The Energy Transition is a hot topic and hot words. What does it mean? Are we headed down a path that is not beneficial for our civilization?

On this episode of THE CRUDE TRUTH, We discuss Global Energy issues with David Blackmon, Irina Slav, Tammy Nemeth, and Armando Cavanha.

We get a global point of view from The United States of America, The United Kingdom, Brazil, and Bulgaria.

Please reach out to Armando Cavanha on his LinkedIn HERE

Please reach out to Irina Slav on his LinkedIn HERE

Please reach out to David Blackmon on his LinkedIn HERE

Please reach out to Tammy Nemeth on his LinkedIn HERE

Check out StatusJet HERE

THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep 22 The Host of The Energy Transition Podcast

Rey Trevino [00:00:00] The Energy Transition, What is it? It’s a hot topic in hot words that the government is using and energy experts. I bring in an international panel today to discuss this and much more on this episode of The Crude Truth.

Rey Trevino [00:01:16] Well, the energy transition, when you think of that word, it means so much these days and it’s got such a big responsibility and what a global impact that that word is so big that I couldn’t just bring in one individual today to talk about the energy transition, but I had to bring in an international panel of experts to come in today.

Rey Trevino [00:01:40] You may recognize them all, they are the hosts of the Energy Transition Podcast when we go down the line one by one today, and I’m going to start with our arena, our arena Slava, she is an energy mining and geopolitical expert hailing from Bulgaria. Irina, how are you?

Irina Slav [00:02:01] I’m fine, Thank RT, thanks for having me.

Rey Trevino [00:02:04] Oh, thank you for being on and then next up, hailing from the country of Brazil in South America, I’ve got Armando Cavanha. Armando, How are you?

Armando Cavanha [00:02:17] I’m fine, Thank you, and thanks for having me.

Rey Trevino [00:02:20] Mine. For those of you that do not know. No. Armando has published over 100 groups of essays and articles and also has five books out that are all on Amazon talking about different parts of the energy world. Next got hailing from the United Kingdom. Miss Tammy. My name is Tammy. How are you?

Tammy Nemeth [00:02:41] I’m doing well, Thank you, Happy to be here.

Rey Trevino [00:02:44] Oh, we’re excited to have you here. And Tammy is also an energy expert and I can’t wait to dive into everything that’s going out there in the United Kingdom at this point. I’m glad you’re doing well. And last but not least, I’ve got a man that is very much responsible for assisting me in actually getting this crude truth episode put together David Blackmon. David, how are you?

David Blackmon [00:03:09] I’m just fantastic. It’s a beautiful day in Texas.

Rey Trevino [00:03:13] Well, I’m excited to have you on and for those of you that do not know, David is a Forbes continues to be contributing author excuse me he’s also another Energy expert, hails from the state’s last country of Texas. If you couldn’t tell.

Rey Trevino [00:03:28] And he’s also not only a good friend of mine but a fellow podcast host with me on the 3 Podcasters Walk into a Bar but today we’re talking about the Energy Transition podcast. Guys, thank you all. After all those introductions, Welcome. Welcome to the Crude Truth. And as I can tell, this is going to be just an awesome discussion just about the word energy transition and everything going on in the world today.

Rey Trevino [00:03:57] What I’d like to start with is Armando, I want to start with you and how everything is going there in Brazil right now. You know, I know that you guys were basically energy independent and now you all are going through some different trials and tribulations yourself. But you know, what are you seeing out that way?

Armando Cavanha [00:04:20] Brazil is in very good shape in terms of Energy you know, we are self-sufficient in terms of adding gas. The production was more than 3 million barrels a day or 2% of the oil. And the consumption is a tool, something so we can export it bit for different countries for gas is the same.

Armando Cavanha [00:04:45] We have 140 million cubic meters per day of production and that is not enough for Brazil, but it is increasing very fast as we have a huge reserve and pre-salt and be explored by several companies, including Petrobras, the state-owned company.

Armando Cavanha [00:05:05] So we have a very comfortable situation and for the Electricity, 70% of our electricity comes hydro so it’s very clear to the place in Brazil. So that’s the reality very good. But Brazil is still a small country in terms of GDP so we need to increase and distribute wells for all people the council is good At the same time its a challenge for Brazil.

