You won’t want to miss the global team of podcasters covering the IEA walking back its stances on oil and the huge impacts on international markets. David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, Irina Slav, and Stu Turley from all parts of the globe dig into why the IEA has reversed course, the pressures behind its changing forecasts, and what it means for energy security, global markets, and investment strategies. With sharp analysis and candid debate, the panel highlights the growing tension between political aspirations and real-world energy demand and what it all means for the future of reliable power worldwide.
Compared to the figures shown in “The Baseload Solar Beatdown,” the 50 percent solar plus battery storage levels are 15 percent higher, using higher capital cost and fuel prices for the natural gas backup generation. Additionally, we presented the cost of combined cycle natural gas at the highest capital cost and fuel price from above.
The graph below shows prices are higher in every other portfolio mix, as well, even though a higher use of solar will require less natural gas for load balancing than the 50 percent scenario.
Electricity costs from natural gas power plants are rising, as the rise in capital costs for new natural gas plants constitutes a 70 percent increase in the LCOE of these plants, and a potential rise in fuel costs could push these prices higher.
But wind and solar advocates should be careful what they wish for, as higher prices for natural gas power plants and fuel make their own preferred generation portfolios, which are reliant upon natural gas for reliability, more expensive.
Rising prices for power generated by gas turbines make these portfolios less competitive with existing coal and nuclear plants for the foreseeable future.
46:35 – Pentagon Hails Restart Of Critical Minerals Mine In Idaho
47:21 – DAVID BLACKMON: Geoengineering Is Real, And It’s Spectacular
49:39 – Greenpeace USA unveils giant “bill” with the economic damages brought on by five major oil and gas companies at NYC Climate Week
51:41 – Could higher US power prices give solar an edge?
54:36 – California faces a self-created oil and gas crisis. Lawmakers should consider these next steps.
56:52 – Official Response to Canada and BC’s approval of Ksi Lisa’s LNG project through Haida Territorial Waters
59:19 – Wrap-Up
Full Video
Irina SlavInternational Author writing about energy, mining, and geopolitical issues. BulgariaDavid BlackmonPrincipal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Tammy NemethEnergy Consulting SpecialistStuart TurleyPresident, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host
IEA hypocritical about-face, and market impacts
Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:12] Hello, welcome to the Energy Realities podcast. I’m Dr. Tammy Nemeth. I’m the host today. Oh my gosh, I don’t know. I pulled the short straw. We’ve got our favorite team together today. We have David Blackmon, who has the great Energy Edition Substack.
David Blackmon [00:00:32] Energy Editions rebranded.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:35] Rebranded, it’s awesome. How are you today, David, out there in Texas?
David Blackmon [00:00:39] I’m just lovely. It’s a beautiful day in Texas. We got some rain last night, so I’m happy as I can be.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:45] Excellent. It must smell so nice after the rain.
David Blackmon [00:00:47] It does. Even I took the garbage out this morning. It smelled great.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:53] Even the garbage smells good when it rains, go figure. And we have Irina Slav, who is out in Bulgaria, how are you today, Irina?
Irina Slav [00:01:02] I’m great, the leaves are turning, autumn’s coming and it’s my favorite season so I’m happy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:08] Yay! Pumpkins everywhere! No, my god, no! No, no. And I have to point out that Irina is the most amazing writer for OilPrice.com and she has a brilliant substack, so yay, Irina! And we have Stu Turley, the amazing, the multi-faceted Mr. Energy Newsbeat. How are you today, Stu?
Stuart Turley [00:01:33] Oh, I’m doing great. Got to work on my backhoe this weekend and do a little work and work in the shop, get the welder ready, get a load.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:41] Awesome. I think running a backhoe is kind of like cathartic, just helps you relax after a hard week.
Stuart Turley [00:01:50] Put on some ACDC and throw rocks at your neighbors. It is a wonderful, wonderful event.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:58] Very much so. So today we’re talking about the International Energy Agency and they’re, some might call hypocritical about FACE in their most recent report. So they’ve gone from being cheerleaders for the energy transition saying you don’t need any more investment in oil and gas, in fact we should just keep it all in the ground and people need to be investing in all this other stuff, wind, solar, batteries, EVs, and so on. So they also put forward this thing saying that maybe demand isn’t dropping quite as precipitously as they had predicted not two years ago. So our panel is going to be discussing whether this is hypocritical, what’s behind this, and what the implications are for the market. So Irina, I’m going to start with you. What do you make of Mr. Birol’s latest report from the IEA.
Irina Slav [00:03:00] Thank you, Tammy. You know how much I love the IAEA and everything it produces. Well, we already had a similar about turn in 2021 when they said in their roadmap to net zero in May of that year that the world does not need to invest in new oil and gas exploration because… We have all the oil and gas we already need and demand is going to start falling gradually and we won’t need additional supply and you know the industry and investors in the industry should be aware of stranded assets. As you all remember a lot of reports from that time and following years talked about stranded asset being the drama about stranded assets and how investors should be careful. However, in October or November in that same year, in one of the regular oil market reports, the monthly ones, the same people, notably Mr. Fatih Birol, said that we actually need more investments in oil and gas production because there’s too much demand and there’s depletion And, you know, we actually do need to invest more. In oil and gas. They didn’t bat an eye when they said this. And how long has this podcast been going on? Is this our third year? I think it’s…
David Blackmon [00:04:33] This is our fourth year.
