into the realm of the courts and you get litigation happening. So then you’ve got these environmental groups like Greenpeace and others that initiate or support legal challenges against companies operating saying you have to do xyz more because the goalposts are always moving. So for example with Britain there was a court ruling last week that said total energies. Has to shut down or continue to shut down its North Sea oil and gas fields that are in the UK waters because of the net zero policies. So it’s like when the environmental activists and their supporters within a nation can’t get their way persuading public or maybe they think that the legislation is being rolled back a bit, they take it to court. And I would add that in earlier this year, I think it was in February, a court ruled that two oil and gas fields that had been approved by the previous conservative government, those approvals were unlawful because they didn’t take into account Scope 3 emissions. And for those who don’t understand what all this emissions stuff is, Scope 1 are the emissions that a company is directly responsible for within its everyday operations. Scope 2 is from whatever energy they may get from the grid or along those lines. Scope 3 is when people use their product and everything up and down the supply chain. So the court ruled that these oil and gas companies must now provide a Scope3 assessment from what they will potentially extract from these fields and have it be used by people around the world. And they have to take that into account now before the court decides if those fields can actually go forward into production. And a similar court ruling was made in Norway where they said that Equinor must take into account Scope 3 emissions before it can add any more new oil and gas fields into production. So that’s how far they’re going to go, through the courts.
Stuart Turley [00:05:41] How can we, if we’re gonna be a justice, you know, climate justice, let me ask this question.
Tammy Nemeth [00:05:48] What does that mean?
Stuart Turley [00:05:50] Let me ask this. If a solar panel requires bulldozers and 200 tons per solar panel, whatever the number is, and each windmill has to have 80 gallons of oil to run a wind turbine, just to have it in there, and then you got to have all the cement, coal, steel, and all these kind of things. When do the wind and solar companies get charged scope three emissions for all the fossil fuels that they have to use just so that they can run? Wouldn’t that be fair?
Tammy Nemeth [00:06:24] That would be fair, but that isn’t the way the climate disclosures operate. So when companies have to account for this stuff, for wind companies, they don’t have to count for the concrete in the foundation or the steel in the tower.
Stuart Turley [00:06:44] It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it? California is using a lot of coal. Everybody’s sitting there kind of scratching their head saying, how is California using coal? Cement.
Tammy Nemeth [00:06:56] Are they importing it?
Stuart Turley [00:06:58] Yeah, well, you have a lot of cement going on. How do you make cement? You gotta have heat. How do ya have heat? They don’t have natural gas, so they’re still using a lot a coal. Go figure that out. The hypocrisy is just absolutely fun. In the UK, I wanna ask this as well. I love this cartoon. I gotta give credit to Duncan Aberdeen on this one. The UK net zero for our podcast listeners, the net zero gremlin is just going along and here comes that. But when you take a look at the tax revenue lost on the article that you were talking about, Total Energy wins legal battle. The amount of revenue that they’re going to hit is just gonna go away. If the North Sea goes away, the The Griffin field that they’re talking about and the loss of this thing is unbelievable.
Tammy Nemeth [00:08:03] It is. And you know, the windfall tax that they currently have on oil and gas production into, I think it’s like beyond 2030. It’s like a ridiculous amount of time for a windfall tax, which was introduced because of the spike in prices from the Russian conflict with Ukraine, which then of course begs the question, are they anticipating the war is going to continue on until over past 2030, but in any event, they have this windfall tax, but what. By having this litigation, basically the courts telling the governments, you must do X, Y, Z, it then leads to the shutting down of the fields because how else can companies actually do it now. Is it going to be the case like everything else in the UK these days they’re going to nationalize it? Maybe. I don’t know. If the UK government takes ownership, do they then have to comply with all this stuff or do they get a pass? Because it’s GB energy or something. It’s unclear. But I’m interested in Irena’s take on this. What do you make?
Irina Slav [00:09:12] Just one quick question, if the UK government decides to nationalize oil and gas production, who’s going to produce the oil and the gas?
Tammy Nemeth [00:09:21] Good question. Is it going to be like Venezuela when they nationalized their company and the government basically appointed a bunch of people and then it kind of collapsed or had a lot of trouble? I don’t know. It’s a good question. I don’t know. Because the UK doesn’t really have a national oil company. Well, no, but they would just take over, I don’t know, the assets and then hire back those people to manage those assets. Maybe. I Don’t know, maybe.