Rey Trevino [00:05:37] Well, I thank you for that and you know, our Irina, I want to ask you kind of the same question about Bulgaria real quick. You know, what are you seeing over there in that region of the world that you’re at right now with energy as far as how you all are doing and receiving it and whatnot?

Irina Slav [00:05:53] Right. Well, Bulgaria’s the biggest exporter of electricity to the region, the wider region of the Balkans, because we produce quite a lot of electricity from a single nuclear plant. We’ve also got some big coal power plants, we don’t use gas so much for if it’s all for electricity production, but we produce more than we could use, so we export it and that’s quite good.

Irina Slav [00:06:25] As self-sufficiency. However, while Brazil is completely self-sufficient in fossil fuels, we are only self-sufficient in coal. But that seems to be enough for now. I mean, it allows us to be an exporter disproportionate to our size. So I’d say we’re well better than much of Western Europe. Ironic as this may be.

Rey Trevino [00:06:51] Well, I’m glad you mention Western Europe there because I want to go to Tammy, who’s in the United Kingdom. It’s not England and it’s not Wales it’s the United Kingdom is that correct Tammy?

Tammy Nemeth [00:07:03] Yeah, that’s correct for sure. The situation here is interesting because there’s a lot of potential for the North Sea, even though some fields have been declining and there are great fights between the government and the environmentalists because the government wants to expand production and development and whatnot and the environmental groups are suing the government for granting permission.

Tammy Nemeth [00:07:27] So I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the North Sea to increase the production. And with respect to electricity in the UK, it’s a basket case. Their system was privatized a little while ago and it’s just a mess.

Tammy Nemeth [00:07:45] And so 21 energy suppliers, electricity suppliers went out of business during this terrible spike in prices. And so now there are these new suppliers out there and the government has provided subsidies and whatnot for the public because otherwise, it would be extraordinarily expensive to have electricity. And I’m not sure where that’s going to end up in the next year. So it’s an interesting time to be in the United Kingdom.

Rey Trevino [00:08:15] Well, let me ask you this real quick. Tammy before we move on, can you give me an example of how much maybe your electric bill has gone up in the last 12 months or so? Can you give an example of something like that?

Tammy Nemeth [00:08:30] It’s tripled and the government provides a little bit of support, at least until the end of April, and after the end of April, the price cap that they’ve put forward will be gone. Now, depending on who your supplier was, your price might be a little bit different. So we were kind of fortunate that our house doesn’t run on electric power we have heating oil. So our electricity costs, even though they triple that, are mainly just for running the electricity in the house and not the heating.

Rey Trevino [00:09:03] Wow. That’s pretty tense right there that you’re in a good position and it just only, quote-unquote, tripled up. I can’t imagine that. David Blackmon, if you can send Tammy a little bit of assistance for all of those royalties that you get for all the shows that you do. David That’d be nice.

David Blackmon [00:09:26] Well, it hadn’t been as bad for us in the United States, that’s for sure, as it has been in these other countries. I just interviewed this earlier this morning Osama Rizvi, who I’ve contacted through LinkedIn, and he’s in Pakistan, and their utilities have just exponentially gone up over the last year.

David Blackmon [00:09:52] And they have 45% inflation compared to our six and a half percent inflation. So in the United States, whenever we start thinking we have it bad where energy costs are concerned, we need to just familiarize ourselves a little bit with what’s happening in these other countries around the world.

David Blackmon [00:10:12] You know, and the other thing, RT, that’s going to happen in Texas soon is, our electricity rates here in Texas are going to start falling because utility rates for your fuel charge on your utility bill always take a few months to adjust to what’s happening with natural gas prices.

David Blackmon [00:10:33] We get 40 to 50% of our Electricity here in Texas from natural gas generation. And as everyone probably knows, the price of natural gas at Henry Hub has gone down by 70% since October, and right about now in March is when the utility rates for your field charge will start reflecting that.

David Blackmon [00:10:59] And so our bills are about to start going down in Texas, where most of the rest of the world, they’re continuing to rise. And so we’re incredibly fortunate to be where we are and I have a lot of sympathy for folks having to deal with what’s happening in some of these other countries.

Rey Trevino [00:11:18] I know since this is an international panel and I am thankful as well, and I hope a lot of our listeners also out there, you know, good, bad or indifferent, left or right, David, are very thankful and proud to be American and that’s I’ll leave that one at that today.

Rey Trevino [00:11:36] I want to kind of talk about global climate change, and climate activism. I know here in the United States it is something that is just everywhere you look there’s protesting going on. You know, banned fossil fuels you know, we need to get wind and solar.

