Wind Blows – Is Bruce Willis right? [[{“value”:”

Wind Blows – Is Bruce Willis right?

You can’t beat a great movie line, and Bruce Willis has some of the best. Like “Welcome to the Party Pal” or “Skys Blue, Waters Wet, and Wind Blows.” – But does the wind always blow when it is really needed for electricity? We are seeing across the globe that intermittent energy means just that. You won’t want to miss this week’s Energy Realities podcast with Tammy Nemeth, Irina Slav, David Blackmon, and Stu Turley as they talk about the issues around wind energy. Live on X, YouTub,e and LinkedIn on Monday morning at 8:00

Highlights of the Podcast

00:10 – Introduction

00:46 – Discussion on Wind and Renewable Energy in the UK

05:17 – The Dual Grid System and Energy Transition Challenges

10:26 – Institutional Mismanagement and Policy Criticism

15:22 – Economic and Financial Implications of Renewable Energy

21:06 – Texas’s energy demand forecast and grid challenges.

21:54 – Political and Grid Management in Texas

25:47 – UK’s Energy Situation

26:47 – The Green New Deal and Rising Energy Costs

28:53 – AI Opportunities Action Plan: government response

34:11 – Germany’s Energy Failures and the Global Impact

39:03 – Risky pension investments in the UK.

44:58 – UK’s blackout near-miss shows risk of Net Zero

46:30 – Supreme Screw-up: How Canada’s Highest Court Got Climate Change Wrong

48:04 -The Collapse of the UN Net-Zero Alliance

49:07 – Trump Promises to ‘un-Ban Biden’s Huge Offshore Drilling Ban

50:35 – Discarded wind energy increases by 91% in 2024

52:08- EU’s 2024 new wind capacity less than half amount needed for climate goal, industry group says

54:43 – Trump to issue six-month moratorium on offshore wind projects

55:16 – Tougher U.S. sanctions to curb Russian oil supply to China and India

55:57 – What do oil and gas exports mean to the Russian economy?

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

Wind Blows – Is Bruce Willis right?

Stuart Turley [00:00:10] We are live.

Irina Slav [00:00:12] Hello everyone, and welcome to the Energy Realities Podcast with Tammy Nemeth. How are you today, Tammy?

Tammy Nemeth [00:00:21] I’m doing good. Surviving the UK Lack of wind. It’s great.

Irina Slav [00:00:26] is it very bad?

Tammy Nemeth [00:00:28] It’s okay.

Irina Slav [00:00:31] We have David Blackmon. How are you today, David?

David Blackmon [00:00:35] I’m wonderful and the wind’s blowing just fine. And thank you for asking.

Irina Slav [00:00:41] And Stuart Turley, Stu, is the wind blowing where you are?

Stuart Turley [00:00:46] No, the wind’s not blowing. But I notice that Bruce Willis and I have the same barber, so, you know, I think I’m a little better looking than he is, but I’m a lot less rich, so. Well, we’re going to have a great day to day.

Irina Slav [00:01:00] And you haven’t died hard three times before.

David Blackmon [00:01:05] think it was seven of those movies. Five five

Tammy Nemeth [00:01:09] Five.

Irina Slav [00:01:10] My gosh

Stuart Turley [00:01:11] I love his lines, though. Irina. He’s got great lines. Water’s wet. Wind blows. You know.

Tammy Nemeth [00:01:19] That was the development. That was a sci fi movie.

Stuart Turley [00:01:23] I loved that one.

Irina Slav [00:01:25] A good one. Yeah, they had flying cars, but they didn’t have wind turbines. And so they. We’re talking about wind. Wind blows, but does it blow all the time? And I would like to begin by sharing my screen. Let me see if it will work this time. This. As you can you add it to the screen. Ringo Thank you. So that’s a screenshot from electricity maps. It’s a screenshot. A couple of days to go in the afternoon. Would you care to discuss this screenshot? Especially after reports, drought reports that last year 20% of the UK’s power came from wind. Good. Like to said to me.