Irina Slav [00:09:49] They’re not thinking about it. I was thinking about a news report about the emissions of the European Union Which increased in the first quarter of the year? Always horrible of course because you know all these winds and solar and Breaking records and all that and emissions are up. But interestingly, so is economic growth You know, they have a growth of 1.5% for the first quarter of the year, massive economic growth. Emissions are up 3.4%. Clearly, we cannot have economic growth if we want to bring down emissions. I think that’s blatantly obvious right now.
Tammy Nemeth [00:10:35] But they say the opposite but they say they opposite that lowering emissions will
Irina Slav [00:10:41] Yet the data suggests very strongly that this is not the case.
Stuart Turley [00:10:48] Irina, what do you think you’re willing to pay as a consumer for net zero?
Irina Slav [00:10:55] Nothing I’m sorry, I’m already trying to be as green as possible. And when I say green, I mean waste averse. Waste averse, I like the way you think. I don’t like waste, so I try to minimize it. We do not overconsume energy in any form because the more energy you consume, the more you pay for it, seeing as it’s not free, even the energy that comes from my solar panels on the roof. We paid for those panels for the whole installation. So now it has to pay it back. I’m not willing to make any kind of sacrifices for net zero because net zero, as we’ve talked about a lot of times, is some abstract idea, some utopia. You cannot manage the whole world. In such a way as to become a net zero and just because the UK, for example, wants to reduce its own emissions, makes absolutely no difference on the global scale of emissions, especially in plenty of bigger countries that are in fact emitting more.
Stuart Turley [00:12:19] Patterns matter in looking at economics and things. And the pattern is if you’re enforcing net zero, you have higher electricity costs. And experts forecast, this is out of the article I wrote, forecast steeper rises by 2030. The average household bill in the UK could surge by 900 pounds annually due to net zero mandates, pushing electrical costs up at least 75% as the grift. Grid shifts from reliable fossil fuels to weather-dependent sources. Since the energy crisis began, it climbed from 603 pounds to 926 per year for electricity alone. That’s net zero policies account for 12% of the increases. I’m hoping my crayon math came out okay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:13:12] Well so that’s interesting because the opposite is being marketed by our energy minister where he’s saying that your prices are going to go down by 300 pounds a year by 2030, not increase. And when I just want to kind of tie two things here together. One of the reasons why there’s an article in the Telegraph from the other day that said low wind is pushing up household energy bill says power giant. And it’s the German energy giant RWE who is blaming stilling. This is the new term, stilling, where there’s lower wind velocities, lower wind power, which is affecting all these wind turbines. So it’s not just that there’s extended periods of dunkelflotte, but why it’s happening. And it seems to be there’s some… Suggestions that maybe all the wind turbines out there are taking the energy away from the wind currents and it’s slowing down the wind for all of these different projects. Maybe.
Irina Slav [00:14:24] No, not maybe, they’re admitting it. I wrote a subset about it last week. They’re actually studying it. And they have confirmed it, including the BBC, which called it mysterious. Mysterious. And then went on to, you know, completely demystified. It’s what happens when you have a lot of wind turbines in one place. The first ones, the front most ones get the most wind and as they spin they slow down wind speed and the wind turbines downstream get less wind. They’re calling it wind theft.
Tammy Nemeth [00:15:05] That’s right, yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:15:06] Wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:15:07] Which is what Belgium was complaining about, but then the second thing I just wanted to ask you, Irina, the statistics for the EU and the increase in emissions, I’m looking here and it seems like the two biggest sectors that were responsible for the emissions increase was electricity, gas, steam, air conditioning and households. Households, yeah. So why, like I don’t quite understand how they get this household number. What do you think accounts for the household number increase?
Irina Slav [00:15:40] I think it was the colder winter, because the winter was much colder than the previous two ones, heating demand increased, and as governments have people switch from gas to electricity, this means a spike in electricity consumption that wind and solar cannot possibly cover, which is why as reported earlier by, you know, reputable sources such as Reuters demand for natural gas and coal in the European Union increased during the first three months of the year because it was colder and people needed to keep warm. So it’s all connected really in a very, very simple and straightforward way. The more you need heat, the more you energy for whatever purposes, the energy needs to be generated. The darlings of the net zeroes cannot deliver, so you need to crank up those power plants, the baseload ones.
Stuart Turley [00:16:43] This was a funny question. Sorry, I’m late, Mr. Turley. Who’s they? That’s a good thing on the title. They be, how far will they go to enforce net zero? It would be the powers be that are trying to force countries. And I’ve mentioned this before, that I think we will see the world bifurcate into two different groups. The countries that are going after net zero are gonna be trading with themselves in China. And then those countries that are not going after Net Zero will be trading each other and moving forward. And so who’s going to be enforcing it? It’s gonna be the governments on the people forcing it in. So I didn’t know how to explain that in a title.