Rey Trevino [00:11:56] And so from America, from where I sit, you know, I see this all the time you know, Tammy, are you guys seeing that type of stuff there in the United Kingdom as well? And more importantly, do you all see a mirror, the United States, with all of our protests going on as well? And what do you think about that?

Tammy Nemeth [00:12:20] Well, in the U.K., they’re the ones who created Extinction Rebellion. I mean, Extinction Rebellion came out of the U.K. and they’re crazy where they throw soup at meetings and they glue themselves to ropes and they have various offshoots right?

Tammy Nemeth [00:12:36] So now they have animal rebellion so they’ve been gluing themselves to the roads to get people to stop eating meat. And they were throwing stuff going into supermarkets, taking milk the out of three bridges, and dumping it all over the floors to protest against people drinking milk.

Tammy Nemeth [00:12:55] So the interesting thing in Canada where I’m from, is that there was a study done a couple of years ago by the Alberta government about the various campaigns against the oil and gas industry.

Tammy Nemeth [00:13:09] And it became quite clear that there’s a lot of cooperation between American environmental groups, the U.K., environmental groups, the Canadian ones. So there’s a lot of actually coordinated action that goes on between these groups to raise the profile of trying to keep oil and gas in the ground.

Rey Trevino [00:13:31] Wow. I did not know that that was an extinction group like that with that title there in the United Kingdom. Armando are you all seeing the same type of protests there in Brazil at all for oil and gas?

Armando Cavanha [00:13:47] No. Brazil is still, let’s see, growing in terms of understanding the energy problem. So it’s different from Europe and the United States, I suppose. But Europe is worse probably Europe is because it’s more political then than in reality, the energy and energy problem.

Armando Cavanha [00:14:09] In Brazil we are very clear to energy security, something that the government and Petrobras itself is taking care of for long, long after decades to not fall in terms of and that’s our main focus of this discussion is off blaming and alarmist is not something working brazil we have it right.

Rey Trevino [00:14:31] Now, But my next question is, you know, there in your different regions, are there really like obviously in the United Kingdom and with what you just talked about, are Armando.

Rey Trevino [00:14:44] Irina, is there a big world effort for global warming to stop, quote unquote global warming or this climate crisis that we’re in? Or is that something that we just see here in the United States? More in the United Kingdom?

Tammy Nemeth [00:15:01] You mean the protests?

Rey Trevino [00:15:03] The protests, The activists? I mean, things like that. Yes.

Irina Slav [00:15:08] I do think they are especially massive and especially loud in the English-speaking world and Germany as well. But that probably to me, this has something to do with the wealth of a country, because of what Armando has just said. Brazil has reached a point where climate change and alarm and alarmism around climate change matters to people because there are lots of poor people in Brazil who will have much more immediate, much more fundamental problems.

Irina Slav [00:15:50] It’s the same in Bulgaria, where we have a very tiny, loud minority of people who would protest everything that has to do with, you know, cutting down trees, for example, or exploring for shale oil, shale gas or oil offshore but there are very, very few of them.

Irina Slav [00:16:15] And that’s because Bulgaria, too, is a poor country. It’s one of the poorest members of the European Union. And people have bigger problems than climate change. It’s the same across Eastern Europe as opposed to Western Europe.

Irina Slav [00:16:29] And those protesters, they don’t look like people with money problems if I may be so blunt, and we know that the latest kids on the BLOCK just stop oil, that the people who used to own paintings, it turns out they have billionaire donors they have really strong financing.

Irina Slav [00:16:58] So these are people who have professional career activists, it’s a career now apparently. So I think that’s why there’s this difference between the intensity of climate protest in Western Europe and the US, although I think that fewer protest in the US all because I don’t believe that I don’t know about all of them than they are in, say, Brazil or Bulgaria.

Rey Trevino [00:17:29] Okay. You know, David, Tammy, and Irina bring up a great point each that, you know, Tammy mentioned that there are coalition groups that are all kind of put together throughout the world. And then Irina mentioned, hey, they’ve got these billionaire backings.

Rey Trevino [00:17:46] I was able to have an article by Substack the other day talking about gas bills. And I know we briefly mentioned it on three podcasters, but there’s an anti-oil group out of Colorado that also has international backing and has other places where they promote anti-fossil fuels and that place is China. And so why is it that China is so concerned about the oil and gas industry here, in America?

