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Is Sanity Returning to the Energy Space?

Is the energy tide turning and people are wanting energy security and fiscal policies that won’t break the bank? Or is this just a phase? Hop on the Energy Realities Podcast Monday morning at 8:00 Central live from the UK, Bulgaria, and the US. With David Blackmon, Irina Slav, Tammy Nemeth and Stu Turley, we take questions from the international energy communities.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:55 – Discussion on energy sanity
05:27 – Reality check on energy transition
07:10 – Concerns about subsidies and sustainability
10:26 – Drax power station controversy
12:16 – Copper supply issues
13:31 – Environmental concerns with seabed mining
14:19 – Pollution from electric vehicles
15:49 – Funding issues and bankruptcy predictions
19:47 – Reality check for automakers
22:54 – Government grants before elections
24:10 – Germany’s EV sales sink 37% as subsidies end
26:11 – Saul Kavonic: Green hydrogen is all hype
29:04 – Here’s how to prepare for Britain’s net zero switch – buy a generator
29:31 – Paper straws are often touted as a great alternative to plastic, but there’s a small problem: they’re toxic
31:59 – The idea of policymakers doubling down or tripling down
34:27 – the chevron difference
36:08 – ‘Charger hogs’ are ruining the electric vehicle experience. One company is clamping down on bad manners
37:38 – ExxonMobil announces second-quarter 2024 results
39:23 – The Cheniere ships 3570 LNG cargoes, expansion plans progressing
40:32 – Green Schemes in Kamala’s home state sent electricity prices higher into orbit, Highest in Lower 48
43:47 – Germany’s Energy Transition
45:02 – Hydrogen-Ready Plants
46:10 – Nuclear Power
52:06 – Political Commentary
55:25 – Upcoming Events and Speculations

Irina Slav
International Author writing about energy, mining, and geopolitical issues. Bulgaria
David Blackmon
Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.
Tammy Nemeth
Energy Consulting Specialist
Stuart Turley
President, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host

Is Sanity Returning to the Energy Space?

Stuart Turley [00:00:01] And let’s get ready to rumble. Good morning everybody. Welcome to the Energy Realities podcast. My name’s Stu Turley, president CEO, Sandstone Group. And is sanity returning to the energy space? I we have got an absolutely action packed podcast for you while I live from the UK. We have Tammy nemeth, the founder of the Nemeth Report. How are you today, Tam?

Tammy Nemeth [00:00:38] I’m doing good. Thank you. How are you doing, Stu?

Stuart Turley [00:00:41] That’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. And then we have from Bulgaria, working on her garden. How are you, Irina Slav?

Irina Slav [00:00:51] I’m busy Stu, but in a good way. So everything’s great.

Stuart Turley [00:00:55] I’ll tell you. You know, I always say this. Your Substack is one of the highlights of my day when I get to listen to you in my inbox. So everybody needs to go to Irina slav.substack.com and subscribe to her world wide industry humor.

Tammy Nemeth [00:01:18] Thank you.

Stuart Turley [00:01:19] All right. Then we have David Blackmon. And I mean David Blackmon is not only a legend in my mind, he’s a legend in his own mind. He is an author. He’s a contributing author for the, Forbes. He’s for the Telegraph Daily Caller. He’s on 2 or 3 other podcasts. The man never sleeps. He has a tapeworm. And it is so great to see you this morning. David, how are you?

David Blackmon [00:01:44] It’s not a tapeworm. It’s just a function of age to the class. But we’re going to talk about that.

Stuart Turley [00:01:53] I tell you what. You know, Monday mornings are some of my most precious highlights. Because we get ready for the week. And, the topic for today is, is energy, sanity. Returning to the energy space, we are seeing a lot of stories that are coming out. I want to go ahead and tee this first story up. There’s no sound to it. But as this is playing, I want you guys to go ahead and give us your thoughts on this. This is two dogs that actually start a battery, a fire off of a charger, and you guys were laughing about this on the email prep trail. So here we go. Here we have.

David Blackmon [00:02:43] I love these dogs.

Stuart Turley [00:02:46] And

Irina Slav [00:02:48] Phone, not a charger. But yeah.

David Blackmon [00:02:51] Is a cord. Yeah

Stuart Turley [00:02:52] a cord. Yes. But it’s. So you sitting there going, all right, do I get marshmallows. You do, I do I, you know, and the other guy is going, hang on, let me run it. Yeah. Fortunately you all had in there the no dogs were hurt. They ran out the dog door and, and and so there is a good reason to have a dog.

David Blackmon [00:03:13] But they they just ran out. They didn’t wake their people up who were sleeping in the adjacent bedroom, but they escaped to everybody is okay.

Stuart Turley [00:03:21] You’re saying those are liberal dogs then? I don’t serving liberal.

Irina Slav [00:03:25] But they’re. Minus one mattresses. This is a mattress.

David Blackmon [00:03:28] Yes. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:03:29] That. That’s funny. That is. That is a hoot. Now, Tammy, why would we have some of these thought processes that we’re seeing? Hope that sanity is coming back into the energy space.

Tammy Nemeth [00:03:44] Well, I feel like it’s part of the contradiction of the of the energy transition as it’s currently being articulated, because the companies are saying one thing in their reports and their sustainability reports, in their transition planning and so on, but then they’re doing their actions or doing something else that, you know, like, for example, the the Glencore story where Glencore was going to break off their coal operations into is like spin it off into a separate company. But then they surveyed their shareholders. And the shareholders are like, no, let’s keep it. And we’re going to increase our production of coal, but we’re also going to reduce emissions and, and all these other things. And so there’s there’s the statements and then there’s the actions. And I would hope that what’s happening with Glencore, you know, and some of the other things like shell is doing more with oil and gas and supposedly do more with oil and gas and whatnot. Is that it? It’s these first pebbles in an avalanche. And I’m hoping that it does create a bit of a cascade effect in order to have, more reality set in that I, I get concerned, though, that people point to these things and like, whoa, see the transition? It’s done. They’re not going to do net zero and everything else. Well, someone should tell the policymakers because they’re still doubling down on all of these ridiculous regulations and stuff. And, all I can do is hope that that this is the beginning of something that will have some teeth and and stop the, the net zero, madness that will really destroy how people their quality of life and standard of living.

