The world is changing, and today, the Energy Realities team from Bulgaria, UK, Canada, and Texas talk about some sweeping changes in the United States and how they may impact the global energy markets. While we joke that the world revolves around the US or Texas, it does bring up some huge global budget and energy-impacting policies. David Blackmon, Irina Slav, Tammy Nemeth, and Stu Turley open the discussion around global energy issues that are changing. – This will be live on X, YouTube, and LinkedIn, and you will enjoy the live comments worldwide. Live Monday, March 3rd at 8:00 Central Texas.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:10 – Introduction
02:00 – Main Topic: CO2 as a Pollutant & Its Global Energy Impact
14:00 – Legal & Political Implications of Changing CO2 Classification
21:00 – Carbon Taxes & Financial Incentives
30:08 – Want to side of CO2 with that? Better food labels help us choose more climate-friendly foods
32:36 – Gwyn Morgan: Build east-west pipelines? We were doing that, remember?
38:03 – Natural Gas Surges to Meet Data Center Power Needs
41:17 – EU struggles to balance its green and growth goals
44:19 – Climate policy requires a more realistic approach
49:42 – Can Germany Revive Its Industry Without Cheap Energy?
50:37 – Killing IRA Subsidies Will Slash Debt, Lower Costs, And Restore Reliable Energy
55:00 – Wind Turbine Industry & Future Bankruptcy Concerns
01:00:00 – Closing Remarks
Stuart Turley [00:00:10] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy Realities podcast. My name is new Jersey presidency. The sandstone Group. Today is an outstanding Monday. We have the Energy Realities team all lined up here. First around the corner. We have the Tami Nemeth, and she even named her Nemeth Report. It is called the Nemeth Report. And she is in, I believe, the UK today. How are you today, Tammy?
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:38] Yes, sir. I’m in the UK. I’m doing well. The sun is shining. Unbelievably so. Yay!
Stuart Turley [00:00:43] Yeah. And having a gardening all getting ready to rumble around the corner.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:48] Oh my gosh. No. It’s so. It’s been so cold. It was, it was like minus four last night. I don’t see gardening happening for another few weeks.
Stuart Turley [00:00:56] Minus four Fahrenheit or Celsius.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:58] Celsius.
Stuart Turley [00:01:00] That’s what I thought. It’s still.
David Blackmon [00:01:01] Cold.
Stuart Turley [00:01:02] That’s right. And now, next around the corner, sitting in Texas. He is actually one of the legends in his own mind. David Blackmon, how are you today, David?
David Blackmon [00:01:16] Just a legendary moment here in Mansfield, Texas. Cloudy and gloomy. So we’ve got London’s weather here in Mansfield.
Stuart Turley [00:01:26] Great. So you’ve got solidarity going on for the London I like.
David Blackmon [00:01:32] I like doing my part. Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:01:34] All right. And then we have the Irina Slav. I mean, she’s not just a Irene. She’s the Irina Slav out of Bulgaria. How are you this wonderful Monday?
Irina Slav [00:01:45] I’m good. Thank you. Stu, it’s starting to get warm. It’s still not warm enough, but it’s getting warmer. We’re going to have a spring
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:57] One day
Stuart Turley [00:01:59] Yeah. I’ve got my new rota teller, and I’ve planted seven trees already this weekend, and it’s going to be just an outstanding week. Today, though, our discussion is will the CO2 as a pollutant that definition change global energy? So there is a major change going on around the world. And I think it’s the ball in the China closet. The Trump effect. Well the changing of this all come around. And I’ll go ahead and start with the Tammy Nemeth. What are your thing thoughts on CO2 as a pollutant designation?
Tammy Nemeth [00:02:40] Well, I think, you know, it’s in the United States where the the EPA had their endangerment finding. And Lee Zeldin, as David, I’m sure we’ll talk about in more depth, has sent a note to the to the president saying that it needs to go this definition, that CO2 is a pollutant. And I think what’s interesting is that that seems to underpin the entire rationale for net zero. So if you remove that as an idea that it’s a pollutant, that it’s something bad, then that has the potential to alter the entire sort of conversation around climate and, and everything. And Roger Pilkey Jr has had a few really interesting things to say about the science behind it, or lack of it, or manipulation of it, or however you wish to describe that. But when you speak of the Trump effect in in this particular area, I think what’s fascinating, if I can bring a little bit about the UK, is that there’s rumors that are crazy. Net zero Minister Ed Miliband is going to be shuffled out of that portfolio because you say I’m like, wow, that would be great. But are they actually going to get rid of the net zero? Targets and all of these other things? I don’t think so. So I’m not really sure if that will have a really profound effect on what the UK’s doing. But it’s interesting that this is coming about when they came in all gung ho and they were going to push forward with this, and it could be something of a collateral Trump effect.
Stuart Turley [00:04:23] Wow. David, what do you got?