David Blackmon [00:18:22] Well, you know, China wants to see the United States do that to lower its standards of living. China wants to see the United States population become poorer because it makes us more vulnerable.

David Blackmon [00:18:36] But just to comment, too, on some of the things the other said first now you see why doing this International Energy Transition podcast is like my favorite hour of every week because I learn so much and so many different perspectives from these three folks.

David Blackmon [00:18:56] You know, when you talk about the Animal Extinction Rebellion people, I can only wonder, why don’t they glue their hands to wind turbines to protest the killings and the fact that the wind industry is the second biggest killer of birds on the planet? Or to protest the nine dead whales that have washed up on the shores of the Atlantic coast adjacent to these offshore wind projects all of a sudden.

David Blackmon [00:19:22] I don’t understand why we’re not seeing that happening. And the other thing to say about these groups is not that they’re just more intense in the English-speaking world, but they’re more intense among upper-class, white, English-speaking people of the world.

David Blackmon [00:19:41] When you look at the backgrounds of these protesters, they’re almost uniformly from wealthy white families that have grown up in privileged households. And as Arena points out, they don’t have enough real things in their lives to worry about. They don’t have real problems to address to give them feelings of self-worth.

David Blackmon [00:20:09] And so they become they staged these ridiculous, ludicrous protests where they block traffic or they damage priceless works of art to get attention for themselves and to virtue signal to make people think they’re doing something that makes them worthy human beings. And this is a phenomenon in the Western world.

David Blackmon [00:20:35] And as Armando says, you know, Brazilians, by and large, don’t have time to worry about stuff like this when you’re dealing with high inflation and rising food costs and just wondering where you know, how you’re going to keep your family warm during the winter.

David Blackmon [00:20:56] Worrying about whether or not you’re getting your electricity from windmills or natural gas is just not really at the top of your list of priorities. And as you can tell, it makes me pretty angry to hear all this. And but but but that’s real. That’s the truth. And it’s a really sad aspect of Western society these days.

Rey Trevino [00:21:20] I would say that that’s the Crude Truth, David, that it is sad in the Western society where we are at a point in the world that you know, here, especially now all tied into the oil and gas industry, we have an age gap from about 20 to 30 that we don’t now have individuals out there working, excited about the opportunity to do a hard day’s work, to earn a good dollar.

Rey Trevino [00:21:46] Because there is so much now going on to where these individuals are now being almost indoctrinated in college not to do anything in that oil and gas is bad in that the rest of the world in that by us getting rid of oil and gas, the rest of the world, like the Bulgarians of the Brazils in the United Kingdom, will benefit from the United States stopping their production of oil and gas, which just is not the case.

Rey Trevino [00:22:14] Which again, you’re right that is one unique and great thing about the Energy Transition podcast is that you guys do give that worldly view every week about, hey, what’s going on throughout the world?

Rey Trevino [00:22:29] Because whenever you watch the news at night, they might do a two-minute blurb on what’s going on across the world and then they don’t even talk about what is going on. They just kind of give a quick little blip.

Rey Trevino [00:22:41] And I mean Irina what you’re doing over there and representing, you know, Bulgaria in that area, there’s so much that goes on over there daily that we don’t even know about. And you know, Armando, there in Brazil, we know that job had some issues, I think government-wise. But hey, that was very unique that you guys were energy independent and now look at you guys still are. And that’s awesome that here in the United States, we still try to strive to do it daily.

Rey Trevino [00:23:14] But getting into, you know, talking about the global aspect of things, the IEA just announced that we’re going to need an increased amount of crude oil. So we’ve got an increased demand of crude moving into the rest of this year, you know our Irina What do you think about how the IEA is looking at this and how they’re projecting this year?

Irina Slav [00:23:41] Well, it makes me think about their road map to net zero, which I love your calls as they get along very well. Know when it’s serious. They don’t love that road map. In this document which they issued in 2021, they said we would not be raising new oil and gas exploration after December 2021.

Irina Slav [00:24:09] Since then, they have revised upwards their oil demand forecasts and their projections that we would actually need more oil and gas. Now, I would very much like to meet Mr. Fatih Birol someday, so I could ask him, how does this square, how does the road map to net zero square with these projections that the agency heads produce on a regular basis?