Irina Slav [00:17:37] Just say the politicians because they’re making the decisions for all of us.
Tammy Nemeth [00:17:43] Yeah, the jurisdictions that have actually committed to net zero. So it’s like today, I think we’re going to talk mostly about the EU and the UK and what they’re the sort of things that are happening around net zero, especially the news about Orsted, which I think is stunning, not stunning. Because on the one hand, I read some reports where Orsted is blaming the Trump administration and policies on wind and solar, you know. But then on the other hand, they’re saying, oh, no, no. That’s not that at all. It’s just that, you it’s this complicated mix of when they sell their equity and projects and move on and they haven’t been able to sell stuff as quickly. And so they need cash in order to continue building out. And so there’s different interpretations on. Why they’re asking for this boost of injection of cash but of course Trump is an easy bogeyman in Europe.
Irina Slav [00:18:48] It strikes me as odd that they’re essentially admitting that their business model is unprofitable, their entire reliance on subsidies, because they rely 100% on subsidies. Their business is not profitable without subsidies. I wouldn’t even call it a profit, it’s a guaranteed income from the government, from taxpayer money. By blaming Trump as does the solar industry in the US. But no, we’re going to die without the subsidies. So you are telling us that you cannot have a profitable business without subsidies. But they don’t care because they assume nobody is going to notice. And indeed, I don’t think everyone’s going to know this because people don’t think about that. But did you hear about the solo record? Said in the uk this year there was so much sun that on one day i think it was july 8th but i may be wrong about the date 30 minutes. Solar supply 40% of the needs of the whole nation.
Tammy Nemeth [00:20:05] Wow, 30.
Irina Slav [00:20:07] 30 minutes on a day. That’s a lot.
Tammy Nemeth [00:20:14] Well, it’s because they’re installing all these, they’re covering fields, you know, farm fields with solar panels. And of course in summertime it’s going to generate a fair amount of electricity when we’ve had an unusually bright summer in the UK. But you know for the 10 years that we’ve lived in the U.K., I would say we’ve had three summers where it’s been sunny and the other seven it’s and gray and rainy. Even during the summertime. So it’s like, okay, that’s great for one day, but do you really wanna be like Spain and have all that solar on your grid and not have the ability to modulate it properly? And I hope that they’re paying attention to these things, although people like Catherine Porter and David Gerber suggest they’re not. Looking after the grid in an appropriate manner, but I guess it remains to be seen what happens as they add more.
Irina Slav [00:21:15] It’s not even one day, it’s half an hour.
Tammy Nemeth [00:21:18] Half an hour.
Irina Slav [00:21:19] On a single day.
Stuart Turley [00:21:24] You know what? Watch out what you’re reporting from Reuters. This is a comment from her. I was told in Reuters Yeah, Miss Santa Claus may be delivering a lump of coal to those with high CO2 emitting households. You know, what now that coal is great again in the United States, we’re starting to export more of it. So I’m all in. I’ll take a lump a coal for Christmas.
Tammy Nemeth [00:21:48] I’m thinking that’s all they’ll have to heat their homes.
Stuart Turley [00:21:52] You bet. You know, I did a article, and I’m trying to find it. I think it was last week or week before. And I did global result of investments from going to investing in wind and solar and hydrogen, returns to investor versus returns to investor in oil and gas. And it’s amazing what you find in the difference of billions of dollars returned to investors. So when everybody talks about subsidies for oil and gas, they’re called tax breaks in the United States. They’re not subsidies. And so if you can’t stand on your own two feet, You shouldn’t be in business.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:42] Well, so this is the problem, because the Net Zero crowd has redefined what a subsidy is. So before a subsidy was like a direct government’s billing out a company, supporting a company and so on. And it’s direct taxpayer money that’s going in to a company’s operations or whatever. And now they’ve changed it to be if at any point a business this is usually only used against oil and gas companies or coal companies. If a business is getting some kind of normal tax break or you know sometimes there’s about if you have assets that diminish over time and so on there’s different corporate sort of tax incentives that every corporation gets but the only ones that get targeted for criticism are oil and gas companies. The thing is, if it That argument is basically your company doesn’t have its own revenue. Whatever revenue produces is actually the government’s. And so if there’s anything in the tax system that allows you to write something off or you can claim something, that’s a subsidy. That’s how they’re defining it. And it’s this really flipped way of thinking that basically everything is the states, is the governments. And if you’re getting some kind of tax break, that’s a subsidy because it’s all the states and you’re some kind advantage out of it, which is so wrong on many, but it’s kind of crept into our lexicon now and our understanding of how businesses operate that if they’re getting I get to write off the vehicles in my company or something like that, that’s now a subsidy. And, you know, that’s that’s not right either.