David Blackmon [00:04:26] Well, the first thing I got is we’re we’re only four minutes into the show and Joseph McLellan has already got us to. We need to stop Kim trails, which I totally agree with, but thank you. We have Patrick Devine. Happy Monday panelist. Thank you Patrick. John Casciano, good morning. Good morning, John and Nathan Hammer. Good morning to some of my favorite peeps. Right back at you, Nathan. Okay. So Yes. What’s the top? Oh, yeah. Lee Zeldin has recommended to Donald Trump that we that they to authorize the EPA to look into reversing the endangerment finding from 2009 Barack Obama’s administration experiment with In off work on it because their findings suggest that the EPA should regulate. Well, we must pass this. You know. Under the Clean Air Act. And so this doesn’t really have to do with ideology at all. This has to do with science and the original intent of the of the Clean Air Act, which was signed into law by President Kennedy in 1963, before anyone had ever used the term greenhouse gases or greenhouse gases. And so what? Are greenhouse gases? Well, what they are is carbon dioxide, otherwise known as plant food. The very essential element of all life on planet Earth retain a naturally occurring element that comes up out of the ground or deep underground. We’re able to produce it and water very well. If carbon dioxide and water vapor are pollutants, and our whole planet has been overwhelmingly polluted and time immemorial since the formation of the Earth. So the thought that the writers, directors and under President Kennedy of the Clean Air Act had is their intent in enacting that law allowing the Environmental Protection Agency, which did not exist at that time, to regulate greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide and water vapor and pollutants, is absurd on its face, and I want to write the editors at the Daily Caller for letting me say that in a column that was published Saturday. And I think it’s pretty obvious to everyone that 2 or 3 years ago, I probably would not have been able to write that anywhere in the United States. Okay, even on social media, I would have been suspended in Twitter or Facebook for saying that. And things have evolved so much now, thanks to Elon Musk buying out of of X or Twitter, changing its name to X and making it a free speech platform. That act has had such an impact across our society in favor of free speech, that now I’m able to write that in a, you know, a legitimate publication without reprisals from the editor. And I think that’s a wonderful development in our society. And the other thing I think is if the United States does reverse that finding, that endangerment finding. It puts all of the Biden and Obama climate crackdown agenda in jeopardy and being overturned by the courts because, you know, it’s it’s just not a pollutant. These things are not pollutants. They can’t be regulated. And the Clean Air Act, if Congress wants them to be regulated, then Congress is going to have to pass a law to make it happen. And if that happens in the United States, as we all know, I think that what happens in the United States will be related to the climate change agenda. It has a great influence in the rest of the world. And so it would have global impacts if EPA does go down this road successfully. And I think the the likelihood is that they will be able to successfully do this. So we’re about to have a real sea change and a climate change policy, not just in the United States, but ultimately all over the world. And, you know, I mean, this has been the basis for all of it. And, yeah, I’m really, really proud of this administration for going down that road because it’s very political politically, very difficult to do.
Tammy Nemeth [00:09:04] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:09:06] You know, Irina I absolutely love all of your column, your Substack articles and everything else. And if CO2 is not a pollutant and what about cow poop and all the other stuff that you had in the past? I I’m going to be honest with you, I use maybe ten bags of Black Angus cow poop over the weekend, planting trees and getting all my stuff going. I didn’t use it personally. I put it on the plants. So, you know, it’s like it’s kind of fun when we sit back and try to think of, why are we going through this? But what are your thoughts so far?
Irina Slav [00:09:44] Well, because some people are the. Well, I’d like to, you know, relay the conversation I had with my daughter when she was in fifth grade and there was a studying about life on earth in science classes. And I saw her test the textbook, which said that carbon dioxide makes life on Earth possible. Plant life, animal life, human life. And I said, did you know that some people are calling CO2 a pollutant? I said, what? And I said, yes. Some people are saying that CO2 is a pollutant, and we should try and emit as little as possible of it. And this is how I killed my daughter’s childhood. And a lot of idiots in the world. But as David said, what happens in the US tends to spread across the world. And I think this will be the case. This is to me, this is just part of this, you know, backlash against the climate agenda. Because as we have talked here and we have written in our respective Substack and elsewhere, reality tends to reassert itself. The laws of physics, obviously, the lie, the laws of planetary life laws. If you want to kill CO2, you will kill life on the planet. And you can’t kill CO2 because the biggest emitter of CO2 and natural. And I don’t mean oil and gas drilling, it’s Earth itself is the planet itself. You can’t stop that. So this is a step in the right direction. And it combines with the, you know, the push back from big oil, you know, pivoting back to oil and gas. And I’m particularly interested how the EU is going to handle these backlash when they want to boost spending on defense. You can’t do this. You can’t, you know, make weapons and tanks and all that with expensive energy because you will go bankrupt in a matter of very few short years. And the fact that they are talking about this, I think they’re beginning to, you know, replace their narrative. I think I understand I’m moving the topic. I’m sorry, but I think this is the beginning of the narrative replacement that we’re seeing right now. They’re talking about war relentlessly, and they’re talking about the armaments and all that. They are going to soon conveniently forget Get about their green agenda because they can say it’s impossible. And you know, the fact that I’m not sure if the EU classifies CO2 as a pollutant. Do you know anything about this Tammy, do they?
Tammy Nemeth [00:12:54] I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. I’d have to look into that. I know that Canada does. They. They’ve classified CO2 as a toxic substance under are toxic substances right. And it just says CO2. It doesn’t say precisely how much, just CO2 is toxic. And so every time they talk about the carbon tax, they don’t call it a carbon tax. They call it a price on pollution. So, you know, that’s that that’s the rhetoric that they use. And they also put methane in as a pollutant as a toxic substance again with no dosage. Okay. So how much methane is toxic and in what way. So they there used to be on the toxic substance list, you know, about 76 things and and they would talk you know, it’s actually really bad stuff. And since 2015, when the Trudeau Liberals took power, I think it’s upwards of over 200 toxic substances. And a lot of them are just like, are you kidding me? Why is this a toxic substance?
Irina Slav [00:13:59] Do they have water there? Because what? It can be toxic in the right amount.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:05] Exactly. I don’t know. I mean, it’s it’s it’s ridiculous. It’s absurd. And and that’s just the Canadian government with under the liberals. Everything they do is just absurd.
Stuart Turley [00:14:15] Well, I, I just ask.
Irina Slav [00:14:20] We can’t hear you.
David Blackmon [00:14:22] Stu froze.
Irina Slav [00:14:22] Froze.
David Blackmon [00:14:24] Your freeze a man. He probably can’t hear us telling him that.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:31] Oh, okay. Well, we’ll just.