Irina Slav [00:24:45] Which reports are we supposed to believe? Which report should we take seriously? The oil market report, which the IEA publishes every month or this year, is the road map to net zero. And it’s not just the road map. I mean, Bureau and the IEA have been repeatedly saying we need to give up fossil fuels.

Irina Slav [00:25:09] The latest example was at the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, where Mr. World once again said that, yes, we need to phase out oil and gas. So how are we going to do that despite this higher oil and gas demand if we phase out production? It sounds like a ridiculous question, but apparently, it’s a question that needs to be asked in light of these conflicting signals coming from the same place.

Rey Trevino [00:25:35] Oh, you’re right, Irina. You know our motto. Do you want to add anything to that? What did I read? Yes.

Armando Cavanha [00:25:43] Yes. Fantastic analysis. As always. It is not fantastic but the problem is the problem. They don’t have a plan. So every day they are changing projections and forecasting. So it’s complicated that way. And we need to learn how to live without energy.

Armando Cavanha [00:26:02] So each energy has good things and bad parts there’s no doubt about that. Of course, we have problems with oil and gas, but we have problems. All other energy, renewables, for instance, metal minerals and some different problem that you have.

Armando Cavanha [00:26:19] So the recommendation for Mr. Beard, an old friend of David, is to have more planning process than they have today. So to see the future in line looking up, let’s contemplate the best roads.

Rey Trevino [00:26:41] You know, Tammy the other day I wrote a little post on LinkedIn that they do want to call this an energy transition and get us away from oil and gas and coal. But wouldn’t it end up you know, everybody also trying to be nice saying, hey, we need an energy addition, like we need to add more to the system?

Rey Trevino [00:27:07] But you know, there in the UK and where you guys are at you have a high demand for oil and gas this year and going into already next year and we’re still here in the first quarter of 2023, is that correct?

Tammy Nemeth [00:27:23] Yes, that’s true. And if I could just contribute a little bit to something about the IEA, it’s what we kind of talked about before, that it’s a rather schizophrenic organization because we have that barrel talking about it’s the end of the world and the end of oil and gas and coal.

Tammy Nemeth [00:27:41] And then you’ve got the actual technical guys who produce these reports and say, hold on a second, There’s still going to be demand and what I found interesting about that recent statement was that they’re projecting jet fuel is going to be one of the main reasons why there is there’s going to be this increased demand for oil to make the jet fuel.

Tammy Nemeth [00:28:03] And they’re they were trying to say it’s mostly from China, China is reopening. People are flying around more. And then I thought, well, maybe this is related to the jets that they’re supposed to be giving to Ukraine and they’re expecting an increase in the price of something. They’re going to need jet fuel.

Tammy Nemeth [00:28:23] So it’s interesting how the EU has declared natural gas as a bridge fuel at the same time that they’re saying they need to get off natural gas and get off coal. And then it goes back to what David was talking about, Pakistan, where you have or Pakistan had natural gas. They were going to switch to natural gas and not build any more coal plants and then they were priced out of the market.

Tammy Nemeth [00:28:47] Because the EU has been buying it all up and plate paying for it. So now Pakistan has to put Drupal the amount of coal-fired power plants because they need something reliable and they can’t secure the natural gas because the EU’s been driving up the price. So all of these things, as you talk about trade-offs, there are trade-offs.

Tammy Nemeth [00:29:09] And so we’re seeing this imbalance in the global energy markets, not just because of climate change and what they’re doing, but for these decisions that the Europeans are making in order to make sure that their people don’t freeze and all the lights don’t go off but it has ripple effects around the world.

Tammy Nemeth [00:29:31] And we’re seeing that in Pakistan and once China’s economy starts going and there’s a whole lot there about the geopolitical situation with China and the United States and whatnot but if China has an increase in demand, it’s got to come from somewhere.

Rey Trevino [00:29:46] Yeah. You know, David, I know that you politely turn down the head of the deal when they asked you to be the head of the IEA a couple of months back.

David Blackmon [00:29:59] Of course not.

Rey Trevino [00:29:59] Oh, that was okay maybe I got my notes wrong. I have to go back and check. David. No, please tell everybody what IEA stands for. And if you want to kind of wrap up that IEA that everybody’s been talking about here.

David Blackmon [00:30:14] Well, it’s the International Energy Agency, and it is an organization that was commissioned by a group of countries. I think initially it was about a dozen countries that formed it, what, 20, 30 years ago Now, it’s been a while now there’s over, I think 130 of the countries in the world subscribe to it and support its efforts and including all of the countries in the Western world.