Irina Slav [00:24:38] But that what I love especially is the fact that when it comes to wind, solar and EVs, they’re calling it they being the people, the commentators with the fondness for the energy transition. They call it tax incentive. The same thing in the oil and gas industry is a tax break. Or a subsidy. Or a Remember that ridiculous story from CleanTechnica I sent you? Yeah. The author was being really boisterous calling for an end to all subsidies for all industries. I’d say bring it on. I mean I would say it if I were the oil and gas industry. Okay, let’s imagine that governments remove all tax breaks for all energy industries because I mean the food industry needs subsidies because farmers don’t make money as we know. But let’s talk about energy. Let’s remove all tax breaks on all of these industries. Do we have an idea what’s going to happen? And it’s going happen very, very fast. It won’t be all in chance that we’ll die.
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:51] Right, but it depends on how you once again define tax breaks, right?
Irina Slav [00:25:56] No help, no help from the government, no tax breaks. You know, you make money, you pay your taxes. No tax breaks, but for everyone. Perfectly equal treatment is what I mean. If you remove all the tax breaks or incentives for one industry, you remove them for all energy industries.
Stuart Turley [00:26:18] I like this one from Kanu. I apologize if I mispronounced your name, Kanu, power bill going up due to high demand of electricity needs by AI, automations, data centers, Bitcoin mining. It’s not solar or wind will be enough to provide the support needed. We will all need circular economy power generated by waste to energy and waste to heat energy. And all you need. You all need to see the reality. Natural gas is here to stay for the long term, but need to work towards the combined efforts to instead defending and bias about anything, either fissile or renewal. So instead, I’m not sure what that, so. I agree, we do need to look at alternative technologies and there are technologies that are starting to roll forward. I wish we could all be like Iceland. Which is one of the most green in the world for energy. They use a lot of geothermal energy. Let’s all just use that. And I’m all in on free energy. Tesla, I think had a very good thing going on for him before he was made not around anymore. Um, and there is a lot to be said for that kind of free energy as well.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:44] Well, you know, you mentioned Iceland and Doomberg had a really great piece this morning, I’m sure you guys read about Iceland and how, you know, even though they’ve done all this amazing stuff and they have the geothermal and, you know, super clean energy they’ve set up like a bunch of AI data centers and whatnot in order to use this so-called clean energy, low emission, zero emissions, whatever, it’s still not enough. And they move the goalposts again. And so it’s, when will it ever be enough? There will always be something to complain about. And as much as I like, one of the interesting things about Iceland, which kind of goes to what this individual canoe said, was how they take the waste heat from the AI data centers and all this other stuff and help do district heating. But you know, district heating doesn’t work everywhere. It works, you know, in some places, not in others. Iceland has unique geographical properties that allows it to do this, but it’s not something necessarily that can be replicated everywhere. And we have to make do with what we have in particular geographical areas. And then LinkedIn user said, it’s called depreciation rates. Yes, thank you. I couldn’t remember what it was called, so thank you so much. For pointing that out. It’s depreciation rates. And then Francisco here has a point where he’s saying it’s like rule of capture, but capturing the wind. Stu, did you want to explain rule of capture?
Stuart Turley [00:29:26] Uh, no, I’m okay on that, uh, that’s when you sit back and kind of go, that’s what my wife tries to rule. And when you go out, dishes are new, it’s rule of capture. I got to either get out of the house and get on my backhoe or something like that, but let’s go ahead and, and when you set back and take a look at, um, it not just the EU, it is not just the UK. It’s net zero and it can be in the United States. The only advantage that the United States has over the EU and the UK is that we have President Trump and his administration for domestic leadership. And I think Lee Zeldin gave a two minute talk here. And this is a long clip. And I normally don’t like playing longer clips. But this one really does articulate really well why net zero policies can hurt a state or a country and it would really be applicable to the EU and the UK. So let’s go ahead and fire this one up.
Video Speaker 1 [00:30:37] Approvals in the Northeast, what would the impact be for those of us who live here in the tri-state?