Irina Slav [00:04:35] It’s our fourth year?
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:37] Fourth year, oh my gosh.
Irina Slav [00:04:38] Wow. We have been saying this for four years then. But the demand for food oil is not falling. It’s rising, and it’s still rising strongly enough to motivate additional investment in new supply. Did the IEA care? No. Did anyone else care? No. So now here comes the IEA yet again specifically producing a report on oil and gas investment saying natural depletion is accelerating. We need to invest more in new supply. They really don’t care that they’ve been saying the opposite for months, Month after month after month. You know, I don’t know if this is hypocrisy. It’s kind of hypocrisy, it’s also quite arrogant because they wouldn’t go as far as to say we were actually wrong. They pretend they’ve been logical and reasonable all the time which they haven’t, but they conveniently forget this just, you know, suggesting in a very very very indirect way that oil demand is not just not falling it’s rising it’s still rising and it will actually continue to be quite considerable you know for decades to come in that natural depletion report. So that implication, that suggestion when they kept talking about peak oil demand growth was that it’s going to drop off a cliff, you know, we reach peak oil demands and then demand drops off. It’s not going to happen even if peak demand growth occurs before 2030, which I don’t see happening really, but who knows, it’s not gonna fall off a clip. It’s going to stay around the same level for a very, very long time.
Tammy Nemeth [00:06:48] Well, it seems like they say that the assumption is that most of the demand for oil is for vehicles, whether it’s making petrol or diesel or whatever, or jet fuel, but a big chunk of it is used for petrochemicals, such as making plastics and various other things that help keep vehicles light and for other uses and whatnot. So even though the demand for gasoline may decline somewhat with the rollout of electric vehicles in Europe and China and maybe other jurisdictions. I think there’s still a case to be made that it’s not, like you say, it’s going to fall off a cliff.
Irina Slav [00:07:32] It’s not falling even in China despite all their eddies Isn’t that the sign enough that things are not going according to plan
Tammy Nemeth [00:07:44] For sure. So that kind of brings us to one of the motivations for why the report has changed its tone or whatever. Is it a case of energy reality kicking in and examining the real data and saying, ooh, maybe we have to rethink this or we’re going to lose all our credibility? Or is it because the IEA basically reflects what its masters want it to reflect. And we have, you know, the G7 were the original people or groups, countries that set up the the IEA in the first place back in 1974. And the United States is the number one funder, so when the progressives were in power in the United States, the IEA changed its tune, but now that Donald Trump is there saying, you know, this is ridiculous, I think we have to be realistic about we need more energy that’s reliable and affordable, otherwise our economy is going to tank, and then they churn out a report that kind of reflects that, that oh we need More investment. David, what do you think about the innovations behind this change.
David Blackmon [00:08:57] Well, I mean, I think it’s the change itself happened because they reinstituted their current policies modeling case, which they had used forever until what 2021, when they decided to eliminate it and replace it with this aspirational stated policies case as their base case at the IEA and, um, the implementation of the current policies. Base case is what came from Chris Wright, Energy Secretary Chris Wright who in July said look, you’re either going to go back to your original mission, which when it was created their mission of the IEA was to provide fact-based, accurate, reliable, consistent data related to thin, it was just crude oil, oil and gas supply because that was So far in a way, the dominant energy source on earth. Transitioned over the years to, you know, a bigger portfolio of analysis, but they always maintained at least the illusion they were basing everything on real facts, real data, what’s really happening, uh, in the countries around the world in 2021, they decided to, and then announced it happily announced it in the middle of our glorious energy transition and the Biden administration’s first year. That they were gonna become an advocate for green energy and the energy transition. And so they eliminated their fact-based modeling case and replaced it with this fantasy driven thing that of course created, one of the very first reports it created was in June of 2021, telling us we didn’t need to ever invest in exploration and development. Investments around the world for crude oil again. That it was all unnecessary, half of Exxon’s reserves are going to become stranded assets and just created this whole false narrative, truly false narrative about what was really happening in the world and what was going to happen in the World. And it was based on the assumption that crude oil demand was going to rapidly decline, beginning very shortly. And, um, and so Chris Wright in July said, look, you’re either going to go back to your original mission or I’m just going to cancel us funding, which is a very huge piece of, of the overall funding. I think there’s 32 subscriber, 34 subscribing nations to the IEA and, and the U S is probably close to, or more than half of the funding. What is it? 18%. Oh, it’s only 18%. Well, anyway, they decided they didn’t want an 18% budget cut. So they re-implemented their, their current policies case. And, um, you know, so congratulations to Chris right. And, uh, hopefully this is a signal that it’s the group is going to return to become a reliable purveyor of analysis and data, uh that we can. You know, hopefully rely on at some point in the future. I don’t think it’s going to be possible, honestly, for IEA to ever recover its, uh, you know its former reputation and, and as a trusted partner, uh, with Mr. Birol remaining at its head. I just think they’re going to have to, you know, replace him with someone. Um. A recognizable face who has a strong reputation in order to really regain their, their reputation. Now I don’t know that they, they care about that that much, as long as the money’s coming in. So that doesn’t mean he’s going to be gone anytime soon. But I think Chris writes the rap in July motivated the whole thing.