David Blackmon [00:30:46] And it you know, until Mr. Birol came along, it was a pretty widely respected and recognized authority on, you know, producing reliable data about what’s happening in the energy world. It’s been politicized a lot more in recent years, just like everything else asked.

David Blackmon [00:31:07] And so you always have to be careful how you cite what they publish and how you read the reports they put out and how you try to decipher the statements Mr. Barrow makes publicly. And that’s a shame because, you know, even in this Biden administration that has politicized everything in our climate today, the Internet, the Energy Information Administration, the EIA that’s run out of the Department of Energy has managed somehow to avoid being politicized.

David Blackmon [00:31:45] And I think that’s a real credit to the people who run that administration over there. Because, you know, Jennifer Granholm, the secretary of energy, is perhaps the most politicized animal who’s ever held that job and an incredibly biased and just nonsensical and some of the things she said. So everyone at the EIA should be proud that they’ve managed to maintain that objectivity and focus on real data and real science that has been. Somewhat lost it I and that’s too bad.

David Blackmon [00:32:26] But you know, when you have this politicized entity like the IAEA. Rejecting not just record demand for crude oil this year, but demand for crude that’s going to rise until the mid-2030s and then plateau until after 2050 before it starts to fall. That is a mirror image of ExxonMobil’s projection for crude oil demand over the next 30 years.

David Blackmon [00:32:57] And so when a politicized agency like that is making the same projection Exxon Mobil does, you know that crude demand is strong today and it’s going to remain strong for decades to come. And we should be planning the world’s governments ought to be planning for that scenario in the future instead of trying to live in this dream world where we’ve already supposedly reached peak oil and it’s just going to fall dramatically in the next few years.

David Blackmon [00:33:31] That’s not going to happen and pretending it is going to happen is incredibly destructive to efforts to provide adequate energy to the developing nations of the world, not the Western world, the developed world, but the developing nations of the world need to plan realistically to so that they can have adequate and affordable energy to grow their economies.

Rey Trevino [00:34:01] You’re right, David, and this way of life to where the that we are only going to continue to add demand for the next at least ten years. So oil is only going to go up that demand in the supply we need more oil. So hopefully we can get our administration here in the United States to a place it will be more friendly.

Rey Trevino [00:34:23] And yes, Jennifer Granholm, you know that lady, a job. I don’t know if she’s the least qualified individual ever for a position, but she is coming in at a close second if there’s somebody better than her.

Rey Trevino [00:34:38] You know, you talk about politicizing the IEA, as I’m sure you all are aware, that we have recently just started taking, again, a total of another 26 million barrels out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve here in the United States.

Rey Trevino [00:34:54] And you know that everybody that knows me knows that I’m against it everybody knows that, hey, David’s against it. You know, from an outside the United States perspective, Irina, Tammy, and Armando, you know, what do y’all see and what do y’all hear and see when y’all hear that the United States is taking important oil out of their strategic petroleum reserve? Tammy, I’ll start with you.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:25] Okay. I’m going to be completely Honest No one in the UK cares.

Rey Trevino [00:35:30] Thank you. Thank you, Tammy. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Armando Cavanha [00:35:36] The same here in Brazil.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:38] Right. I mean, it’s a blurb on the headline oh, you know, the US is releasing more of their strategic petroleum reserve and people are like, Yeah, okay, sure, whatever I don’t know. But it’s like it’s a secure, you know, strategic petroleum reserve it’s meant to be used in emergencies.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:57] And since the nineties it’s been used now and then to pay off this debt, to pay off that debt or do all these other things and it’s not serving the purpose that it needs to serve, unfortunately, especially when there’s a war going on. And, you know, think something catastrophic could happen this year they maybe they shouldn’t be draining it to the extent they are.

Rey Trevino [00:36:22] And Armando I saw he said that it’s not a big deal there in Brazil as well.

Armando Cavanha [00:36:28] It doesn’t affect Brazil. So it’s something very particular to the country and is more for a war point of view than a strategic point of view. Sometimes we see that there are some misunderstandings in terms of what is the strategic, as you said before or plus is in different.

Rey Trevino [00:36:48] And I read the same for you over there in Bulgaria.