Stuart Turley [00:05:27] Well, Irina, what were you thinking on that?

Irina Slav [00:05:31] Well, I agree with Tammy that we’re seeing the beginning of a reversal, shall we say, of the. You know of actions they will keep talking about net zero there will keep, companies, that is, they will keep talking about how they will be cutting emissions and whatever. But the actions that, as we know, speak louder than words, very different. BP and shell, which Danny mentions, just dropped two biofuel projects in Europe because biofuels and, you know, they’re not selling. This is the thing about reality is that it doesn’t care about what you want. It doesn’t care about wishful thinking. It doesn’t care about ambitions. It doesn’t care about fantasies. Which is why we just. So also that 7% drop in EV sales in Germany. Because GM, when you stop subsidizing the rebate because it can’t continue affording to subsidize them.

Stuart Turley [00:06:33] Wow.

Irina Slav [00:06:34] This is why we see a slowdown in solar in California because California is broke. Is it already? And it can no longer subsidize all the solar it wants. Its politicians want to to have built. So without subsidies, solar is slowing down. And we as one major bankruptcy in California and in solar power because of that. So reality is striking back. Who would could have seen it coming.

David Blackmon [00:07:10] Exactly. Yeah I mean and.

Stuart Turley [00:07:13] He is striking back I like that.

David Blackmon [00:07:15] Yeah it’s and it’s true I mean and that’s exactly right. Both of you are exactly right. You know, I mean, we have seen this trend among the big companies, really. It started at the Sierra Conference in Houston. And, February, March of last year of 2023, we noticed that pretty much every speaker from one of the big oil companies, was up there talking about how they are going to rejigger their budgets to focus more on their core business of producing and refining and selling oil and gas, and less on, you know, buying wind farms and, and all this stuff that’s not profitable for them, that they don’t have the staff expertise to really execute. And, and then the Glencore announcement, was really big last week, and just kind of a, you know, that that shareholder feedback, according to Glen Glencore’s, senior management, 95% of the shareholders told them, no, don’t spin off the coal business, that your core business, you shouldn’t be doing that. And, so I you know, but but at the same time, as Tammy says, the policymakers are still doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on failure. And we talk about the the solar industry in California. We’ve had dozens of bankruptcies now in the solar business this year in the United States, dozens of bankruptcies in every companies and battery companies, not just in the US, but all across Europe. I mean, and this all this I.R.A. money, the subsidy money is going to all these startup businesses, and most of them, frankly, are going to either gone bankrupt already or will be going bankrupt because they’re not sustainable business models, and they certainly are not in any way sustainable without the subsidies. And as you see, the United States now, we’re going to add $2 trillion to our national debt to, it’s going to be 36 trillion by the end of this year. The United States is verging on national bankruptcy. Okay. We can’t afford to do a new IRA every year from now on, which even the Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, admits would be required to meet these targets, these insane targets that the Biden administration has put in place. And

Stuart Turley [00:09:49] needs to use my barber to save us from her.

David Blackmon [00:09:54] Yes. Needs to put down the bowl and scissors and go to a normal, list. But anyway, the point being that the subsidies aren’t sustainable and thus the renewables aren’t sustainable, and thus the EV companies are not sustainable. And so we’re we’re again, as we’ve talked about many times on this podcast before, we’re headed towards a major energy crisis and debt crisis, across the Western world in the next few years. And it’s frankly probably past the point of being avoidable.

Stuart Turley [00:10:26] Let me ask this, Tammy. The Drax power station was responsible for more carbon emissions than the UK’s last remaining coal fired power plant. And that power plant, uses wood chips they import from the U.S, and it was subsidized. You can’t buy this kind of entertainment. I mean, this I this is hilarious. It was, they received $22 billion in subsidies. Wow.

Tammy Nemeth [00:10:57] I would like to know how they’re making those calculations for the emissions, though, because there’s a group of environmentalists that hate the Drax plant and they are desperate to get it shut down. And quite often their methodologies for making these calculations are somewhat suspect. But in any event, the rationale is that trees are renewable. We need to plant more trees will fund planting more trees. And, you know, in some ways I hate to justify some of that. Is that in the wood process, sometimes there’s wood chips and whatnot that are leftover that you can’t really make use of, and they compress them into pellets that you can then burn, which is great. But unfortunately in some instances they’re taking whole trees. And turning them into pellets and doing this terrible stuff. Now, if the trees are like the ones that have been destroyed by pine beetles, which is what’s causing a lot of the forest fires in western Canada, and you can harvest those and turn them into pellets. Great. That makes a lot of sense. But for other wood, I don’t know. I think there needs to be a little more caution in, in doing that kind of thing, but I’m all for using if you have these, this, this, material that you can’t do anything else with. Why not?

David Blackmon [00:12:16] Why not? Exactly.

Stuart Turley [00:12:18] Tammy, you nailed it with that. That comment on the forest management. Because we are having so many wildfires. Because we’re not managing the forest, because the Sierra Club says you can’t manage the the forest. And if you burned it and used it for energy, that makes sense to me. This is.

Tammy Nemeth [00:12:37] And.

Stuart Turley [00:12:39] This is from Colin. Meg. Megson. If you have new data, would you please consider talking about the copper crunch, which is ammo, which will cause wind, solar batteries, EV charging to start wither on the vine by 2030.

Irina Slav [00:12:54] Definitely do a podcast about copper. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:12:56] Yeah. We should. Yeah. Should do a whole episode about.

Irina Slav [00:13:00] like idea, you know.

David Blackmon [00:13:00] Yeah, it is a big limiter to everything. And there’s no way we’re going to increase copper production by the magnitude. It needs to be increased by 2030 to even approach any of these calls.

Tammy Nemeth [00:13:12] Yeah. And again it’s a it’s a bottleneck of policy. Right. Because maybe there’s lots of deposits out there in the West that you would like to access. But what is the the lead time in getting a mine built in in the United States? In Canada, my understanding in North America is 15 to 20 years.