Irina Slav [00:13:05] Sorry, we see them losing credibility in our eyes, but all the investment banks and the other forecasting outlets keep referring to the IEA scenarios and the IA forecasts like are gospel, despite these about faces. Despite these contradictions, they keep following what the IEA says.
Tammy Nemeth [00:13:36] That’s a really great point, Irina, because when the IEA scenarios came out and the environmental groups were doing a victory lap, I was like, whoa, wait a second, why would they come out with scenarios that the environmental group’s like? Because ultimately it was to create I question the validity of the scenarios that they run, and I think Roger Pilkey Jr. Has also come up with, you know, an analysis and critique of the IEA scenarios because they rest a lot on the IPCC ones and are trying to push investment and financing in a certain direction. And they were created specifically to do that. And once you start going into that realm, where reports and data aren’t necessarily about the data, but they’re constructed in such a way to be used by political actors for an ultimate political outcome, that’s an issue. Stu, what do you make of that? And I don’t want to put you too much on, if I’m putting you on the spot, you let me know. But how does this compare with what Ristad was doing and Wood Mackenzie was doing in the past couple of years as well.
Stuart Turley [00:14:58] They seem to have fallen in behind and really, you had to question anywhere you were getting your numbers and it was really frustrating from a point. I wrote this global oil and gas field decline rates are increasing, IEA says trillions of dollars needed just to meet decline curves. And after writing this, I actually got in here and started digging around a bunch as well. But take a look. Without sustained capital inflows, the world would lose the equivalent of Brazil and Norway’s combined oil production, about 5.5 million barrels per day every single year. So, yeah, if we sit back and take a look, is China going to just keep on going, buying? Is India, which is now the number one growth pattern going, if those two just kind of keep on going, there’s going to be a strong demand formula for the strong supply side. We have Germany, we have, as goes Germany, goes the EU, and they are failing. The EU is failing in their demand cycle. They’re gonna have. Lower demand. So the question for demand formulas, can India’s demand growth outpace the fiscal net zero decline of UK and EU? And I’m going to say yes. When you take a look at all this, you’re going to have strong growth. What does that mean to investors? And that is really a big deal is when you sit back and take a look, this is a bullish sign for long-term oil investors. What is the number one thing that is giving back investment right now? Let’s take a Look at Warren Buffett. Warren Buffet said in 2014, Well, he was right about energy. You should not invest in wind and energy unless you’re getting tax subsidies. I wrote this yesterday and I could not have been a little bit more shocked into how bad it was as far as the, the Brookshire Hathaway money. Let me go through a little of that money here. Here’s the big thing. Consumers paid in to taxes that paid for the Inflation Reduction Act, or as Dan Bongino called it, the Porculous Bill. When you sit back and take a look at all that money that gets paid in, let’s take a looks. Berkshire Hathaway represents direct four-way and energy production and conglomerates overall portfolio of mid-2025 reflects a diversified approach. And it was a negative, they got a negative 285% tax deduction worth billions. That is amazing. When you sit back and think that they got negative for investing in and all the wind farm. And now that wind farm goes out and gets additional rate increases because whenever you put a wind farm what happens rate increases go to the consumers at a minimum starting at year five but at maximum of year eight rate increases happen so you take a look at all of the numbers going on here. The math don’t math up for wind. How’s that?
Tammy Nemeth [00:19:06] That’s great and it’s interesting what you said there about the investment dollars that are required in order to keep the production going, whether it’s even current fields producing or going out and finding new ones.
Stuart Turley [00:19:22] And let me, let me add in the United States, it is a tax deduction against other. It is a, tax reduces your tax burden when you invest in oil and gas. Well, so like when I invest, I invested a hundred thousand dollars in an oil deal. I get a 99% and that was a 92.3% deduction because I become a general partner. Once I became the general partner, I’ve been getting oil checks just like a land man. Me and what’s his name are buddies, I’m now a landman because I’m an oil man. I’m getting oil cheques. But I got that 90% tax deduction in the year that I invested. You gotta love that. That’s profits going into not subsidies. There is a difference.
Tammy Nemeth [00:20:21] Right. But I mean, the people on the left would say that any tax deduction is a subsidy. So they have like the direct and indirect subsidy distinction, which is something that’s developed over the past 25-30 years. And it’s when the progressives started to enter into working for the World Bank and the IMF, they started changing the definition of those things. So quite often, I’ll hear the rhetoric in Canada and UK and elsewhere, how the oil and gas companies are subsidized. And, it’s like, what do you mean subsidized? Well, they mean getting tax breaks. So, you know, it. It’s, you can say that it’s this incentive through the taxation system and whatnot, but the left and the progressives will always call that a subsidy.