Irina Slav [00:36:51] Well, honestly, I don’t think anyone outside the United States cares about all the CIA releases. But in all fairness, this release of the 26 million barrels was, I think, approved by Congress earlier.

Irina Slav [00:37:08] It’s not part of those emergency monstrous 180 million barrels release that took place last year, and yet they could have probably canceled the sale. I don’t know. I mean, they’re actually trying to start replenishing the strategic petroleum reserves.

Irina Slav [00:37:27] But prices refuse to fall to their target levels. I don’t know how this is work. I think this is the big problem. They will have to start drilling yet again, but prices are not falling. Well, what are they going to do?

David Blackmon [00:37:47] Yeah, you know, RT. The interesting thing about it is by statute, requirements to the laws that govern how it was used. I guess it’s been almost six weeks now since they were required to start filling in, filling in by law, and they haven’t done it and they won’t do it in reality in the United States because the Justice Department isn’t going to attempt to force the law, enforce the law this administration.

David Blackmon [00:38:20] That reserve will only begin to be refilled when it’s politically advantageous to Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to do so. And it won’t matter what the price of oil is at that time that won’t matter that never matters. Where the what will matter is whether or not it’s it’s politically advantageous to do it and what it is that’s when it will happen.

Rey Trevino [00:38:49] Oh Man, Thank you, guys, so much for that that brought some reality back because again, we get in I don’t want to say we I know I get consumed being a small independent producer that’s my background. Well, you know, family owned and operated. So we drill oil wells and we do keep up with the legislation because we are a small company that sometimes we get that other bigger company to forget about us. And it’s hard for us to keep up with a lot of the regulations because they do cost a lot more money to continue those.

Rey Trevino [00:39:26] So we do try to stay in and we try to stay up to beat and up to date on what’s going on. So sometimes I guess we do get a little bit more focused here in the United States. But to hear from you guys that, hey, you know, nobody cares about what’s going on with the United States with the seizure of petroleum reserve.

Rey Trevino [00:39:48] And so I want to kind of follow that up with talking about global warming again, if that’s okay, that, you know, here in the United States, I think we have some of the best rivers and streams and lakes.

Rey Trevino [00:40:03] And I know David’s mentioned this before, that we’ve come such a long way with our recycling and getting our ecology and our environment a lot cleaner. You know, I remember the years of talking about the acid rain up in the Northeast when I was growing up here in Texas. You heard about the acid rain and, you know, all the smog all over.

Rey Trevino [00:40:25] So here in the United States, we’ve done a lot of good things to combat, you know, environmental pollution. You know. Do you see that going on Irina there in Bulgaria, to, where you guys are also doing your part to help out with global warming and whatnot.

Irina Slav [00:40:41] First of all, it’s not global warming. It’s climate change.

Rey Trevino [00:40:45] Excuse me. I’m sorry.

Irina Slav [00:40:46] Climate Change

Rey Trevino [00:40:49] Iran wait a min

Irina Slav [00:40:51] All sorts of weather we don’t like.

Rey Trevino [00:40:54] I mean, real quick, call out Global warming. Global warming was last year’s keyword hot topic word. I’m sorry. Yeah, It’s Climate Change now. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:41:02] Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Now, with all this unnatural freezing weather in December in the northern hemisphere and all that. Well, I see a lot of things being blamed on climate change here as well.

Irina Slav [00:41:17] And of course, we have now cold, well, extreme weather, even the extreme weather, it’s a drizzle. We get cold, yellow rain, one that’s an EU they actually they they cold weather. So we can get worried more easily, you know, and believe that there is a reason to be alarmed about the weather. So there’s some of that too definitely in my part of the world but as in the European Union.

Rey Trevino [00:41:49] Okay. And now, of course, you know, Brazil is just beautiful. So we don’t get to worry about Brazil. Is that correct? No.

Armando Cavanha [00:41:57] We have a lot of initiatives, very, very strong initiatives. The first one is, um, ethanol. Ethanol. We have 25% in the gas. So it’s a very strong investment for biodiesel, for instance, is 14 or 15% with the diesel so it is a strong reduction of carbon emission. We have kept true of carbon in the production side so reinjecting reservoirs is a very strong initiative. So we are going that good could good with up.

Armando Cavanha [00:42:31] But the point is that the climate discussions much more than politics they say it involves ah let’s see understanding of the problem, the real problem. And we are not discussing the real problem, but discussing the inventions, trends, interests and different things. That’s not exactly a preserve reservation of the world.