Video Speaker 2 [00:30:42] Amazing. Unleashing energy dominance, bringing down costs, creating jobs. So I was a couple weeks ago, I was in Pittsburgh, President Trump was at an AI summit, and they were announcing $92 billion worth of investment to the Keystone State, great news for Pennsylvania. And I’m sitting there as a New Yorker, and I’m listening to $92 million of investment getting announced for one state. Thinking about how this whole announcement could be happening across the border of New York and it’s not a great mystery to me as to why the announcement for all the investment is happening in Pennsylvania, not New York. In New York they won’t allow the safe extraction of natural gas, new pipelines to get built. New York has banned gas hookups on new construction, they’ve tried to move towards banning gas-powered vehicles. They’ve set climate goals that the leaders in Albany know that they won’t meet. Whether they say publicly or not they know that they are not going to be able to hit those goals but in the attempt to hit the goals they will cause economic pain for people who can least afford it if you change the policies in albany great news instead of ninety two billion dollars uh… Just getting announced in neighboring states you get to have a hundred billion dollars or two hundred billion dollar get announced in your own state. Uh… It’s smart for us to understand that uh… We have that we have resources that we can safely tap into uh… That’s better than relying on foreign countries we tap into our own energy supply in the u.s. Better than so many other countries do around the world is better for environments better for economy is better for our national security and new york in so many different ways has pushed so many of our residents out of the Because some in power are beholden to activists that don’t represent the mainstream, common-sense view of so many other New Yorkers who aren’t just putting the state in time-out as they leave. They say that they are gone for good and they’re not looking back.
Stuart Turley [00:32:49] I thought that was very well articulated, and I think that really does have an effect. We mentioned investments, we mentioned subsidies, and the electric grandma I love absolutely. She is absolutely great in shorting the grid. We talk about the old school. We always had 20% additional. Just to cover for downtime and emergencies. Now with the advent of all the additional wind and solar, we’ve had to add another 180% electric nameplate in order to get the same service. That 180% is a lot nobody’s talking about. And so when we talk about also the costs associated with it. Lee Zeldin is right. Money will be invested into areas that are profitable, and investors will be getting their money back. It will be states and countries that focus on their energy first will be successful.
Irina Slav [00:34:00] Yeah, but we had the governor of New York state saying that by 2030, the whole state will be powered by wind and solar. So these are the people businesses have to deal with.
Stuart Turley [00:34:12] Yeah, and I personally think Lee Zeldin actually may have won that election when he ran against her. So you never know.
Tammy Nemeth [00:34:23] Yeah, I mean, they can they can say that what they generate will be from wind and solar, but what are they importing? That’s a very important detail And that’s, you know, New York, California is facing the same thing where, you know, they want these regional grids, a national grid, Canada, they’re talking about having a national grade, which is ridiculous. But it’s also that, you know, certain claims can be made in certain jurisdictions that, okay, well, I’m linked here, but, you know, my generation is super clean and we’re able to, to do it because we’re importing from, from these other areas. To me. Quite often those jurisdictions don’t want to admit where they’re getting their electricity from, what it’s being generated from.
Stuart Turley [00:35:11] And in New Jersey, there are 42%, I think, natural gas and 45% nuclear, but yet there’s still number 11 in the United States for price of electricity because of the taxes and the distribution costs. So just because you have natural gas in nuclear doesn’t mean you’re going to have low energy costs because you have green energy distribution policies in there. So this LinkedIn user, New York has a BoCup Utica reserves. I saw their potential firsthand working as a company rep for Pennsylvania General Electric all along the Southern Expressway back in 2001. We’re targeting natural gas fractured 50 square target windows in Trenton Black River. Yeah, there’s a lot up in that area. In fact, They have the entire Marcellus right there, which is unbelievable.
Irina Slav [00:36:19] Hi, Travis. Thanks for the comments. Stories, story time.