Stuart Turley [00:21:04] They will and they miss miscalculate it. It’s kind of like I didn’t I have a you know, a beautiful head of hair, but I’m phallically challenge
David Blackmon [00:21:17] Correctly
Stuart Turley [00:21:17] I don’t want to mispronounce that that was horrible. okay, but let’s take a look at Rodney while I get out of this embarrassment Rodney McInnes It’ll be interesting to see when the esg investing has an inflection point and they start to short the situation I’m not an investor, but there’s a phase today This kind of thing has to get the insiders their bets in order. Call me a skeptic about esg if you must Rodney, you’re brilliant. Thank you for your great comment. And we love all of our great comments out there. BlackRock CEO Fink said, we don’t talk about ESG anymore. But I am very grateful for ESG from the standpoint that it has given the US oil producers commitment to give returns billions back to their investors. And then the European oil companies are trying to follow suit so they can survive. But when you look at Wind and Solar, Wind and solar have had trillions of dollars invested in them and they have given back less than one or 2%. Huge difference, huge.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:41] So, Irina, the IEA’s previous finding, according to Carbon Brief, was that there’s no investment in new oil and gas would be needed if the world would continue on this 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway, which of course now they’re saying, oh no, this isn’t going to happen. But now Carbon Brief says, well, this is great in a way because now we can put emphasis for nations. To actually implement measures to create a decline in demand and that the real need here is to stop people from using oil and gas. So coming from the European Union, what do you think the EU would do to try and curb demand in order to maintain this trajectory.
Irina Slav [00:23:31] Have tried everything, everything short of, you know, directly and bluntly banning people from driving. They’ve had these. Yeah, they have higher and higher excise duties. We have higher and higher car taxes. While EV owners do not owe any taxes yet, which has stimulated demand. And yet, and yet just today I read that Porsche has pushed back the date of its introduction of more electric models because demand is not strong enough. Yeah, sure. They’re going to talk about demand because that’s that’s what matters. If you can’t control demand, if you can make demand fall down, you can have a great reduction of all this so-called climate tech, including electric vehicles. So it’s very, very observant of carbon grip. But it’s not going to happen. The very fact that despite all the subsidies, all the incentives, All the legislation aimed at curbing demand for fuels, for hydrocarbon fuels and replacing that demand with demand for electricity for electric vehicles. It has done nothing. Yes, sure, EV sales are on the rise in the European Union. It’s a very strong rise because the subsidies are back. But how long are these subsidies going to last? I keep asking this question every couple of weeks in some substantial store and other… But I’m not asking, obviously, I’m not asking the right people. I would like to ask someone in Brussels, someone in the European Commission, possibly even Commissioner Jorgensen himself, how long is the money going to last? And what happens when it runs out? Well, people get back into their internal combustion engine cars, those who have been stupid enough to replace them with electric cars. So nothing is going to work because this is not how you know the real world Works. It’s like uh, it’s like the story of artificial meat Uh artificial meat producers are going broke one after the other Because the market is already oversaturated even the vegans don’t want it or there are not enough vegan Sorry, maybe vegans do want artificial meat, but they’re not enough of them to Sustain a whole market that is supposed was supposed to be a very fast growing market. Remember all these bright outlooks and If we’re talking about the IEA specifically they’re really really made a big mistake with what David mentioned, the change from actual current policy scenarios to stated policy scenarios and making the steps scenario seem like current policy scenarios. It never was, it was hopes and dreams and it will always remain hopes and dreams and not actual policies.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:00] That’s a great point. And with respect to Porsche, I forwarded an article this morning or a tweet where they’re getting sued for the Porsche EVs that melted down a container ship. And the thing is, they’re being sued. Those were Porsche EVs that spontaneously combusted on the trip across somewhere, yeah. So they’re getting Volkswagen, which owns Porsche, is getting sued over that, something like 400 million to 500 million euros, I think, maybe. But it’s a significant amount because of all the damage that the EVs are happening. Here we have Mitradati has a comment saying that the current price of solar panels have gone down 40% in China since 2020. You might want to update your opinion on solar based on based on current economics. Well, David, do you want to take that?
David Blackmon [00:28:05] Well, I mean, so the price of solar panels has gone down. So what? I mean the limits on solar really don’t have a lot to do with the cost of the solar panels. It has to do with their inability to keep the lights on when the sun goes down. It has to do with this practice here in the United States, and I’m sure it’s the same in Europe, of condemning farmland, you know, to put in big solar arrays. We got to either feed people and keep the lights on or we don’t and so there’s going to be a limit there and you always communities all over the country. Robert Bryce has done a wonderful job compiling a database of these communities all over the county that are killing proposed solar installations because they don’t want to see their farmers put out of business and their farmland be condemned. Same thing with wind And in the other big. Problem solar has right now in America is these long queues for interconnection to the grid. And along the billions of dollars in investments in new transmission, that has to come along with the big solar arrays. You know, and so that’s, that’s going to be a major limiter to them. But yeah, price of solar panels down. That’s cool. That’s one.