David Blackmon [00:13:30] Yes. 15.

Tammy Nemeth [00:13:31] Yeah. Fine. I mean, it’s ridiculous. And then

David Blackmon [00:13:34] it’s worse. In Europe, by the way. It’s worse in Europe.

Tammy Nemeth [00:13:36] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:13:37] Than it is in the United States.

Tammy Nemeth [00:13:40] Well, again, I think now that’ll be a good conversation we can have.

Stuart Turley [00:13:44] The one that gets me all worked up is the seabed mining. We don’t know enough about trying to get oxygen out. Or seabed mining, deep critical minerals out of deep sea mining. And we don’t know the ecological structure of how much oxygen is actually being created out of the bottom. I didn’t know half of this stuff is. I’m trying to research and get into this. We don’t know a lot of the stuff about the ocean, and we should not be destroying the ocean trying to get the critical minerals either. So this is.

David Blackmon [00:14:19] Yeah, we know more about Jupiter than we know about the bottom of the oceans.

Irina Slav [00:14:23] Yeah. But the banded for now.

David Blackmon [00:14:25] Yes. And they should.

Stuart Turley [00:14:27] They should.

Tammy Nemeth [00:14:27] Some area has China.

Stuart Turley [00:14:32] It’s kind of like the it’s kind of like the whales, you know, if it’s if it meets the, direction of the political people. I live within 20 miles of Drax. I wonder how much PM 2.5. Enjoy it. I.

David Blackmon [00:14:50] I don’t know, I mean, they have good scrubbers, you know, but.

Tammy Nemeth [00:14:53] Yeah, they do have good scrubbers.

David Blackmon [00:14:55] That get all of it. That’s real pollution, by the way, not carbon dioxide.

Irina Slav [00:15:00] Yeah, yeah, it is, but, we have.

Tammy Nemeth [00:15:02] It there now.

Irina Slav [00:15:04] Yeah, yeah. No no no no.

David Blackmon [00:15:08] Somebody’s.

Tammy Nemeth [00:15:08] say that they’re going after ultrafine particles now. So 2.5 is is too big. And now they need to go after ultrafine particles. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:15:18] UltraFine particles. Let me ask this. If they’re going after ultrafine particles, how come the tires off of electric vehicles cause more damage from micro fine particles from the tires and pollution than regular cars?

Irina Slav [00:15:37] Because it’s different. These guys remember this is different.

Tammy Nemeth [00:15:45] It’s different until you get rid of all. Vehicles,

Stuart Turley [00:15:49] Doesn’t fit the narrative. Is that what I heard? David, I have to give a shout out to you because you have found a way as a creative individual to find your way.

David Blackmon [00:16:04] That video coming up.

Stuart Turley [00:16:07] To to to find a parking spot. And when your truck can identify as a Prius. This is now available at David Blackmon Substack. And here we go. So here is David going to a charging station to get a better, parking station. And.

David Blackmon [00:16:27] And there we go.

Stuart Turley [00:16:30] Let me back it up here.

David Blackmon [00:16:32] You gotta show this party. Is this genius or what?

Stuart Turley [00:16:37] Yeah. And. That way you can go identify your truck as it. I’m sorry. David. That was the.

David Blackmon [00:16:47] Latest version of stealing a handicap. Hanger for your mirror to park in handicap. Because all the good spaces for the easy Chargers now at home.

Irina Slav [00:16:58] Oh, well, we have a new charging station in the nearby mall. I have never, ever seen a car that. No, I know once. But. So one, one day.

David Blackmon [00:17:12] You did see one.

Irina Slav [00:17:13] It was a petrol car. It was just, you know, parked there for a while. I’ve never seen cars charged. I don’t go there every day. Yeah, but, I want to go back to some things I mentioned about the I.R.A. money. Did you know that the Financial Times just did an investigation? Of, I.R.A. projects? Do you know how many of these projects have been delayed or paused indefinitely?

David Blackmon [00:17:42] Oh, dozens. Yeah, for. 40,000? Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:17:46] 4%. Including $1 billion solar panel, project by any Italy’s. Any or something. You know, something, a battery factory project that’s worth 1.3 billion and another billion dollar project.

David Blackmon [00:18:06] Yeah. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:18:06] And they’re doing it because they cannot be sure that they’ll still have the subsidies after the November elections. They’re doing it because of the slowdown in demand. Can you imagine this.

David Blackmon [00:18:18] Rush so hard

Irina Slav [00:18:19] That’s 40%.

Stuart Turley [00:18:21] It’s worse than that, Irina. What the that story did not cover is the fact that in the Inflation Reduction Act, or as Dan Bongino in the U.S. calls it, the Oculus bill. It it actually has, language in funding for federal agencies to register people to vote, to vote. It is it is highly a voter fraud machine. So not only is the pork bill, the Inflation Reduction Act used for fraud. Like we had, I believe it was seven over $7.5 billion and only 60 electric busses. We had another $8 billion and only seven charging stations.

David Blackmon [00:19:14] Hey, Get it right. Hey, but three of them don’t work.

Stuart Turley [00:19:19] Okay.

David Blackmon [00:19:20] 35. But anyway, I.

Stuart Turley [00:19:21] Went to Oklahoma State and I can. They don’t teach you how to add, so. You know, but work with me here. You know, so you look at the fraud that is in the Inflation Reduction Act. It is disgusting and, abysmal. Sorry. Did I say all that?

David Blackmon [00:19:41] Yeah. And so back to the 40% bankruptcies. It’s going to end up being substantially more.

Irina Slav [00:19:47] Than it’s delays. It’s not bad.