Stuart Turley [00:36:30] Let’s start with Tammy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:34] Um, so BP has said they want to reopen a North Sea oil field and this is a kind of a good news story because, um, they, because of new technology, they can, they thought that that field was kind of done, but with new technology they think it can produce quite a significant amount for another, at least 10 to 15 years. And so this should be good news for. For the UK, but I’m not sure if they’re going to be allowed to reopen this North Sea oil field given what’s happened with the total energies. Ruling, because it could very well be that BP puts in a proposal, okay, we’re going to reopen, we’re gonna do all this stuff, and then they’ll get sued by Greenpeace or somebody, and they’ll be told, well, no, you got to take all this other stuff into account, like Scope 3 emissions. So, yay for BP for thinking, yes, we are going to do this and help the UK be energy, less energy dependent on other jurisdictions, but it’s unclear if it will actually follow through. Then the other article is from the Financial Post, it’s by Jack Mintz, where he writes, is Canada the most European non-EU country? Let’s hope not. And he basically makes an argument that I also made on my substack last week, which is strings attached to Canada’s EU pivot, because if you, what he outlined in his article was how. The EU is de-industrializing and they have high energy costs, they have an unreliable grid and so on, and that this really isn’t something we ought to emulate. And then he also talked about some of the net zero policies and the different accounting that they want. And my article talks mostly about these. These different things that the EU will require of all companies that want to trade in the EU of a certain size. So if a company is very large, starting in, you know, 2028 now I think, I think it’s been delayed to 2028, they will have to have energy transition plans, which is like how they’re going to phase out their operations or phase out the emissions, do all of this sort of carbon accounting and stuff, emissions accounting. And different social things like DEI initiatives and all these different kinds of things. So for companies to just to trade, they will have to sort of do all these things. And I think one of the reasons why they’re delaying until 2028, 2029 is they’re hoping Trump will be gone. And then they can bring it back into full force. So it seems like the delay on the corporate sustainability due diligence directive to 2028 is to wait for Trump to be gone. Although Qatar had come out and said they wouldn’t comply with the different methane and social accountability things that are embedded in this. And then there’s the carbon border adjustment mechanism which requires all this So, yeah, there’s strings attached for any. A company outside the EU to trade with the EU.
Stuart Turley [00:40:01] I think that goes back to my earlier statement that you will see the EU trading with itself in China and other countries trading with people because Qatar, I think, is absolutely going to be the way the rest of the world sees this.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:18] Right, but you know what’s interesting is some of the statistics say that Qatar provides about 10% of Europe’s imported natural gas and the United States provides upwards of 60% maybe more. So American companies are going to have to think, you know, do we want to comply with all of these things in order to continue trading with the EU?
Irina Slav [00:40:44] The EU is bearing its health and red tape, that’s what the EU is doing.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:48] Exactly. And that’s been the complaint of EU companies. It’s like, oh my gosh, we’ve got all this red tape to do. And, you know, how do you expect us to make any kind of profit? But maybe that’s the goal is not to make profit. I don’t know. So you can find me on Substack at TheNemethReport.substack.com
Stuart Turley [00:41:13] Well done!
Tammy Nemeth [00:41:14] Subscribe for weekly updates.
Stuart Turley [00:41:17] And David is on vacation right now. So, uh, let’s hear it for David. We need him all healthy and recovered.
Tammy Nemeth [00:41:25] He’s on a cruise ship!
Stuart Turley [00:41:30] I just, I hope that they don’t lose power and be adrift like we hear those war stories and I’m not a cruise kind of guy. I’d rather be in the middle of Alaska chasing bears or something. I’m a non-cruise guy.
Irina Slav [00:41:51] Okay these are mine and my favorite story I think so far this year this is my absolute favorite story that a UN report finds United Nations reports are not widely read. The reason being, they are producing so many reports. They’re having tens of… Oh, it started raining. I’m happy now. Yay, it smells like rain all the way here. So the UN has started having so many meetings and producing so reports that people apparently cannot cope with the load. And the worst thing, you know, some reports are being downloaded. Five times, five thousand times or something, but as our very favorite Antonio Gutierrez said, downloading does not mean reading.
Irina Slav [00:43:00] People don’t care about the UN. Which I think is very good news because they are misleading they are lying straight to our faces and I think this is great but maybe they need to you know shrink the personnel of the EU so they don’t produce so many useless reports that nobody needs and nobody reads even if they download them.
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:32] But what do you make of the U.N.’s Plastics Treaty talks that collapsed yesterday or something?
Irina Slav [00:43:40] Amazing. I’m sure they’ll produce like five reports on that, on how to avoid another collapse of talks, how to make people recycle plastics and reduce plastic waste, and nothing will happen because I think plastic waste is growing, whatever the UN does, which means the UN is useless. No, seriously, we do have a problem with plastic pollution. There is too much plastic going to in the oceans, in landfills, wherever. We are using too much plastic. Well, make the big drinks, soft drinks companies do something about it. Make the big bottled water companies do something about it.”
Stuart Turley [00:44:22] coat of glass.
Tammy Nemeth [00:44:27] Yeah, well, here in the UK, they’re adding some new tax onto glass bottles and they’re telling milk producers to stop, because there are small milk companies that use glass bottles and they are basically telling them to switch to plastic. It was just the most absurd thing.