Stuart Turley [00:14:34] Just buy nine greens and. Here we go. Let me go ahead and share this here. Whoops. Okay. I asked Grogu, how much money would the world save if we did not have carbon taxes? And in. Oh, funny. Step one.
David Blackmon [00:14:55] Man, Stu, you’re freezing up again.
Irina Slav [00:15:00] Maybe someone’s meddling with his internet.
Stuart Turley [00:15:03] Go ahead and stop sharing and see if that’s got a problem.
David Blackmon [00:15:06] I don’t know.
Stuart Turley [00:15:07] Anyway. Yeah, I. Am I still here?
Tammy Nemeth [00:15:13] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:15:14] Okay. I asked Grock and I it’s not liking the sharing of the screen, but $104 billion from 2023 comes in from carbon taxes, emissions and trading systems. It almost seems like if you have carbon taxes and then they are funded to politically favored Policies. The carbon taxes are nothing more than a global USAID on steroids.
David Blackmon [00:15:43] Yeah, just another grift.
Tammy Nemeth [00:15:45] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:15:46] Did I say that correctly?
David Blackmon [00:15:48] You certainly do.
Stuart Turley [00:15:49] Oh,
Irina Slav [00:15:50] Transition has to be funded somehow. You know.
David Blackmon [00:15:55] That’s why. To reach the CO2 emissions this morning.
Stuart Turley [00:16:02] Well, way to go, Patrick. I love you, man. You know, when we sit back and we kind of look at how the world is going to change because CO2 definitions, the chowder head, Kerry years ago, has been a grifter, making millions upon millions of millions of dollars, going out and putting fear mongering out there. Is the fear mongering going to go away? And I’ll just open this up for the panel, because Science seems to be entering back into the room.
David Blackmon [00:16:39] Know the fridge?
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:39] Science.
David Blackmon [00:16:40] Go away, I don’t think. Am I? Is my mic muted?
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:45] No,.
[00:16:45] I still having a problem.
Stuart Turley [00:16:47] You still look terrible. But you use sounding better.
David Blackmon [00:16:50] Okay, good. Sorry. Go ahead. I’m sorry Tammy I interrupted you there.
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:55] Oh, no no, no, I was just saying is there. When when Stu mentioned that we’re going to go back to science. Will. Which science? Because apparently the 2009 endangerment finding was rooted in science. And so, you know, I think it becomes a matter of dueling science investigations. And is it like realistic people or is it people who have been getting a lot of grant money for coming up with these studies? And if it’s about consensus versus reality, I don’t know, consensus will win, but it depends on on how courts want to rule on this. And the problem with with the with wanting to change the endangerment finding is that the the environmental groups have already said they will litigate this to the end and they’ll drag it out as long as possible. So while, you know, we can be optimistic that, okay, this is great if it gets overturned, how long is that going to take and how long is it going to be, you know, gummed up in the in the courts?
David Blackmon [00:18:00] Well, as it happens, I have an opinion about That. Believe it or not.
Tammy Nemeth [00:18:05] Believe it or not.
David Blackmon [00:18:06] So in 2009, when the endangerment find, it all comes down to the Chevron deference and last year’s decision and Loper, Loper bright v Raimondo by the Supreme Court, reversing the Chevron deference in 2009, when the Obama EPA made this endangerment finding, the courts were bound by the Chevron deference to defer to the agency for its interpretation of the meaning of the the the governing statute, which is the Clean Air Act, which was passed again in 1963. Before all of this climate alarmist stuff came up or was ever even mentioned so clearly because the courts had to defer to that. Now the the landscape has changed. Chevron deference is no longer in effect. The courts will no longer have to defer to the judgment of the agency and its lawyers. And to me, this is not, I don’t think, a question of the science about greenhouse gases. It’s the question. And what it’s going to boil down to is a question about the original intent of the Clean Air Act. And clearly, without any doubt at all, there was no intent by Congress or President Kennedy to allow an agency that didn’t even exist at the time, or any other agency of the federal government to regulate plant, food and water vapor as pollutants. I mean, it’s just absurd on its face. Yeah. And I so I mean, I know the environmental groups will try to argue about the science and say the science is so. But their problem there is going to be that we have now this whole competing area of science saying this is all bullshit, frankly. And so the courts are going to have to consider both sides now. They’ll have to consider the sides of all the government sponsored research from which all these researchers at universities like Oxford and Stanford and Cornell have become fabulously wealthy off the government. And the other side of the argument, which is all this science that hasn’t been funded by the government and where people haven’t gotten wealthy conducting the research. And at the end of the day, they’re just going to have to rule on what does the law me and what did it mean in 1963 and what was it, its intent? Clearly there’s there’s just no way to logically rule in favor of the endangerment finding. There’s just none. So to to. For the environmentalist, the climate alarmist to prevail, the courts, including a Supreme Court with A63 conservative majority now is going to have to completely ignore the intent of the Clean Air Act. And I don’t think the Supreme Court will do that. It’ll take years to get there. May not get there before the end of the Trump administration, but at the end of the day, the Supreme Court is almost certain to rule in favor of overturning the endangerment line. That’s what I think. I may be completely wrong. wouldn’t be the first. But so.
Tammy Nemeth [00:21:33] Well, Go ahead to Stu
Stuart Turley [00:21:34] Oh, no. Go ahead Tammy, please.
Tammy Nemeth [00:21:36] I was just gonna sort of go back to the toxic substance. I was wrong. There’s 132 items on the list, and the very last one is just the statement. Plastic manufactured items is as a blanket category in Canada. It’s toxic. So.
Stuart Turley [00:21:57] Wow.