Irina Slav [00:29:22] Let’s mention batteries as well because I had a comment on one of my oil price stories a few days ago that apparently I haven’t heard about batteries. I have heard about the batteries and I know that the cost of batteries is falling significantly as well. I don’t see batteries being installed everywhere, there is solar, all winds and capable. To hold enough charge to secure overnight power supply when, to be fair, demand is at its lowest because people are sleeping. So why are we not putting all these cheap batteries absolutely everywhere and shutting down natural gas fired power plants? But there was an earlier comment by the same viewer or listener. Thanks for it. He or she said that gasoline usage in the USA peaked in 2019 and yet oil demand in the US has continued to grow Yeah, even though gasoline demand
David Blackmon [00:30:28] It did peak in 2019 gasoline usage,
Irina Slav [00:30:31] demand continues growing.
David Blackmon [00:30:33] Then we had COVID.
Stuart Turley [00:30:36] Tammy, the rising natural gas costs make wind and solar more expensive too. This was an outstanding article by the Energy Bad Boys, Isaac Orr, and I’ve had them on the podcast a couple times and absolutely love all their work. But let’s go down to this slide right here. You take a look at solar and battery at a cost I believe that’s 600 megawatt hours, and natural gas by itself is 67, but when you look at the new turbines that are coming out, it’s 37 per megawat hour installed. Look at solar, even at the newer one. We’ve had over 480 companies go bankrupt in China because of the solar problems and the financial problems that they’ve had. The math don’t math up when it’s around solar because you have to buy additional power. Let’s take ERCOT. ERCot uses on average, I believe it’s around 92 gigawatts. Why do we have a hundred and eighty gigawatte on ERCots? I believe that we have around, that’s a lot of extra gigawattes that have been paid for. In order to support wind and solar. Yeah. Make sense?
David Blackmon [00:32:07] We’re paying for two different power grids, we’re paying for a power grid of gas, coal and nuclear to keep the lights on and we’re playing for a virtue signaling power grid with wind and solar and that’s why our utility bills have gone up 50% in Texas since 2021.
Tammy Nemeth [00:32:25] Yeah, exactly it. Because like you say, there’s two separate. So Jeff says the only solar cost that matters is the cost of my electric bill compared to pre-solar cell implementation. They’re expensive. So the progressives will argue that the cost is worth it because you’re the planet and and that’s all that matters and so They don’t care if people have to pay more. They don’t care if it’s unreliable. You got to structure your life differently. They don’t care about all that because all that matters is that you’re saving the planet that you’re getting emissions down.
Stuart Turley [00:33:02] Can I give some argument to saving the planet? Sure. 79,000 wind turbines in the United States. How many of them have land reclamation budgeted? Zero. And the winner goes to David Blackmon. It’s not just net zero, it’s absolute zero. It is absolute zero, so we’re talking about an $85 billion liability. Land reclamation for solar farms. Have you seen a solar farm that, like the videos that David has put out, that have been hilarious when you see a hailstorm in Texas? All of the solar panels just get destroyed in a haylstorm. Guess what happens to all those? Those go to a landfill. That has now become toxic. So we now have toxic waste. What happens to the land after three. To five years of a solar panel as it degradates and starts losing it and you replace it, you put a new one. You give it to your home developer and the home developer gets up there and he replaces it and he goes, are you gonna recycle that? Oh yeah, it gets recycled in the same system that you put out there, the two barrels. One goes over here. And then the other one goes over here and they all go to the same place. The United States is dumping all of its solar panels in foreign countries in the ocean and is causing more damage than all of our nuclear fleet from our solar panels. This is absolutely energy hypocrisy.
Irina Slav [00:34:51] I have to say that in all fairness, my electricity bill has gone down since we put up the panels. However, this only applies to the electricity bills for the summer months. The contribution of solar between October and April or May this year was a lot less than 50%. Then June, July, August, it was great. Best period for solar, but now the sun changes position, you know, the sun moves. I mean, the earth moves with regard to it. The angle of the sun raise changes and we now expect this contribution to decline significantly and we still have to pay off the investment that we made in these solar panels and it’s going to take a few years. We really need to talk about this more and not talk about the cost of solar panels in China, though they are dirty. Okay, so that Stuart mentioned already.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:04] Right, I want to add three points here. Number one, Heidi McKillop did a really great documentary about wind and solar in Alberta called Generation Green. And she talked to this farmer who was really big into the renewable thing. And plus they were kind of off grid from where they were. And the amount of infrastructure he needed just to keep the lights on. So he had solar panels, he had a little mini wind turbine, he had batteries, he has a generator. All to just keep things going so he could have 24-7 power on his kind of isolated establishment there. And it was really fascinating to watch his documentary and see all the stuff he had to build out just to have 24 7. So when you have a grid that’s going to be doing all of that, it can be incredibly expensive. And we have to, you know, there’s trade offs and all the things. And my second point with respect to the cheap Chinese panels. Why are they cheap? They’re cheap because they’re subsidized by the Chinese communist state in order to have a way to flood the market of other jurisdictions so they can’t produce things and then you have to ask yourself how are they being made? What are the environmental impacts? What are their material costs? What is the land use obligations for having the type of solar that would be required to generate of power. And then to have the batteries. And then my third point would be.