Irina Slav [00:44:43] The great thing about plastic is that it’s easy to use and cheap to produce and it doesn’t break, unlike glass, which is why plastic became so popular. But I think I’m blaming the soft drink companies mostly because a lot of people developed a habit of drinking water everywhere. Guess why? Because of all this advertising water is life and you need to drink two liters a day wherever you are. And people develop this habit to constantly have a… Bottle of water on their person, which is how all this plastic waste proliferated. Anyway.
Tammy Nemeth [00:45:24] Yeah, I agree.
Irina Slav [00:45:26] The next fun news. German offshore wind auctions draw no bids. Guess why? Because they’re not offering subsidies. But the, was it the finance minister, I’m sorry, I forgot what her title was, but she complained that the geology of the sites where these auctions were held was challenging, which is a problem. And the wind power industry has some supply chain problems and interest rate problems, which is why there were no bids. In fact, this report that I’ve screen-shot from Global Data does not mention the word subsidy at all. But I found the news in another source which did mention the words subsidy. Which was the reason why there were no bids because the government was offering no subsidies and there was even a statement from the Wind Power Industry Association of Germany That’s The model of how these tenders, these auctions are conducted needs to change most of Europe and the UK is using contracts for difference which is the way to go for Germany as well. Contracts for difference are guaranteed prices that win developers. Receive in payment for their energy regardless of the wider market context. So basically give us our subsidies, our guaranteed prices, or we’re not going to build wind turbines, which is good because you know there will be less wind theft. That’s right. Silver lining. And think all the birds that will be saved. That too, they don’t talk about that. Oh, so from that perspective, you know, there’ll be less wind. About birds, it’s good news for all of us who love birds and wildlife. That’s all.
Stuart Turley [00:47:31] Oops, sorry. Here we go. You had put this in the private chat. We have to share this. Look at Greta. You got to just have a great time on this one. No future in the world. That’s Greta hanging out with a Palestinian flag around her neck.
Tammy Nemeth [00:47:52] So they blocked this, I just got this alert, I went, but ping, and I’m like, oh, oh, this is important, sort of. So Extinction Rebellion is not gone, apparently, it’s still in force, and they blocked a Norwegian oil refinery, Norway, of all places. And they’re saying there’s no future in oil, and that fossil fuels lead to death and destruction, Thunberg said. Adding that oil producers in Norway have blood on their hands, and so on, blah blah blah. And um… Who’s blood? Yeah, exactly, who’s blood exactly? But whatever, you know, they make these statements, and then Equinor basically said they’re, they stress the importance of guaranteeing stable energy supplies to Europe, because otherwise where else are you going to get it from? Russia? These boats are made from plastic. Yeah, that’s- I know. I know, we all know.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:58] Let’s go in a plastic fiberglass, because apparently fiberglass is bad because they’re going after boats. But yeah, they’re all plastic kayaks and cadoes or whatever, which.
Stuart Turley [00:49:10] Made from oil.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:12] Made from oil and her coat, her nice little weather-resistant coat there, and her life jacket and the signs. Don’t let hypocrisy get in the way of an activist, right? Trying to find relevance.
Stuart Turley [00:49:32] Somebody needs to get her a ham sandwich. She looks like she just had a blood sugar problem.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:38] Yeah, well, when you’re a vegan, that does tend to happen.
Stuart Turley [00:49:45] And I love you substack Irina
Irina Slav [00:49:51] Yeah, that’s my Substack Irina Slav on energy. And today I ranted about governments and companies going against nature trying to impose unprofitable business models on companies and some companies going along with all this because they forget that they’re in business to make a profit. So the company survived. It’s a very strange world we live in, come to think of.
Stuart Turley [00:50:23] I highly recommend subscribing to Irina Slav’s Energy Substack and then listen to the stories. I love the way you do that. These were two fun stories that I put together. The global struggle to meet renewable energy goals was, I was really going through and a look at it from a financial standpoint. And we’ve already covered a lot of that right now. And it’s the nameplate associated with what is going on, like in Ercot. Uh, Texas Urquart uses about 90 gigawatts and we have to have a hundred and sixty gigawattes of nameplate. Where is that extra cost associated with all that extra gigawatt? Um, I always loved Christopher Lloyd, you know, we’re going to have 13.2 gigawatts in order to go back in time. What point 21 gigawats. Yeah. How do we, I need it. I need a hair, but how do we go back. In time and then calculate out the real cost to the grid and then cost to investors and then the damage to the environment and net zero is not taking any of that into consideration. And then the heat wave cuts when the output exposing power supply gaps. I had a lot of fun getting that one out there. That was just absolutely a hoot. And the Durfin flocking, what do you call that? The what?