David Blackmon [00:19:50] Right? I’m sorry. Delays with cancellations or. Yeah, it’s going to end up being substantially higher than that. Right. I mean, we’re just getting started on the I.R.A., and it is driving a lot of investment and a lot of successful projects, too. But at the end of the day, only a handful of these projects that it’s funding are going to be sustainable over long term without additional subsidies. The thing about these renewables and the EV battery makers and all these companies that are being funded with this money is they always come back for more subsidies because their business models are not sustainable, particularly now, you know, in the EV sector. Now that demand has stopped growing essentially, and may even start falling in the years to come. You know, it’s going to be just carnage, in that sector of the economy and that’s going to cause and drive a lot of unemployment. And, you know, a lot of, just a lot, a lot of bad business decisions. But, and, and the other side of that, and we’d be back to the energy sanity for a minute. The other aspect that I wanted to be sure to mention here is U.S. automakers kind of being forced to return to sanity. The legacy automakers like Ford, GM and Stellantis who went in whole hog with Joe Biden and the green agenda in 2021 when they were moving that big. And trying to get it passed. And so they wanted to be sure they were going to get their big piece of the pie. Of federal money that was going to be allocated. So they went in whole hog, fully endorsed it. Funded a lot of Democratic politicians during the midterm elections with campaign contributions. And now what are they doing? Well, I mean, Ford, had only lost $51,000 per.

Irina Slav [00:21:53] Only.

David Blackmon [00:21:54] Delivered in the second quarter, which was the best performance its EV division has had in more than a year. And and so Ford is delaying you talked about delaying their delaying a lot of investment.

Irina Slav [00:22:07] yeah

David Blackmon [00:22:08] Opening of new plants. They’re converting. Actually they’re actually they’ve they’ve canceled the introduction of several new battery electric models in favor of hybrids. And so they’re going more to a Toyota style model focused on hybrids than electric vehicles. And GM Ford is very transparent about what they’re doing. GM is not transparent about its losses in its EV division. So we don’t really know the magnitude of what GM is losing, and we can only look at and observe at the at the same similar steps they’re taking to delay or cancel new investments in their EV stuff. And, it’s, you know, it’s just that that’s reality, the market forcing reality to set back in. And those legacy auto companies.

Stuart Turley [00:22:54] In, in doubling down on things. The Biden administration in July 22nd announced it’s dispersing 4.3 billion in taxpayer fund grants through the EPA. In these grants are all being issued before, so the projects are just unbelievable

David Blackmon [00:23:15] They’re trying to force as much of that money out before the election as I can. There was a another one last week, 2.2 billion by the Energy Department, refund. Which is good, actually, because, I mean, the purpose of it is to fund, upgrading and hardening of, of, transmission grids in 17 different states. So, I mean, that, you know, when you talk about the.

Stuart Turley [00:23:41] Democrat states or was actually.

David Blackmon [00:23:43] In intelligence, they were almost all Democrat states, because, again, it was just another gift to, you know, their supporters before the election, which is what this administration has done for four years now.

Stuart Turley [00:23:56] Let’s roll over. Tammy is, missing in action here. So let’s go over to, Irene. You had two fantastic stories.

Irina Slav [00:24:08] Yeah, I already mentioned Germany’s EV sales, the subsidies. Nobody wants to buy a navy anymore. Even green Germans and Germans are very green because they have been brainwashed into being very green for decades. So, as we have argued repeatedly for years, all of us here is that it is, you know, naked on their own. And now it is not just Germany, by the way, other big magazine in in Europe are experiencing the same because as one one report put it, that dropped out of the in the events, the people who are affluent enough to buy an EV. It’s it’s just not going to to become a mass mode of transportation.

David Blackmon [00:25:01] No. And it just a continuation of 140 years of futility since the EV model was first invented. You know, I mean, this is not the first time this has been tried.

Irina Slav [00:25:13] Yeah. And then the second story is really because, that browsed. A story again in the ft. A book review, a section on something. And one of the books reviewed, was on climate change and net zero and how we’re going to make it to net zero using gas wealth, wind, solar, EVs, heat pumps and green hydrogen. Because all of these technologies would, develop in accordance to rights law, they’re going to get cheaper the more of them would built. They keep repeating this, guys, even though we are seeing it fail in real time. So. Good morning. I hope I’m pronouncing his surname right. He he did an opinion, column for. The. West Australian. Yeah. The West.

David Blackmon [00:26:08] Australian. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:26:10] Debunking the green hydrogen hype, which is, in the process of debunking itself. You probably remember Andrew Forrest of Fortescue Metals. He was a great fan of, green hydrogen. He pledged billions in investments in green hydrogen, basically jumpstarting Australia’s green hydrogen industry. Now he’s going back on this in the latest sign, yet another sign that sanity is returning forcefully. I mean, I think this guy really believed he could make green hydrogen work. I have no idea how a business executive of this scale could actually believe this. But apparently he did. And now he’s reconsidering his plans.

David Blackmon [00:26:59] So I think there are isolated. Instances where you can do green hydrogen at some scale. And that’s mainly in parts of the world where hydropower is abundant. Right?

Irina Slav [00:27:14] You need a lot of water, and you need it to be cheap. And use of sun or wind, preferably sun, to make it work. But even the in these instances, you have a process where the input of energy is greater than the output.

David Blackmon [00:27:32] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Irina Slav [00:27:33] Which makes no sense. It’s significantly greater.

Stuart Turley [00:27:38] I Irina I, I got. Really

Tammy Nemeth [00:27:41] hydrogen, I know

Stuart Turley [00:27:43] I got really tickled yesterday at a group that was suing, the hydrogen corridor. I have to find the article again because they’re tired of it being called a Hindenburg. And they’re they’re saying quit using the word Hindenburg and rightly suing over it because of the hydrogen corridor, and I. I got tickle lips. Oh, hi. Irene has got to see that the the Hindenburg corridor.

Irina Slav [00:28:16] So this is actually a wonderful. Yeah. It’s just send me a link or something. Whatever.

Stuart Turley [00:28:23] It was actually hilarious. I was like, this is this is, Irina’s love worthy of an article, you know, calling it the Hindenburg word, or as opposed to.

Irina Slav [00:28:32] Yeah, it’s been a while since I dressed green hydrogen.

Stuart Turley [00:28:37] That is absolutely a great day.

David Blackmon [00:28:39] We’ve got Tammy back.

Stuart Turley [00:28:40] Yay! Tammy.

Tammy Nemeth [00:28:42] Sorry, sorry. I’m on my iPad. A Microsoft decided it wants me to upgrade my operating system.