David Blackmon [00:37:35] Wait, one other thing is the human rights issues surrounding the making of the solar panel.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:40] Exactly, exactly. So the third point I wanted to make was the not just the national security concerns, but the overall environmental damage. It can’t just be about emissions. There’s other environmental aspects that often just get ignored or pushed to the side because all they care about the people who really are pushing this in government and bureaucracy and whatnot. If you look at what in California with the really large-scale battery facility. Where they were having these batteries that were charging up from wind and solar or whatever. And they went into runaway combustion and burned for days. And so now there’s a webinar coming up, I think this week or next week, where they’re talking about the absolute environmental damage, the contamination, how people are ill who live in the surrounding area. So this is another trade-off. Is it worth? Is it worth it to be damaging the earth, taking up land, doing all these different things? Now, I really appreciate Mitradati’s comments here, and there are people who really advocate for these things. But like Rodney said, they have their place. And to do it on such a wide scale, there are really large implications for implementing it in this way. So that’s my rant for today.
David Blackmon [00:39:03] I like it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:06] Okay, so how can we tie this up, David? What’s the sort of last bit we want to say about the IEA’s about face from its championing of net zero and now kind of walking it back a little bit? What’s your final word on that?
David Blackmon [00:39:25] Why did it take so long and better late than never? I guess Come back to reality is always a good thing.
Tammy Nemeth [00:39:36] And Stu, what’s your last word on the IEA?
Stuart Turley [00:39:42] Um, money matters. Uh, and when you have leaders that understand that money matters, uh, it is actually pretty funny. I absolutely love Chris Wright. Chris Wright is a cool cat and, uh, he is definitely what the U S needs. And, uh I’ll, I’ll tell you, it’s refreshing having Doug Burgum, Lee, uh Lee Zeldin and Chris Wright, um, leading the energy charge as opposed to our previous people who are uneducated in the areas. We still have a gigantic problem in the United States. We need, from one of the last reports, I see 100 gigawatts of electrical power to come onto the grid in the next few years. We have 22 of nuclear and natural gas planned. We got us a problem.
David Blackmon [00:40:43] Is that is that a hundred gigawatts of capacity or actual generation because
Stuart Turley [00:40:51] There is a difference. It is actual capacity rather than wind and solar. So it cannot be wind and solar. Yeah. No, big difference.
Tammy Nemeth [00:41:04] Irina, what’s your last word on the IEA switch from being net zero advocates to now kind of walking it back a little?
Irina Slav [00:41:14] It was about time. It was going to happen sooner or later.
Stuart Turley [00:41:23] Either survive or not survive, is that what your point is?
Irina Slav [00:41:27] Well, no, you made a very good point that money matters. I can’t add anything to that except it was about time. And, you know, you see that their forecasts are not… The hopes and dreams are not working. So yeah, Secretary Wright definitely had a very important role to play in that. By speeding it up, you know, the admission that it’s not going as it was supposed to be going. And that’s it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:04] That’s a good thing, definitely. Okay, that’s a a good way to end it. I guess I would say that, you know, there’s changes happening in the world. If the EU really believes World War III is around the corner, you’re gonna need more oil and gas to have a war.
Irina Slav [00:42:27] Not until when you didn’t disappoint them greatly.
Stuart Turley [00:42:32] The EU is looking to face that war by themselves. It is appearing that Trump is trying to bail out and it looks like Zelensky and the EU are trying to get into the war. This is going to be a very interesting time.
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:46] Yeah, I mean, there’s it. Mitch Adani has one last comment here. He or she’s this. This is a good point. There’s a five year back order on new combined cycle gas turbines. But I’m trying to remember which company that makes them has now expanded making new factories. And they say they can cut back that.
Irina Slav [00:43:10] Japanese
Stuart Turley [00:43:16] They ordered 150 from China and they’ve really increased it, but I want to pronounce your name but I’m afraid to because I’m from Oklahoma, Texas, half-breed here, so I would butcher your name. One of the biggest problems that we do see is, or one of the best things going on is that we are taking old jet engines and turning those into gas turbines. So the behind the meter data center in the United States is going like you wouldn’t believe. The CEOs that I’ve interviewed of these new companies that are going out and taking behind the meter are going to absolutely solve the problem and the old American ingenuity is going to be there.
Tammy Nemeth [00:44:10] Yeah, I just I read something. This morning on energy security and freedom on SUBSTAC where it was a guest post by Jim Willis of the Marcellus Drilling News and they were talking about the micro turbines that are created by capstone green energy and how they’re using these micro generators in the field and stuff and so I think there’s ways to to innovate around that. I wonder if Mitsubishi’s decision to withdraw from offshore development in Japan. Is that part of reorienting their investment towards producing more natural gas turbines that are in high demand right now? It could very well be.
David Blackmon [00:44:55] They’re allocating their capital,.
Stuart Turley [00:44:57] And they’re looking at having some of the plans in the United States to help offset some of Trump tariffs that everybody said would not work, but happen to be working. So it’s kind of fun now.