Rey Trevino [00:42:56] Thank you and Tammy, what about you guys over there?

Tammy Nemeth [00:43:00] Well to kind of bring it back to the energy transition. And the way I think of it is that climate change is the rationale for revolution, and they are. Normally in energy transition, it’s natural. It’s there’s a more efficient means of energy that’s replacing or at least adding to existing forms of energy.

Tammy Nemeth [00:43:21] But here we’re regressive and it’s being forced by governments rather than what’s actually better technologically or in an energy density, in energy density terms. And so here you have a climate change movement that has morphed, of course, from global cooling to global warming and now the all-encompassing climate change.

Tammy Nemeth [00:43:44] And it’s come to the point where you can’t even have a conversation about it. You have to pledge allegiance to the belief where and it has all of these other components to it that we’ve seen in the EU. Like Irina was talking about the color coding of whether they do the same thing in the UK so what used to be a nice balmy day, 20 degrees would be gritty now it’s red. And it’s degrees and you’re saying it’s red.

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:12] And they do the same thing in Canada where even when it’s cool, they’ve added wind chill to the temperature. So then it’s like super glue and everyone says, Oh no, it’s colder than ever, but it’s warmer than ever and there’s this inconsistency but it feeds into that whole idea that there’s something always changing we should always be worried, always concerned to facilitate this transition that is going to change our way of life. Our standard of living isn’t necessarily for the better.

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:45] It will bring us down to the same kind of living standard as those people in the developing world. And I hate to say it, but there are a lot of academic articles that make that case, and it means that the same academics are supporting the energy transition the way it is.

Tammy Nemeth [00:45:03] So when you have like the environmental groups have captured a lot of the politicians in Western Europe, in Canada, and to some extent now in the Biden administration, the American government.

Tammy Nemeth [00:45:16] So it the way that the whole climate change movement has done this from using the activists to train people, then to captured governments is putting us on this trajectory that I don’t think will be beneficial for the future of our civilization.

Rey Trevino [00:45:36] Boom right there. That’s the Crude Truth. Tell me you brought that all back thank you so much. Irina. Armando. David. We’re coming up here to the end of the Energy Transition podcast. Y’all do that every week. Irina, how can people find you?

Irina Slav [00:45:58] Well, they can find me on Twitter. Solar energy. I think it was a line between slapping energy. It doesn’t matter. I also do the Substack newsletter arena slav on energy, and of course, I write about oil and gas and the transition for oil.

Rey Trevino [00:46:20] And Armando, how can people get a hold of you and find you out on the Internet?

Irina Slav [00:46:28] Of his music.

David Blackmon [00:46:30] Armando, you’re muted.

Rey Trevino [00:46:32] Armando you’re muted.

Armando Cavanha [00:46:33] Sorry is very is through the website Cavanha.com is my surname so it’s very easy Cavanha, com

Rey Trevino [00:46:42] Hold on. Let’s. Armando let’s just try that one more time and Armando, where can people find you at? But working people find you and you get a hold of yourself.

Armando Cavanha [00:46:55] Yes, exactly via the website Cavanha.com, but maybe via Twitter @Cavanha.

Rey Trevino [00:47:03] Okay and Tammy, where could people, find you and get a hold of you?

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:08] I have a website called the NemethReport.com, and I also do a podcast called The Nemeth Report, where I interview people about the energy transition and Net zero and ESG and all these different kinds of things and I’m also on LinkedIn under TNemeth.

Rey Trevino [00:47:24] Awesome. And Mr. Blackmon, a.k.a. David, the Forbes contributing author. Where can people find you, sir?

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:33] I don’t know after what I’ve said on this podcast, they might find me in jail pretty soon. I’m on Twitter. My handle on Twitter is @EnergyAbsurdity. I have my own Substack Blackmon.Substack.com. I contribute at Forbes.com. I have written there for a decade now and recently began contributing as well at the Daily CALLER online you know I do podcasting with you Rey and all of y’all and then I have my other podcast, which is the Energy Question and so I’m like, all I do is talk and write, folks. That’s all I do. That’s my life.

Rey Trevino [00:48:21] Well, David, again, I want to say thank you very much for getting this international panel together today. And guys, thank you all so much for either staying up late or waking up ridiculously early to be here today with us here in the great state of Texas. So thank you all very, very much and we’ll see you next time here on The Crude Truth.

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