Irina Slav [00:21:58] They’re still selling laptops in Canada. Smartphones and all the plastics we use on a daily basis.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:07] Well, yeah. And even like in health care. Right. Thanks so much. But it’s any kind of plastic item. I mean, that’s ridiculous. But anyway, I just thought I’d, I’d clarify for myself that, you know, for everybody, I was wrong. It’s 132 items and most of which aren’t really toxic, but. Anyway. Sorry. Sorry, Stu.
David Blackmon [00:22:29] other information? No.
Stuart Turley [00:22:32] Absolutely. And and so when we sit back and we take a look at the science team. I love the way you say science before or after or who’s paying for it. You know, we get it. Is that happen. So and we take the science and that goes turns into energy policies. I have a very technical movie right now. Well, energy policies are enacted by renewable energy. Okay. Are you ready for this technical analysis?
Tammy Nemeth [00:23:02] Yep,.
Irina Slav [00:23:03] Yep.
Stuart Turley [00:23:04] Okay, here we go. So yeah. This how Renewable energy, which is. Funny. Let’s play that again. You. Know unfortunately Physics and fiscal responsibility matter to the grid. And what we’re seeing is a total annihilation of the renewable energy on the grid, because you take a look at the analysis that I’m trying to do on the US. Our growth is just going nuts, but we are not going to be able to meet demand without natural gas. We’re not going to be able to meet demand without nuclear. Except it takes us so long to build a cotton pick a nuclear reactor. Holy smokes Batman. And then over the weekend, China even had an announcement that they had 60,000 years of thorium that they’ve discovered in long Mongolian assets through molten salt reactors that they could use that on. Yeah, I think that that is absolutely a wonderful use for technology, and I think that’s going to be the energy transition is when you can get to something like that.
David Blackmon [00:24:32] Sure.
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:33] Yeah,.
[00:24:33] Absolutely. And molten salt reactors are reality. I mean, we opened one in North Carolina late last year and have another one
Stuart Turley [00:24:47] In Texas is.
David Blackmon [00:24:48] It’s in Abilene, Texas. And so it’s real technology that actually exists.
Stuart Turley [00:24:54] The only problem with thorium, from what I understand, is that you cannot it is half. It reuses more of the things. So it has less radioactive output, which is great. And you cannot use it in new or existing nuclear reactors, but it is better for the environment so
Irina Slav [00:25:18] Can build new ones.
Stuart Turley [00:25:20] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:25:21] Yeah. I mean, you know, discussing extending the lives of existing nuclear and nuclear plans. You know. Amazing.
David Blackmon [00:25:30] Yeah. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:25:31] Because they can’t build new ones fast. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:25:37] Well, the New fellow who’s going to be the new prime minister of Germany, wants to reactivate those last three nuclear plants that they should last couple of years ago. I mean, what what’s that Tammy?
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:49] I don’t know. I mean, he’s saying stuff it just like he he what was what was it? He said something and then he. Oh, it was about the closing the borders. He said during the election. And then like the first day. Oh, yeah. I didn’t mean that. And he’s not gonna do it
Irina Slav [00:26:03] what about that? The men and, you know, mixed signal.
Tammy Nemeth [00:26:07] Yeah. And and he’s the party of Angle merkel, which shut them down. Who agreed to shut them down in the first place. So, I don’t know, maybe he’s a former Blackrock guy. So maybe.
David Blackmon [00:26:18] Oh my. God.
Tammy Nemeth [00:26:22] Maybe their BlackRock’s going to invest in it because Blackrock is supposed to be investing in the rebuilding of Ukraine. So maybe they need German industry to step up so they can rebuild Ukraine. Yeah I don’t know.
Irina Slav [00:26:36] Oh yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:26:36] I’m just throwing ideas out.
David Blackmon [00:26:40] Yeah I mean having a background at Blackrock is a big strike against him. I assume he probably has also been involved with the World Economic Forum, given that Blackrock.
Tammy Nemeth [00:26:51] And McKinsey, he was one of the lead People.
David Blackmon [00:26:54] You know, three strikes against him already.
Irina Slav [00:26:56] Is there anything that’s random?
David Blackmon [00:27:01] So no change in. Germany, folks.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:03] No change in Germany. Different guy. Same thing. Just like UK.
David Blackmon [00:27:08] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Definitely. I mean.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:12] Well, to go. Sorry. Go ahead.
David Blackmon [00:27:15] No no no. Go ahead, go ahead.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:17] Irina you asked about the EU UN designation of CO2. It seems that the EU makes a distinction between actual pollution, which is, you know, things that will contribute with fine particulate matter, which is what the EPA was originally intended to address. And they list CO2 separately, but they put it on the same page. So they talk about emissions and then they talk about greenhouse gas emissions, and then they talk about the pollutants, but they’re there. There’s a separate designation even though they’re discussed on the same page. So they make that that fine line there.
Irina Slav [00:27:59] That’s that’s interesting. I didn’t expect it, but good for them.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:03] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:04] Because I mean, of course the fine. Particulate matter
Irina Slav [00:28:06] would notice.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:09] Right. And that that’s the other thing. Right. Is, is if you put it on the same page, but you just have that fine line. It’s pretty easy to cross from one to another.
Irina Slav [00:28:21] Yeah. So they want to have the hedge that we never called it a pollutant.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:26] Exactly. We’re just talking about emissions.
Irina Slav [00:28:28] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which are bad.
David Blackmon [00:28:31] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:32] And and when. David. David, when you and Stu talk about, you know, the European Union needing to rebuild its military and whatnot. And how are they going to do that with net zero energy? It made me think of how Nader was supposed to build electric tanks and jeeps and stuff.
Stuart Turley [00:28:48] Oh, yeah. Are they still going to do that?
David Blackmon [00:28:50] What could possibly go wrong?
Stuart Turley [00:28:53] Oh.