David Blackmon [00:45:10] Well, and Tammy made a great point. There’s a lot of ways to improvise around this, innovate and improvise around backlogs of equipment. And what we’re seeing in the United States and in Texas and other parts of the country that really desperately need additional baseload is the companies that are wanting to build these gas power plants are able to do it. They’re able to source the resources and the equipment they need to get them done. The real hold up has been regulatory and financial and now we see that easing as well as these these investment houses kind of begin to backtrack off of their ESG religion and the Trump administration it influences states, governments as well to ease up on the permitting restrictions and so this is all going to work out. We’re going to get the gas generation that we need when we need it. As is pretty much always been the case in the United States, and I can only speak for the United States, but other parts of the world, I’m sure, are doing the same thing.
Tammy Nemeth [00:46:17] Yeah, great point. All right, so now we’re gonna move into the stories. Can I go last, Stu? You bet. Awesome. Okay, David Bull, we’ll start with you with your stories.
David Blackmon [00:46:33] Yeah, just a couple of quick things. We had the Stibnite mining operation in central Idaho received its final permit from the U.S. Forest Service to proceed to restart that mine, which provided 90% of the nation’s antimony needs throughout World War II. Projection is the resource is so rich in that mine it’ll be able to provide 35% our anemone needs going forward. Here in the United States, it’s a huge thing for the Pentagon because antimony is integral to pretty much every major weapon systems the US military uses and we can’t continue to be reliant on China for that particular critical mineral. The other one is geoengineering is real and it’s spectacular. That’s a piece I wrote at the Daily Caller this week, it or on Saturday. Actually was published. That was a review of a hearing that was held by the house resources committee, a subcommittee chaired by a controversial Republican, Marjorie Taylor Green from Georgia. And she was, you know, the subject of ridicule out of that hearing because she made some remarks, opening remarks that talked about God and religion, but the critics completely missed the point. That everything she said about geoengineering and efforts to control the climate was absolutely true. And the hearing itself imparted a lot of really good data and information related to all these crazy efforts going on to block the sun around the world. So anyway, that was an event that didn’t get the notice it should have gotten in our corrupt media.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:24] Yeah, Roger Pilkey did an amazing presentation, he and Chris Martz, and his recommendations, I’m going to be writing about that this week as well on Substack, because it’s, there’s a movement afoot where they’re trying to legitimize actually executing a global scale solar dimming project. And you know, honestly, talk about worries about climate change, that has got to be one of the biggest ones. It has to be taken seriously.
David Blackmon [00:48:53] It could just be such a global catastrophe. It’s just the risk is unimaginable from something like that.
Stuart Turley [00:48:59] Yeah, I mean, nobody’s talking about the death of the bees like the whales. The geoengineering has caused in the United States, bees are not around. Guess what happens
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:12] Yeah, well, I would I would even argue that one of the biggest geo engineering projects that’s been ongoing for 30 years are the wind turbines that are all over the world.
David Blackmon [00:49:23] Messing up the currents and yeah, yeah, I’m at Energy Editions, my rebranded substack site. Come see me.
Irina Slav [00:49:35] Right, these are my very quickly very funny stories. Greenpeace USA and Belgium bill with the economic damages, I don’t remember it by heart, with the economic damage brought on by five major oil and gas companies at NYC climate week. So the bill was indeed a very very very very big piece of plastic. Then they made it through the streets and they cited research that actually quantifies the social carbon loss, I think. Social cost of carbon. Social cost carbon. Thank you. I wrote my substack about it this morning and I already forgot the… It’s crazy.
Irina Slav [00:50:27] Yeah, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this estimate of the social cost of carbon was based on computer modeling, which in turn was based on assumptions of the actual cost of these emissions. So that was one funny story. And the other one was also funny.
Stuart Turley [00:50:46] I thought in your your article here, applying the SCC methodology to project total damages by company, they’re projecting ExxonMobil to mobil to 1.38 trillion in damages.
Irina Slav [00:51:06] I dont know how many is 30. Yeah
Stuart Turley [00:51:10] shell 1.3 bp 0.96 total energies 0.83 i thought that was amazing well done
Tammy Nemeth [00:51:18] Notice how they’re only private companies. Where’s all the state owned companies from the Middle East?
Irina Slav [00:51:25] No, actually, the study included, I think, 180 companies, including the NOx. But I didn’t read it in the original paper. Anyway, anyway, US power prices give solar an edge.
David Blackmon [00:51:45] Isn’t that the goal? Yeah, plan, wasn’t it?
Irina Slav [00:51:50] This sounds like an admission that solar, when cheap, is not making money for those who generate it. It’s not an admission of this fact and it’s done completely obliviously to the fact that this is an admission that solar is not cheap and even when it is cheap it’s not good because it’s not making a profit. Amazing. That’s a good point. Yeah. It still kind of surprises me when these people who on the one hand keep repeating that wind and solar are cheaper, they’re cheaper, their costs are constantly going down. They’re dirt cheap, they are cheaper than oil and gas and everything else. But they’re not making money when they’re cheap. So they can’t say she’s crying. They’re not making money, so they need higher power prices to make money.