Irina Slav [00:28:49] Of course it does.

Stuart Turley [00:28:51] Yeah, well, you look great. You sound great. So thank you. Your two stories, are some good ones. Paper straws. And here’s how to prepare for net zero by a generator.

Tammy Nemeth [00:29:03] Yeah. Matt Ridley, he’s he’s priceless. I love his writing. And, he really nailed it. I mean, what’s coming in the UK? I’m grateful we have two generators. That’s interesting guys. So. Yeah, I mean, it’s what they’re planning to do. Will destabilize the system even more. And. Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s a brilliant article. I totally recommend people taking a look at it. And then this story about paper straws I thought was hilarious because they went in, did about 8 or 9 different types of straws, including stainless steel. And in the end, they said everything’s toxic except stainless steel. So buy a stainless steel straw and take it around with you.

David Blackmon [00:29:48] Well, where is that paper straw story? Where was that published? I need to find that. That’s just,

Tammy Nemeth [00:29:54] I don’t know. You’ll have to take a look at the link. Yeah, it’s I, I can’t recall it the top of my head, but. Yeah. So they, they detail the, the different ways that they did the, the sampling. And I guess it depends on, you know, what you, what you think about, different chemicals embedded in plastic and, and so on. But yeah, I mean, what binds the paper together, right.

David Blackmon [00:30:19] Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it doesn’t work either, because within about two minutes of starting to use a any paper straw, they become soggy and almost unusable.

Stuart Turley [00:30:29] But it’s the chemicals that they put in them to make them not absorb water that I don’t want in my body.

David Blackmon [00:30:36] And there’s no telling what that is.

Irina Slav [00:30:38] I have to ask. However, I have not used any straw in decades. Who uses paper straws? Any straws? Sorry.

Tammy Nemeth [00:30:47] I just you ordering a milkshake? If you’re ordering a milkshake or something like that, or you’re going to a fast food restaurant and stuff, and I think it’s hilarious that they’re like, okay, you should just carry it around with you. So if you’re let’s say you’re doing, a massive road trip across North America, which is what we often do. You’re stopping at these fast food places, and if you want a drink, if it’s not a bottle of water, it’s, you know, in a cup with and you can in the car, you know. Yeah, yeah. So if you’re in the car and you want to drink from your cup instead of using the straw, good luck. It’s ending up all over your seats.

Irina Slav [00:31:21] Yeah, yeah. You know this.

Stuart Turley [00:31:23] I want to ask a question because this one grossed me out. I actually managed restaurants, believe it or not. And I actually worked in McDonald’s. And I will not drink lemon in my tea because there’s more e-coli and bad things. When people put the waiters, cut the lemon and put it in your. They dump the lemon in the water.

Tammy Nemeth [00:31:46] Yeah. All right. Okay. Okay. I’m sorry to interrupt with the stories, but I wanted to just. I’m sorry you missed the rest of the conversation, but I wanted to just draw attention to, the idea of policymakers doubling. Down or tripling down. And it was a recent statement made by, I think it was the Bureau of Land Management in the United States to curtail the coal production on federal lands in North Dakota. And to sort of limit how they wear they and the way it is in North Dakota. The lands are quite intermixed, apparently. David and Stu, you guys probably know more about that than I do. And so it makes it very difficult and problematic if the, the, the federal lands are like, well, you can’t access that and you can’t do this, you can’t do this beside it. But they’re all kind of intermixed. So I think North Dakota is one of the largest coal producers. Yes. In America. Yeah. So this is like a big, a big statement and decision that isn’t getting as much attention as it. As it should.

David Blackmon [00:32:53] Probably should get more. Yeah. That intermingling of of land types goes back to the days when we built the transcontinental railroads. And Burlington Northern was one of them on the northern tier of states. And, and in exchange for building that railroad that went from, I believe, Chicago to Seattle. Burlington Northern Railroad was awarded every other section of land like a checkerboard. And so every other section is privately owned. And the others are owned by the federal government. So a section is what, a square mile, I guess is a section.

Stuart Turley [00:33:32] Yep. Yeah. Not normally.

David Blackmon [00:33:33] Yeah. And, and so you have this all across, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington state all the way across that here in Minnesota too. So, yeah. And so that’s what that goes back to. So if you’re going to outlaw it on federal lands, well, a lot of those coal mining operations are also on private lands. And so how are you going to manage that. But this is just typical of the kind of insane decision making that’s being made in this, in this government that that doesn’t get much attention because, I mean, I mean, for instance, I just don’t have the capacity to write or even talk about all the insane stuff they’re doing. And and they know that. I mean, that’s part of the strategy. They know that it’s virtually impossible for any one of us to keep up with all of it.

Stuart Turley [00:34:25] On the same topic, David, let me ask this, because the chevron difference is so important that we see that the last week, I believe it was the Biden administration, Biden-Harris administration again filed, to, appeal the the repeal on the the LNG ban. And now we have, it back. They’re now appealing that. So they’re doubling down on stupid. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:34:56] Yeah. Right. But that’s the thing about our system is right. They they’re going to be able to delay all that. Any final decision on that in the courts until next year, at least because of how slow the courts move. And that’s again, part of what they rely on in, in all of this is their ability to delay justice. So the Chevron deference is vitally important. But that’s why I keep saying it’s going to take years before we see real results from that incredibly important Supreme Court decision.

Stuart Turley [00:35:31] Well, Tammy, I love your stories. And thanks. Yeah. How to prepare for net zero. Net zero.

David Blackmon [00:35:39] Same thing we’re doing in. Texas, by the way. The generators

Stuart Turley [00:35:40] do what now David?

David Blackmon [00:35:41] does the same thing we prepare. Same way we prepare in Texas for the Ercot grid’s instability by buying a generator.

Irina Slav [00:35:50] And water reservoir.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:52] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:35:53] Yeah, yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:55] Yeah, I John well.

David Blackmon [00:35:56] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:35:57] I’m working on mine. So.

David Blackmon [00:35:59] Can on that too.

Irina Slav [00:36:00] Yeah. Me too.