David Blackmon [00:28:54] I mean, it’s
Stuart Turley [00:28:56] Germany has had two years of GDP growth. Decline. And they believe it was point 2% or yeah, 2% or 2.2% and decrease again this past year. And when you say. I.
Irina Slav [00:29:10] of course.
Stuart Turley [00:29:12] Do well.
Irina Slav [00:29:13] It was surprising and unexpected.
Stuart Turley [00:29:17] I think.
David Blackmon [00:29:21] It took me a second to get that. Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:29:23] Yeah, but we sit back and think about this, you know? Holy smokes. And I always, I always quote this great man, David Blackmon. Physics and fiscal responsibility matter to the grid. I think if I quoted enough it’s going to be my quote.
David Blackmon [00:29:41] Yeah. Well that’s fine.
Stuart Turley [00:29:43] Spread
David Blackmon [00:29:44] Spread the love.
Stuart Turley [00:29:47] All right. So let’s go to stories here and let’s see who’s first around the corner. There we go.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:55] Oh I’m first. Okay. So the first story actually I do the second one first. So the second one is this the story that came out last week. And the title of it is want to side of CO2 with that. Better food labels help us choose more climate friendly foods. And the reason why I started looking at these kinds of stories is because when I was in London a couple of weeks ago, was at the the Hilton restaurant, and they had a menu with CO2 emissions labels on the bottom. And so there was an angry little red one if you chose a meat dish or whatever, or if it had dairy in it or any kind of meat, and you got a really nice bright green little label thingy, if it if the meal was vegetarian or had more vegetables and stuff in it. And so after seeing that, I’m like, okay, it says where they get these ratings from. So I went to that company’s website and then started doing searches and this story came up. So of course, researchers out of Australia did a study on how they can manipulate people into taking so-called climate friendly options, and they put these really bright warning labels on, on everything and they range. They go abcde e a is green, E is bright red, and then there’s the colors in between. And then I started to look at the longer literature, and they’ve been pushing this idea probably since 2015. And there’s been a gradual increase in studies and stories on this subject, because they’re really keen that we have to change our behavior to make net zero. So I’m going to have a piece on my Substack about what I found about these climate labels. And there’s a couple of chains in the United States who have brought it in Denmark, decided they were going to do a study and bring in a national label system that would be voluntary initially. And of course, as we all know, what starts out as voluntary inevitably ends up being mandatory a couple years down the road. So it seems to me that the European Union wishes to try this in a smaller jurisdiction. See what the the response is. How do you refine the labeling and then bring it in to the European Union as a whole? So I think that’s probably something that’ll be coming down the pipeline in the next five years, probably by 2030, because that’s the target for everything these days. And and then my other story here is from Canada and Gwyn Morgan, who is a former CEO. I think he worked in the energy industry for some time. His story is build East-West pipelines, because this is the big thing now with Trump’s tariff talks, which are supposed to come into place tomorrow. They’re like, well, we could cut off energy, but wait, no, we should. We don’t have pipelines to get it out. We should build pipelines. And then his story is, while we were doing that, don’t you remember? And he his article is brilliant in laying out all the push back to try and get energy projects done in Canada. All you know to to keep it in the ground is why they were canceled and to basically plump out Canada’s bonafides for being net zero. So I highly recommend that article. It really talks about how we tried to have all these all these projects, especially different pipelines to bypass the United States, to go west, to go east so we could help supply the European markets. This is a great graph. That or chart map that Stu found. And it shows a bunch of the ones that were shut down. So Energy East, which would have been this big one would have repurposed one, an existing pipeline to ship oil out to the east coast to eventually get to European markets. That received so much pushback. A lot of it was coordinated by the current Environment minister, Stephen Guilbeault, when he was the head of a group called Equitas, which was an offshoot of Greenpeace. And he held all these meetings and stuff. Whipping up the public that, oh, oil’s going to leak everywhere and it’s going to pollute your land and so on and so forth. And Quebec basically said, no, we won’t let any pipelines go through our territory. So they’re talking about we need pipelines. Quebec has already re reinforced that they will not permit a pipeline to be built across. And as you can see with Canada, you can’t get to the East coast without going through Quebec. So if they want to build these pipelines they would have to go south as we have already done before. But then now you’re beholden to the United States again. So they’ve already they did one pipeline here, which took forever cost like 20 times more than it was supposed to because of protests and litigation. That one’s up and running. That’s the trans mountain extension. And Coastal Gaslink is supposed to start operation this year. That was insane. The the amount of opposition to it. Northern gateway was rejected. And, you know, the list goes on.
David Blackmon [00:35:24] Holy smokes.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:27] So they say they want to build these things. The the the process costs billions and there’s no guarantee it’ll happen. And the environmentalists seem to have an endless war chest for litigation. So I don’t know. I don’t see that happening in Canada.
Stuart Turley [00:35:42] And I believe I’m enjoying President Trump. From change factor. But I don’t think he understands. A couple of things he’s misunderstanding. Some things geopolitical stuff that I’ll leave out of this discussion. But on pipelines I think he’s kind of forgotten that Canada just cut up their part of the Keystone pipeline, and they lost billions of dollars when Joe Biden signed that deal. So reconstructing or starting up the Keystone again is going to be a heck of it. You can’t just go poof. I’m going to start the Keystone again.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:22] Well, I know, and I think, you know, if he wants to establish some good faith pay, they they should pay the damages to TransCanada pipelines or TC energy because they filed a challenge under the previous NAFTA when it got rejected and the tribunal said, yeah, you’re too late, you’re too late. So it’s like, you know, they lost billions. They already they built their side, you know, ready to go. Then it got held up in American courts. And it did violate the then after regulations at the time. Maybe they should have filed it sooner. But you know, show some good faith here and pay PTC energy what they’re owed for that?
Stuart Turley [00:37:03] Absolutely, I would rather.
David Blackmon [00:37:04] Billion dollars?