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:02] Yeah, I mean, so there’s two interesting things. So in the UK, they keep saying that the whole reason prices are more expensive is because natural gas is more expensive. But otherwise, if it was just solar and wind, it would all be super cheap. It’s just that terrible gas is increasing the prices, which is, of course, a lie. And then. Yeah. And it’s not cheap, you know, yeah, absolutely. And then the second thing, I hear this all the time. I listen to various investors talk who really support the transition and whatever. And they’re like, OK, well, natural gas takes too long. We can put solar up really fast. It’s really quick. It’s really fast, but it still only works eight hours a day if you’re lucky. And maybe four or five hours of peak generation and all this other kind of stuff. So, yeah. OK, you can put it up there and maybe it’ll charge your phone. You know, like, it’s unreliable for what’s required on a larger scale. So anyway, so that’s my Thanks, Irina. And your Substack.
Irina Slav [00:54:04] I have been thinking about rebranding and you inspired me David, so maybe I will rebrand but for now it’s Irina Slav on energy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:18] What would you change it to?
Irina Slav [00:54:21] I’m not saying.
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:22] Oh, okay. Okay. Do you want to give away the brand rollout?
Irina Slav [00:54:27] It’ll be a surprise.
Stuart Turley [00:54:31] We’ve already talked about mine, but you can’t beat a good California story. California faces a self-created crisis. Lawmakers should consider these next steps. This was a great article where I had a guest author create some, uh, bullet points in there that I’ve talked about and I thought it was kind of cool that somebody else came up with the same ideas, um, the tail wind. I’ll tell you what, governor, governor knew some is absolutely a despicable human being and a waste of skin. That man has destroyed California. And my interview with Steve Hilton was actually a outstanding interview. He even has his book that is absolutely phenomenal. Steve Hilton, I hope he wins. I hope that he can get out there and fix California. Anyway, um I feel sorry for Californians because with 20% of their refining capacity due to be shut down in the next probably six months, $10 gasoline,$ 10 diesel is on the horizon.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:46] And wait until they bring in their climate disclosures.
Stuart Turley [00:55:49] Uh yeah it’s about to even get worse uh you can also find me on uh energynewsbeat.co and uh i’d like to give a shout out to all the jerks that are trying to hack the site i had uh 11 000 denial of service attacks yesterday so congratulations you stinkers did not do a thing and you’re wasting your time have a great day And you can also find me on Substack and I do appreciate everybody. Let’s go to Tammy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:23] Okay, thanks, Stu. Okay, so I wanted to just highlight David Turber’s substack yesterday, where he goes into incredible depth about the wind in the UK, the wind issue. So, I highly recommend that. I’m just going to put that out there as something really important to read. He does such incredible in-depth research. It’s a really good piece. The other thing, just to wrap up really quick, is so last week as part of the new major projects office in Canada, so this is a new bureaucracy created to help reduce the other bureaucracy that hasn’t been removed, it’s typical Canadian, that’s all I can say. So the new project, major projects office. Issued a bunch of approvals. They did an initial set of five, which had already been approved, but then they just rebranded it and said, yeah, we’re approving this too. And then they had a secondary list, and this is one of the projects on the secondary list. And that’s the Casey Lissam’s LNG project on the BC coast, on the coast of British Columbia, which is quite near to where LNG Canada is operating. And this project was already approved by the British Columbia government and just needed the extra rubber stamp from the federal government. So it was another thing that had already gone through the approval process of several years. But they get to say, yay, we approved it. But within 24 hours… A native group that has just been given territorial control over the Queen Charlotte Islands, which is now known as Haida Gwaii, which are the islands off the coast of British Columbia to the north, said, we don’t like this project because they complained throughout the whole approval process. And even though they’re supposed to, they consult with Indigenous people that it’s not a veto, but they’re basically saying it’s a veto because now last week they were given control over the territorial waters as well as the island and they’re saying we don’t want these LNG ships going through our territorial waters. So this has opened up a whole new can of worms. So project’s been approved where the Indigenous people are saying yeah we were part of the process but we didn’t like it and we’re saying no. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but anyway, that was a really interesting story. It’s something to watch out for in the coming weeks and months of what’s gonna transpire with this LNG project that’s been approved by governments and other Indigenous people who are part of the project. But this other group isn’t part of it and they’re mad and don’t want it to go forward. Maybe they should lose hope with them some money.
Stuart Turley [00:59:11] Yeah, were they gonna get paid?
David Blackmon [00:59:14] It’ll require a settlement. We all know how that goes.
Tammy Nemeth [00:59:19] And so you can find me on Substack, TheNemethREport.substack.com I put my podcast up there and I try to put out a an article every week and this week it’s going to be on the geo engineering subject. So check it out. Happy for anybody who wants to come and read and offer comments. Love all comments. Even if I disagree, it’s great. Thank you.
Stuart Turley [00:59:41] All right, I guess that’s it.
Irina Slav [00:59:43] That’s it. Well, Thanks everybody. See you next week
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