Stuart Turley [00:36:01] All right, let’s go to David. Coming around the corner. You got some good ones here. I loved your journey.

David Blackmon [00:36:08] Yeah. The charger hogs, stories. Hilarious. You know, I mean, it’s just another of a thousand problems with buying an electric vehicle. So people are finding in in parts of the world where sales of electric vehicles have been pretty heavy. California and a few other places. They’re running into the problem now where people are staying at the Chargers too long, you know, I mean, it takes you 15, 20 minutes to charge your car up to 70 or 80% battery capacity, which is what these high speed chargers are designed to do. Right? But what’s happening is many people want to get a 100% charge on their battery because.

Irina Slav [00:36:47] People, by the way.

David Blackmon [00:36:48] Right. But but they don’t understand, you know, they don’t take the time to because when you buy a Tesla or another EV, you have to spend days doing research and reading through a manual that thick to understand all the ins and outs of actually operating a damn car that’s more complex than everything in your house is. And so it just this is one of those deals where people pulling up these chargers, they ought to be taking 15, 20 minutes to get a 70 to 80% charge, but instead they’re sitting there for an hour or more trying to get the thing up to 100%. That’s not what the chargers are designed to do. And so, you know, you have long lines forming at the charging stations in these areas and people waiting for hours on end to finally get up to a charger and charge their car. So that one’s pretty funny. And then what was the other way? Exxon’s results Exxon, again, despite lower prices in the second quarter, had incredibly strong financial results for the second quarter. Unlike some of its competitors like Chevron, had a pretty disappointing second quarter. BP and shell, while, had better second quarters than year over year, still are trailing well behind Exxon Mobil. It just shows that, you know, Exxon Mobil has really hit a sweet spot in its operations and profitability. And, and is really among the majors, the strongest financially performing company really in the world that’s, you know, a corporate, an actual corporation. Although I guess, Saudi Aramco is partially now privately held, corporation. So I, you know, I have a hard time comparing any of these companies to Saudi Aramco, though, because it’s, so much more gigantic than they are. But anyway, Exxon had a great second quarter.

Irina Slav [00:38:35] It was. Great. Very strong person.

David Blackmon [00:38:40] Yeah, yeah. Chevron had had some difficulties with write downs and stuff, and you had pretty disappointing results, but. But that’s not a long going, ongoing thing.

Stuart Turley [00:38:51] I love the fact that, Chevron is, rolling to, Texas. But please, all Chevron employees, please listen to me now. Think about it later and vote. Not like a Californian, but vote like a Texan. You are now moving to Texas. Leave your voting policies behind. Thank you. That was my best Trump imitation, too. So that was terrible. This the Cheniere ships, 3570 LNG cargoes expanding. Their plant is progressing, but this goes along with, the same topic of, the chevron difference. And that is, they’re going to they’re expanding, and they are smart to do that. Yeah. I have to admit they are they’re doing great on that. So hats off to Cheniere and, hitting their 3500.

David Blackmon [00:39:56] What a tiny and Schmidt Cheniere is in that LNG business. They’re just just incredible. Go ahead. Sorry.

Stuart Turley [00:40:04] Oh, no. Great. Great management. I love what they’re doing there.

Irina Slav [00:40:08] And pissing off big oil and, like, venture.

David Blackmon [00:40:13] I’m sorry. Say that again.

Irina Slav [00:40:15] They’re not even pissing off big oil. Their big oil clients unlike Venture Global.

David Blackmon [00:40:20] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:40:23] Good management and good numbers. Usually. It usually adds up together. I love this article when you take a look. Green schemes in Kamala’s home state sent electricity prices higher into orbit, the highest in the lower 48. So when you take a look at the ticket for the Democrats and, Tim, who is an amazing individual, as her VP pick, and then you have her, holy smokes, Batman, if you go left of Bernie Sanders and then keep going left to, you know, like Peter Pan to the moon. Holy smokes. They’re expensive. Green schemes are expensive.

David Blackmon [00:41:11] They are R&D. And you know what?

Tammy Nemeth [00:41:14] They to spend 3 trillion a year or something.

David Blackmon [00:41:17] Yeah, yeah. And you know what? What the comparison is to is the highest rate is in, San Diego. I think that’s the highest electricity rate. And it’s less than half the rate for electricity that is being paid by consumers in Germany. Think about that. As awful as it is in California. Wow. Which is bad in Germany. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:41:40] Well, that’s why the deindustrialization is happening in Germany. Yeah. New York and California, those are the three big deindustrialization, going on in here. The other big one.

David Blackmon [00:41:53] And the UK.

Tammy Nemeth [00:41:55] And the UK now.

David Blackmon [00:41:55] Yeah, we can’t talk about it, though.

Stuart Turley [00:41:57] You know, in the case you’re.

David Blackmon [00:42:00] Going to extradite me?

Stuart Turley [00:42:02] No. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:42:04] Well, they’re serious when they said this.

David Blackmon [00:42:06] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:42:07] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:42:08] Absolutely. That was the police commissioner. Yeah. In London.

Stuart Turley [00:42:12] I guarantee you, I would love to see a constable show up to a Texans house and say, we’re here to take you to the UK.

Tammy Nemeth [00:42:22] Because you had a bad name.

Stuart Turley [00:42:24] To see that. In fact, I will film it, show up at my house, and I’ll film it with my 37 security cameras. Please show up. It would be gold.

Irina Slav [00:42:36] But then somebody first Stu Of. Unless you offend somebody.

Stuart Turley [00:42:42] Okay, I offend people every day, Irina. And trust me, my, when you take a look at, the other one, the side one on this green schemes in 2024, the Biden administration churned out $1.2 trillion in regulations. It not cost $1.2 trillion in and added more financial administrative burden from regulatory activities, either from totaling 1.69 trillion from Inauguration Day to August 2nd, 2024. That is amazing in the regulatory power of the pen.

Tammy Nemeth [00:43:31] Yes, as she’s fond of saying, I have a pen and I have the pen.

Stuart Turley [00:43:36] And I love the way your head was snapping back and forth. Tammy, for our podcast listeners. You actually had that invitation down wonderfully. So, but sorry.