Stuart Turley [00:37:07] I would rather buy interest. You bet. I would rather buy heavy oil sands from Canada, because we know that Canada’s regulatory issues and and AMP operators are some of the cleanest in the world. I love Canada. I got a few joke, but I’ll leave those going.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:28] So that was my rant for today. And that’s my Substack. They’re The Nemeth Report.substack.com. And yeah, I try to post at least once a week there.
Stuart Turley [00:37:40] All right. Next we have Mister Blackmon.
David Blackmon [00:37:45] Oh here we are. Yes. Well, so the one on the right is the Daily Caller piece that Ran Satyarthi about the endangerment finding. So I’ve already talked about that. I always bring up myself on these things. Then the second one is a new study out from Rystad Energy. One of the big consulting groups has gone pretty far. Woke. Maybe they’re going to try to make a comeback into fossil fuels now. Instead, talking about the fact that we’ve talked about here several times over the past several months about natural gas surge to meet datacentre power needs. So you’ve got this thing with all these power centers, data centers multiplying all across the United States. My God, we’ve got like 45 of them under construction here in Texas now, and they have to have reliable 24 over seven power generation to keep, you know, to keep them going. And they need to have it to be proprietary power provision. So they’re all, you know, most of them are talking about building their own power sources. Originally. When these things began to multiply back in late 2023, they were all talking about doing it with wind and solar and batteries. And then within just a few months, they all realized, nope, that didn’t go to work because the battery technology is not there. Sorry, can’t do it that way. It’s not reliable enough. Not 24 seven. And so then they all started talking about, well, you know, we’re going to build nuclear plants. Nuclear is clean. It’s zero emissions blah blah blah. And then they figured out, well, it takes 15, 20 years to build a nuclear plant here in the United States. Few of them were able to contract with generators that already have nuclear plants, either in mothballs or in operation, like unit one of Three Mile Island is going to be reactivated to help power. A. Microsoft. I think it is. Or it’s either yeah, it’s Microsoft Data Center in New York State or Pennsylvania And but then you know. So. To build a new one, it just takes too long and it’s too expensive. So now they’re all talking about, well, we’re going to build combined cycle natural gas plants because we can get those things permitted. And built in two years. Doesn’t cost much. Easy to operate, reliable power generation and Rystad energy has caught up to that reality. Now that we’ve been talking about for 6 or 8 months here. So good for them. I’m happy for them. Proud of them. Cool. And that’s the end of my rant for today.
Stuart Turley [00:40:28] And your Substack is a great one.
David Blackmon [00:40:31] Oh, and it beautiful. Look at that. Yeah, man. Energy transition absurdities. You know, I, I try to post new content every day. Most of it I write, some of it I steal from US all the association and and really great, great folks who post on LinkedIn like Steve, Beverly and Doug. Oh my gosh.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:54] Sheridan.
David Blackmon [00:40:55] Sheridan is fantastic.
Stuart Turley [00:40:57] Great.
David Blackmon [00:40:58] Yeah. He’s great. And so I would love to see you all there. It does cost you money, but I work cheap, so don’t be too afraid to come over.
Stuart Turley [00:41:11] And now we have the Irina Slav
Irina Slav [00:41:15] Okay, I’ll. So with the fun one EU struggles to balance its green and growth goals. Do you believe that the European Union wants a green transition and economic growth, and it is encountering problems in the changing both of these goals simultaneously?
Tammy Nemeth [00:41:39] Shocked.
Irina Slav [00:41:41] And it is a real shock. And I’m sure they are unaware of the fact that with this they actually admit that the transition does not lead to economic growth, which of course has not prevented them from harping on about it. In the new Energy Action plan that you wrote about me and that I also wrote about, but I want to combine it with the clean industrial deal. They keep saying the same thing even as they rejected themselves, even as they admit it can’t happen, which is why they watered down the emissions reporting standards they wanted to impose on all businesses in the European Union. Well, it’s a small concession, but it’s some concession. You know, they still want to throw billions at wind and solar and batteries and probably EVs, although I don’t seem to see the word EVs as often as I used to document. It’s strange, isn’t it?
David Blackmon [00:42:49] It really is.
Irina Slav [00:42:50] It is so, that was so stupid. They are saying the same thing. That the transition is a great business opportunity. It will create billions of jobs or whatever, and it will lead the European Union to a new era of flourishing and wealth and well-being. But we can actually grow economically while we throw billions at the the energy transition. They’re contradicting themselves again, very publicly. And it’s glorious.
David Blackmon [00:43:27] And it is, Well, I just want to point out this is a real change in the narrative, right? Because, you know, for the for the previous three years or so.
Irina Slav [00:43:36] Yes.
David Blackmon [00:43:36] You we’ve seen more and more advocacy from the climate alarm people to end economic growth in order to transition to, you know, this degrowth agenda.
Irina Slav [00:43:47] Oh, yes, I miss that. They actually want to pursue economic growth. That’s very good point.
David Blackmon [00:43:53] Yeah,
Irina Slav [00:43:54] I was. So shocked by this that I forgot about the De-growth love foreign feed that didn’t end so well.
David Blackmon [00:44:04] Go figure.
Irina Slav [00:44:06] It’s it’s and you know what’s they don’t know how pathetic and ridiculous they are. Anyway, the other story. And that’s dangerous actually. But anyway, that’s not the topic. The other story is actually a surprising piece of common sense published by Reuters. Well, but one thing you guys. Yeah, not of that. One of the usual, you know, transition pushers. It’s it’s Edward Chancellor whom I googled. And apparently he has a very, very he’s had a very long career in finance. Finance historian pretty well known one not to me, but I’m ignorant of most things in this world. So basically he he he destroys the whole transition narrative in just the first paragraph of the story, saying that throwing trillions at wind and solar has not worked at all. Which is exactly what we have been saying here, that oil and gas and coal continue to provide the great bulk of the energy we consume globally. That, you know, emissions are still going up despite all these trillions being thrown at wind and solar. He he suggests we adopt a more realistic approach, which essentially comes down to, once again, what we have been saying work on new technology that works, you know, develop new technology that actually has a chance of survival in a market environment. Don’t rush to wind and solar just because you like them. And to me, it was amazing that this story was published by Reuters.