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:08] Donkoflaute!
Stuart Turley [00:52:10] Dookonflocken what?
Stuart Turley [00:52:17] Yeah, I’m gonna go with what she said. So when the transcript comes out, go look up Tammy’s, you know, transcript area. But I’ll tell you, you can’t buy this kind of entertainment. We covered this. It’s amazing the amount of damage that the wind farms do on each other by having the amount of… Uh, wind coming through, Tammy, you nailed it by having that first one, having, and then they, the rest of it’s, they steal the wind from the others. But it’s also the land is not the same anymore. And it’s because of the drought and the dryness and everything else. The moisture is not. The same farmers that I’m talking to are absolutely like going, it’s not the same, there’s a lot of change. Climate change happens and it’s because of wind and solar farms, but that’s my opinion
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:14] Yeah, it’s possible, absolutely possible.
Irina Slav [00:53:17] They are contributing to adverse climate changes, yes. Climate is good without them, but they are making things worse.
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:25] So it is anthropogenic to some extent.
Irina Slav [00:53:30] How ironic! Just not in the way we think, right? Yeah, not in way we thing, no.
Stuart Turley [00:53:35] And you can find everything that we’ve got going on at EnergyNewsbeat.co and EnergyNewsBeat.com and my sub stack EnergyNews Beat, theEnergyNewsBeat.substack.com. Had a lot of fun on the Friday’s outfit in Alaska and as we close in here in the last few minutes of this, do you think we’re going to see a peace deal?
Irina Slav [00:54:04] I hope, I just hope this ends.
Stuart Turley [00:54:10] I, I really hope we do too. Um, I’m tired of the, I think president Trump is spot on and, uh, needless death is bad and, I would like to see it into it. I know that, uh. Um, Ukraine is a crime scene and the United States had so many labs in there and everything else. It is one thing I would to see shut down.
Irina Slav [00:54:38] Yeah, and I would love to see what the EU leadership will do once the crime ends and the investigations begins. Yeah. I’m looking forward to this, really.
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:50] I’m looking forward to it too. I really hope that it does end and that the loss of life can stop and a reasonable peace agreement can be arranged and agreed.
Stuart Turley [00:55:03] When you take a look at Germany and their five percent additional that they’re going to be spending on their military, their deindustrialization due to net zero, I calculated out their net loss to their GDP is going to be horrific. They are not going to be able to do it. Are they going to have Canadian kind of, um, math where they’re saying that, uh, the Canadians, I believe we’re counting road repairing roads as part of their defense budget.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:37] The NATO fine print says you can use, if you’re building infrastructure that could be used for defense, then that would be counted as defense spending.
Stuart Turley [00:55:49] wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:49] One of the one of the little tricks that Canada just announced is that it has increased the the salaries of Department of Defense people and that counts towards so they weren’t really spending on equipment and stuff like that but they increased the salaries and they made it retroactive to it look like. You know, their contributions were higher than.
Irina Slav [00:56:24] Very clever. I’m so sorry that such people are in charge of any country.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:30] Well, central bankers, what are you going to do? They’re going to, you know, change, you know, game system or something. I don’t know.
Stuart Turley [00:56:39] Tami, what do you see coming around the corner this week?
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:42] I don’t know. I think one of the interesting things developing here is the nuclear announcements that were made at the end of last week about the 10 SMR projects that have been approved by DOE, Department of Energy, and the different moves on nuclear power. Paul Tice has a new really great report out that I’m going to be talking to him on my podcast later this week, where he’s proposing a different way to finance large-scale nuclear projects because right now there it’s very expensive and stuff but what he’s proposing sounds really promising and i hope people take a look at it and maybe adopt some of those measures
Stuart Turley [00:57:26] I liked his book, net zero book, and I love my discussion with him. He’s cool cat.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:33] Yeah, he is incredibly smart.
Stuart Turley [00:57:36] And Irina, what do you see coming around the corner?
Irina Slav [00:57:39] I will be writing a substack on artificial intelligence and why it’s not a good idea to get hooked on it.
Stuart Turley [00:57:49] That is very cool.
Irina Slav [00:57:49] I have very deep suspicions about AI.
Stuart Turley [00:57:56] I’m looking forward to that. I’m a little nervous by the code that I’m watching and seeing in it. It is very frightening what’s in it, so with that, thank you for all of our great listeners out there. This will be out on the substacks and everything else, so till then, We will see you guys next week on the Energy Realities.
Tammy Nemeth [00:58:15] Have a great week, thanks everybody, bye.
Irina Slav [00:58:19] Bye
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