Tammy Nemeth [00:43:47] I wanted to add something. So we’re talking about Germany and how expensive their electricity is. And you know how they’ve been industrializing, you know, lowering energy usage but lowering energy usage because your companies are moving away or shutting down or cooling down or whatever. And there was an article in the Canadian Globe and Mail the other day might have been yesterday, I can’t remember, done by a pollster, Nik Nanos, and he was going on about how Canadians can learn positive things from the German transition, how they’re since the war in Ukraine, they’ve made advancements in, emission, reducing power generation and going on and on. I’m like, wow, this guy’s clueless. And he’s like one of Canada’s leading pollsters. His I mean, what’s our lesson? Open up more coal power, build more interconnects, and establish LNG power plants. But you you put the qualifier that they’re hydrogen ready. So that’s okay. Yes. Yes. So it’s kind of like, you know, HD ready televisions. Now we have hydrogen ready natural gas power plants.

Irina Slav [00:45:02] So, you know, unaffordable for regular people.

Tammy Nemeth [00:45:05] Exactly. So that’s the lesson we’re supposed to be be following what Germany’s doing. That’s the last thing that, Canada, the UK or anybody should be doing.

Stuart Turley [00:45:16] Yeah. Well, the, the United States in the, regulatory. And David will be able to answer this better. But the way that they’re getting the AI is impacting the grid is we need natural gas plants brought up as fast as we can. And the only way to get those through and approved right now is to be hydrogen ready. And that hydrogen ready means we’re never going to run hydrogen because this whole different system is hydrogen ready. So, tell me, if anybody in the UK shows up at my house, I’ll be wearing this hat. Okay. Just thought I’d let you know. And anybody understands what that hat is, it means that they usually train. So we’ll just leave it at that. So.

Tammy Nemeth [00:46:08] Yeah. Right now we have,

David Blackmon [00:46:10] Actually down here. That actually ties into that last conversation. I’m a big, greener than green nuclear enabled hydrogen, but Substack posts any opinions on the subject?

Irina Slav [00:46:20] Nuclear is good

David Blackmon [00:46:23] Yeah. Nuclear’s good. I mean,

Stuart Turley [00:46:26] we love nuclear. Yeah, I love nuclear

Irina Slav [00:46:28] Makes sense. In fact, you enabled hydrogen. As long as you have all the water that you need. Nuclear is much better than solar, wind, hydrogen it can. But round the clock.

David Blackmon [00:46:40] In the United States. Guess how? How many nuclear power plants are currently being constructed? In the United States 0.

Stuart Turley [00:46:51] I thought we had three.

Tammy Nemeth [00:46:53] I thought they were three.

David Blackmon [00:46:55] No, not traditional nuclear. We have. We have projects like the one at Abilene Christian. Right. That is a small modular nuclear test case. Right. We have three of those happening. Okay. But currently we have zero traditional nuclear power plants under which under development in the United States.

Irina Slav [00:47:15] And yes, I’m reading that big tech doing AI want small nuclear power.

David Blackmon [00:47:21] Yeah, I mean. It’ll change, but it’s just the regulatory structure is so slow moving and antiquated in the United States that it’s incredibly difficult to get a project moving.

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:32] I want to make a plea, though, for security because it security in the sense of we just saw an attack on, nuclear power plants that Russia controls by the Ukraine, and they had to shut it down because of the potential for, you know, a meltdown. Like, what are you thinking? So, if if you’re I’m concerned that there’s this talk of maybe having a hot war with China or, you know, the world breaking into some kind of actual heated conflict, and if that’s the case, then one of the first targets would be nuclear power plants. Yep. And so what?

David Blackmon [00:48:09] Russia. Well.

Stuart Turley [00:48:11] This is the this is it. Tammy

David Blackmon [00:48:12] are we supposed to be pretending that, Russia attacked its own power plant? Isn’t that.

Irina Slav [00:48:18] I think so, yeah, because that’s what Zelenskyy said. But I wanted to mention something. We always trust one Zelensky says David. But, there’s this nuclear, nuclear guy. Nuclear. It’s good. Mark Nelson and he, he’s been writing about these Zaporizhzhia power plants a lot, and he’s actually had a positive message that these the actual reactors are really, really, really well protected. I don’t think that’s a very big consolation given the kinds of weapons we have these days. So I think your concern is very legitimate, but I think it will be harder to actually cause the reactor meltdown with, the missile attack or anything. Then we we think, or at least I hope so.

David Blackmon [00:49:14] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:49:15] But yet they, I think they are made to last and to withstand such attacks precisely because there will be, a major targets in a hopeful. Yeah. So Russia’s one thing, I think.

Stuart Turley [00:49:28] Didn’t Russia control that one?

Irina Slav [00:49:30] It does. Yeah. It’s control. It’s in 2022. But it keeps attacking it because it makes sense.

Stuart Turley [00:49:37] Yeah. Well Russia attack.

Tammy Nemeth [00:49:38] They’re flying their own drones around.

Stuart Turley [00:49:40] Yeah. And Russia attacked the Nord Stream Yeah. I mean, didn’t Russia attack their own Nord Strea pipeline?

David Blackmon [00:49:48] Of course, Putin did the. Putin does. Everything.

Stuart Turley [00:49:51] I thought it was funny when Putin said, why would I want to attack my own pipeline? I just walk down the hall and turn it off. I thought that was pretty funny. He’s supposed to be addressing the world here shortly. He’s pretty upset about a few things. So I’m very curious today what Putin’s going to say. Then we have Iran. That is, now that the Olympics are over, Iran is supposed to be attacking, Israel.

Irina Slav [00:50:18] We didn’t wait for the Olympics to end.

Stuart Turley [00:50:21] They did. And by the way, I did finally watch one Olympic event. And and this Olympic event is absolutely what I think is going to be. This is how I would go dancing. This is me trying to train my dog to breakdance. Oh, yeah. This is me. Oh, Yeah, that was me. okay, okay. You got to watch that. Here you go. That would have been better watch that than the breakdancing.