David Blackmon [00:45:58] That is that’s it. And it’s it’s again a change in the narrative. The narrative is shifting. Yeah. It’s amazing how elections caused the narrative to change.
Irina Slav [00:46:11] Yeah. Well, it all of us, we we we know know we will remember what happened. But these people who are now pushing for the great business opportunities and billions of new jobs that the transition will open up, will have conveniently forgotten they ever said that.
David Blackmon [00:46:31] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:46:32] Sorry Tammy Go on.
Tammy Nemeth [00:46:33] Yeah, I, you know, when when you linked this back to the clean industrial deal, one of the things that, that they were talking about is that by next year or late this year, they’re going to introduce the Circular Economy Act, which means that basically.
Irina Slav [00:46:52] Writing acts, can they.
Tammy Nemeth [00:46:54] I know they can. And and it’s to basically mandate the recycling of key resources and materials and make you more efficient in the stuff that you use. So on the one hand, they’re talking about we need growth and we’re going to choose which industries are going to succeed. And I think this has been what may be. One of the things that the Reuters article talks about is, is how when governments are picking the businesses, you know, what’s going to win and what’s going to lose, it never works, right? And like with the EVs and all that. And so I find it fascinating to see these people’s now talk about energy realities. And maybe, you know, we’ve been a little too pie in the sky unicorn thinking around the around net zero. And then it reminded me of the recent article by Daniel Yergin in Foreign Affairs, where he also is talked about how the energy transition isn’t what everybody thought it was, and that it’s really an energy addition. And maybe he’s been listening to our stuff, David, or.
David Blackmon [00:48:01] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:02] From your conversations with him. And if I could just one last thing that that comment that was made about TC energy moving natural gas. Okay. That that’s great. Absolutely. The problem is that Keystone XL was for moving oil. And the whole reason why people got angry about Keystone XL was that it was the oil from the oil sands. And they, you know, they were trying to portray oil sands oil as being somehow evil and nefarious versus maybe oil that’s extracted from Venezuela, that’s, you know, just as viscous.
David Blackmon [00:48:37] So much better. Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:48:39] You know,
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:41] So thank you for those stories. Those are awesome.
Stuart Turley [00:48:42] Yes. I love all of the Albertans, and Calgary is one of my favorite towns. And I’ll tell you, Canada, such a great job on producing energy from that area cleanly and the rest of the world does. And I would rather buy from Canada than Venezuela. Just I got a to point that out. I’m sorry. Let me get back to Irina. Irina. Your Substack is phenomenal.
Irina Slav [00:49:08] Thank you.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:09] Yeah, you’re you’re last Substack in Europe. We. That was hilarious, sad and hilarious.
Irina Slav [00:49:16] Hilarious. Writing it. I felt like slapping the woman. Yeah. Thank you.
Stuart Turley [00:49:22] And I say this every week Irina. I listen to your stories, and I love hearing your dialect. David Blackmon I could care less if he reads this story. Yours are phenomenal.
Irina Slav [00:49:35] Thank you.
Stuart Turley [00:49:36] For my stories. There’s a couple of them that are just absolutely a who we talked about Germany. Can Germany revive its industry without cheap energy? I don’t think so. You know. I really feel that Germany is about to go. If they had a point 2% decline, they’re going to continue. At what point do you are you unable to recover? Because their car manufacturers, their their huge industries have taken such a hit. The the EU could be following behind them and I think we’d beat this. The Republican controlled Congress votes to repeal the math on methane feed, which I think is pretty darn cool as well too. And I can’t wait for Republicans in Texas to vote. Most of the Republicans that are corrupt out. I’m tired of corrupt Texas. Did I just say that?
David Blackmon [00:50:35] That would. Be nice.
Stuart Turley [00:50:36] And then killing the IRA subsidies. This one was really interesting when you consider how Dan Bongino is a great man, and he’s now the deputy director over at the FBI, FBI, and and he had a couple great. I love what he called the Inflation Reduction Act. It’s called the particulars bill, according to Dan Bongino. But when you take a look at the IRA subsidies and how much I would share my show again, but I don’t want to cause the podcast to go down. IRA subsidies is going to cost trillions and increase. The cost of living in the United States. The IRA will miscalculate $3 trillion in the uncompetitive business that would otherwise be invested in truly productive businesses. Anyway, It absolutely unbelievable. And then you will see here. On energy news be this one is a lot of fun. We have a lot of fun as a team. And then my Substack and then we have the story was Can Trump force Ukraine to a peace deal? Holy smokes Batman, I guarantee you it’s going to be a complete wild ride as we see what happens with all of that.
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:06] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:52:07] So can can we just we got a few minutes here. Yes. Your point about this misallocation of capital going into all these subsidized businesses here in the United States, green energy stuff. It’s what it really is, what the I.R.A. is going. And this was what brings it to mind is my wife and I, we’re talking about it all yesterday on our way to a volleyball tournament. And what the our race is going to end up being is the greatest boon full employment act for bankruptcy lawyers in American history.
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:42] Oh, that’s a good point.