David Blackmon [00:51:02] Oh man. I never thought I would see ever live to see anything more absurd. Then. What’s it called? Synchronized swimming in the Olympics. But we did this time with, with the breakdancing competition

Stuart Turley [00:51:20] guys. I don’t have a problem with breakdancing. Have you seen some of the breakdancers? They are phenomenal.

Irina Slav [00:51:28] That’s all over social media.

Tammy Nemeth [00:51:30] I know, yeah. Yeah. The Australian

Irina Slav [00:51:33] So? So embarrassing.

David Blackmon [00:51:35] It is embarrassing. And it’s. I mean, yeah, they’re they’re incredibly athletic. They really are. Cheerleaders are true. Cheerleaders.

Stuart Turley [00:51:42] Yeah I do that for.

David Blackmon [00:51:44] And they’re really. Good.

Stuart Turley [00:51:46] Yeah. This was from Jeff. I just want to give him a shout out. Hey, Jeff. You guys drag. Structure is slow and antiquated. It’s dominated by staff that have limited technical ability. Yes, they all went to Oklahoma University. They’re all. All from that horrible university. Did I just say that out loud and live.

Tammy Nemeth [00:52:06] Out loud?

Stuart Turley [00:52:06] I’m sorry about that. Oh, you.

David Blackmon [00:52:08] I have no comment.

Tammy Nemeth [00:52:11] It’s a good thing you’re not in the UK. You’d be taken to court for libel or something.

Stuart Turley [00:52:15] Well, then let me tell you who I’m actually voting for here. You know, might as well let everybody know. By the way, he’s a nice guy. He’s, he’s thinking about coming on the podcast, so we’ll keep you posted.

David Blackmon [00:52:28] Okay. Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:52:30] But, I mean, his ideas are so great. Kemal is adopting them. Did you see yesterday she said that she’s going to remove tax on tips and thank you. But she’s going to right now.

David Blackmon [00:52:42] He’s going to end democracy. But but we like his tax policy.

Tammy Nemeth [00:52:46] Yeah. Well she has a pen. Can’t she just do that right now. Why does she have to wait.

David Blackmon [00:52:51] Right. Yeah. Why is she waiting to go?

Irina Slav [00:52:54] Power.

David Blackmon [00:52:56] Yeah. Well, she is in full power right now. Joe Biden’s not wrong. You know, and that’s what’s so funny about this. This charade. Anyway, this is. Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:53:05] You better not go there. Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:53:07] Here you go, Tammy. Let’s see if this rolls in here.

Video Speaker [00:53:12] Tips for service in hospitality worker hospitality. Few moments later,.

Stuart Turley [00:53:19] A few moments later.

Video Speaker 2 [00:53:20] In their earnings hostage now the IRS they just announced this week that they want to start tracking all of the tips that workers earn so that they can be taxed for it. So, so much from Biden’s sacred promise not to raise. Taxes or

Irina Slav [00:53:35] taxing.

Stuart Turley [00:53:36] Their taxing them. not only a few moments I mean. she caused inflation. She owns this problem.

Video Speaker [00:53:46] Vice president votes in the affirmative. And the bill, as amended, is passed.

David Blackmon [00:53:53] So. Q Joe Manchin.

Stuart Turley [00:53:55] Oh, my goodness, this was bad. So thank you, Tammy, for bringing that up. I just happened to have that clip ready for this one. So can you believe it that she’s now saying and then they put it out that Trump meant, no tax for tips, because he wanted his rich buddies on Wall Street to tip each other rather than pay fees. That’s not what he’s been saying.

Tammy Nemeth [00:54:20] Oh my gosh. Oh, I’m like really?

Stuart Turley [00:54:25] I mean, that’s horrible. So what do you guys see happening this week? Tammy, what do you see coming around the corner?

Tammy Nemeth [00:54:34] That’s a good question. I’m just watching. What? You know, it’s summer now, and there’s not too many people doing stuff in the policy space. At least in the UK. In Canada, they’re on holiday. But you never know. Keeping an eye open for whatever latest absurdity thing they trot out.

Stuart Turley [00:54:56] Craig. Hey. Love you. Hey, so tax give free to our students. That’s funny. And then we had, in the UK, the thought of Trump being elected is frightening from the point of view of the worldwide political standpoint.

Irina Slav [00:55:11] Yeah, because the world is so stable now thanks to.

Tammy Nemeth [00:55:14] Yeah, exactly.

Irina Slav [00:55:15] Yeah. And. On the line. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:55:22] Irina. What do you see coming around the corner this week?

Irina Slav [00:55:25] Not war and not nuclear war.

Stuart Turley [00:55:29] I hope not.

Irina Slav [00:55:30] I did not signal. Seriously. It’s not going to happen anytime soon. Someone overplays their hand.

Tammy Nemeth [00:55:39] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:55:39] Well, now that it’s bogus, it’s lazy time.

Stuart Turley [00:55:44] And, David, you and I have another podcast with a author, later today.

David Blackmon [00:55:50] Larry schweikert. Yes. Second episode in our new podcast on politics, boy. Everybody’s going to love that. Oh, yeah. At 11, can just live streaming with Larry.

Stuart Turley [00:56:00] In case anybody wants to know who I’m voting for. In 2020, I put my hat down because people were getting mugged and beat up for wearing a Trump hat. Well guess what? Go ahead, make my day. Try to beat me up.

David Blackmon [00:56:19] Okay, Craig, I want to play this. I just want to ask Craig if he still thinks that after Stu’s last comments.

Tammy Nemeth [00:56:26] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:56:28] Sensible people.

Irina Slav [00:56:29] Thanks, Craig.

Tammy Nemeth [00:56:31] Thanks, Craig.

Stuart Turley [00:56:32] Do not forget to follow David Blackmon on blackmon.substack.com Irina on Irina slav.substack.com and Tam Nemeth at the Nemeth report.com. And I am on the energy News beat substack.com. So hey have a great day guys. We will see you all next week.

Tammy Nemeth [00:56:54] See you Next week.

Irina Slav [00:56:54] See yah bye bye.

Tammy Nemeth [00:56:55] Bye.