David Blackmon [00:52:44] We remember when Obama was president. He was given a $10 billion budget for green energy subsidies to hand out to all his crony businesses, and he handed half a billion out to Solyndra, which was supposedly going to make solar panels in the United States. Never made a single solar panel went bankrupt. Huge scandal. The I.R.A. is going to end up completing creating this. Probably already created close to 100, if not more than a hundred bankrupt companies, and we’ll create hundreds and hundreds of bankruptcies in the coming years. I personally have interviewed four different companies over the past two years who got IRA grants or low interest loans and enjoyed all the tax breaks, and every one of them is bankrupt. Okay, I went but went look back here. Last week everyone I interviewed and wrote about is already bankrupt. Wow. So I won’t name those companies. Don’t want to embarrass their executives, but this is just a factory. It’s a churning, churning mill for bankruptcy lawyers. And a lot of, you know, if you’re majoring in law, just go into the bankruptcy business. You will be fully employed for the next decade thanks to the IRA.
Stuart Turley [00:54:08] You know, this brings up another another big question and topic, and we’d love some feedback from from some folks. The windmills take anywhere between 300 to $600,000 per windmill to remove on Texas land. And it’s unbelievable. Think about how many windmill Companies go out of business. And then who’s going to do the land reclamation? Because in in Texas and in Oklahoma and in, in the United States, there is very good regulatory issues, and they’re doing the best they can to. And the abandoned well programs and orphan well programs and land reclamation. And they do a pretty good job on that. It’s not there for windmills. No, I mean, over the next five years, horrific amount of damage to our lands. Who’s going to pay for it? The landowners,
David Blackmon [00:55:14] the land. And they
Stuart Turley [00:55:16] No. This is going to be a holy smokes Batman moment here. And probably five years when these things lose their subsidies and the ability to replenish. Because we’ve talked about this on the podcast before the way the windmill. Wind turbine companies get extra money to the is by a wind turbine is supposed to last 20 years. It last four and then they go through and then they reapply for an upgrade in order to get new equipment put in. It’s a scam.
David Blackmon [00:55:49] And I know that’s wrong for subsidy,
Stuart Turley [00:55:52] Do what.
David Blackmon [00:55:53] And they also get another tranche of subsidy money from the government to do all that work. Right. So it’s just all this big money laundering operation that’s making the executives that these wind power companies rich. And at the end of the day, it’s going to leave an enormous mess on everybody. And, you know, the irony of this is how the wind companies have been able to convince these, these virtue signaling politicians not to invoke any regulations requiring the proper deconstruction and retirement of their big industrial plants that they put in is to tell them upfront that if you require us to do that, we won’t be, we won’t be financially viable and we can’t build our project. Yeah. And it’s like, that’s magic to every politician of both parties in the United States. This is not just a Democrat problem. Texas has been a Republican state for 31 years, and all of that wind stuff has come about under Texas government. I mean, yeah, Republican government. Yeah. So it’s a bipartisan thing, but it’s just like it’s magic, you know.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:03] So they were trying to get social license, right, because everyone was trying to badmouth Texas oil, just like they do in Alberta. And then supposedly to get social license, they go around and build windmills and stuff to say, oh, look, we’re not so dirty or whatever. Instead of just sticking to what you’ve got, you know, and not despoiling the countryside and and all the rest, so.
Stuart Turley [00:57:26] So is the climate activist group versus the Oil and Gas Practical Group. It’s like cats and dogs fighting. I think, you know, let’s just take a look at some of the examples.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:38] Don’t put cats in there. No
David Blackmon [00:57:41] Oh, but just cats beating up on dogs. It’s okay.
Stuart Turley [00:57:44] Okay. Which ones? Which ones are climate activist and which ones are the oil? Well, I can see that there. Are
Stuart Turley [00:57:56] In the oil and gas, but there are more. Than there. Are cat lovers
David Blackmon [00:57:59] That will probably change
Stuart Turley [00:58:15] Things like that.
Stuart Turley [00:58:22] All right. Now that’s how you handle a cat
Tammy Nemeth [00:58:25] Could be Something with, like, a past.
David Blackmon [00:58:30] Oh, God.
Stuart Turley [00:58:36] I, I still think if we had a pole in in the world for oil and gas workers, cat or dog, I guarantee you, every oil and gas guy I’ve been ever on a pad with, he’s a dog lover.
Tammy Nemeth [00:58:53] Okay, but I don’t think it’s fair to have something cute and beautiful, like a cat equated to or be representative of environmental activists that glue themselves to things.
Irina Slav [00:59:04] I agree. Cats are independent. They do not tend to get brainwashed into doing stuff they don’t want to.
Tammy Nemeth [00:59:11] That’s right. So if you’re going to make an analogy, at least make it, I don’t know, appropriate.
Irina Slav [00:59:19] I don’t think that’s an animal that deserves to be compared to climate activists.
Tammy Nemeth [00:59:25] I agree.
Stuart Turley [00:59:26] And with that, we’re done for the day.
Irina Slav [00:59:32] homes and destroy nature. Locusts.
Tammy Nemeth [00:59:34] Locusts.
David Blackmon [00:59:37] There you go. We got to find a good locust video.
Stuart Turley [00:59:41] Yes, I think I can.
Tammy Nemeth [00:59:43] Eat locusts. That would be great.
David Blackmon [00:59:45] I’ll take that as my assignment for next week’s show. To have a good Locust video.
Stuart Turley [00:59:51] All right with that, everybody. Thank you all. We had the teen and Tammy Nemeth from the Nemeth Report. We had David Blackmon from the David Blackmon substack.com. And we had Irina Slav and from Irina Slav on Energy. Follow her on X,LinkedIn and her Substack. And my name is Stu Turley presidentof the Samsung Group. We had a lot of fun this morning. I love it when other people talk.
Irina Slav [01:00:16] Thanks.
Tammy Nemeth [01:00:16] Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Bye
Irina Slav [01:00:19] Have a great week. Bye bye.
Tammy Nemeth [01:00:21] Bye.
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