Stuart Turley [00:02:18] Well, when you consider that the nameplate power for Great Britain is one thing, it’s another when you have to multiply that by three and then add power stations to it in order to maintain the wind. So just because you have a nameplate on a wind turbine does not mean that

Irina Slav [00:02:47] Yeah. Okay.

Tammy Nemeth [00:02:49] So yeah, I mean.

Stuart Turley [00:02:50] I didn’t the UK Prime Minister just say that he was going to have a I and nuclear and yet he can’t get it going. What was that all about too?

Tammy Nemeth [00:03:02] Right. So this is the conundrum for the energy transition where it’s basically you have two grids. Because you always have to have enough to back up when it’s when it’s not working. And even the battery installations, the few that they have, it lasts like a couple minutes. Right. So you end up having to do this massive overbuild to produce the same amount of electricity that you would have had if you hadn’t built the all the renewable, though. Okay. I should correct that. They have the hydro. But they would they would not have to build out all the wind and solar that they’re doing that is so unreliable. And, you know, they have these ideas that they’ll bring in these flywheels or they’ll do. And, you know, that’s a 19th century technology. So once again, it’s regressing back to how things were during the Victorian period. But at least the Victorians could build stuff and get things done. You can’t even say that now. This nuclear power plant at Hinkley points been in construction for almost, you know, 15 years or close to 20. I don’t know. It’s a really long time. And part of the problem is you get lawfare in there. So every step of the way, there’s some kind of court case, There’s badgers, there’s, you know, you might contaminate fish if you’re pulling water in or you’re going to kill fish. And so therefore, now they have to make some wetlands to compensate. I mean, it’s ridiculous. So how can you know? I think the solution that the UK government is turning to, like so many others in Europe, is interconnectors. Well, as we’ve seen, interconnectors aren’t necessarily safe. So they talk about energy security. But there’s been cases over the past month or so where, you know, data interconnectors have been disrupted or broken in, you know, up by the North Sea and in the Baltic region or whatever. So, I mean, how safe is that? If you want to take somebody out, you just stop their interconnector. So unfortunately, you look at this chart and you and you see that gas was super. That’s what was keeping the lights on.

Irina Slav [00:05:17] Exactly.

Tammy Nemeth [00:05:17] And by 2030, supposed to have gas. And I’ll talk about it. But I’ll let David and Irina.

Irina Slav [00:05:28] David.

David Blackmon [00:05:29] Yeah. To me, the big scandal on this chart is the fact that you have so much solar installed on an island where the sun doesn’t shine about two thirds of the time. Meanwhile, you do talk about a missed misallocation of capital resources. There it is. And then you’ve got wind with an installed capacity that’s about eight times the size of what it’s actually generating, which is probably pretty typical for for Great Britain. And as Tammy noted, I mean, what you have here is a situation just like we have in Texas, California and all over the United States, which is you have you are building and maintaining and paying for two separate power grids. You have the renewable power grid that everybody likes the virtue signal about that doesn’t really do much. And then you have the power grid that keeps the lights on. That’s, you know, in in in in Great Britain, it’s mainly natural gas with some nuclear virtually no coal anymore. And then my other comment on this is that remarkable last bit of data called unknown in which you have installed capacity of roughly five gigawatts. If it’s unknown, though, how do you know? How do you know?

Tammy Nemeth [00:06:43] That still odd

David Blackmon [00:06:44] What is that? I don’t even know what that is.

Stuart Turley [00:06:46] So those are aliens, Illegal aliens on treadmills David

Irina Slav [00:06:53] Maybe. That’s that’s a good question because, yeah, all countries have this unknown category.

David Blackmon [00:07:01] Yeah, but I don’t know what that is. I mean, we know Ercot in Texas doesn’t have an unknown category, so I don’t know what that is.

Tammy Nemeth [00:07:09] Maybe that’s learning the word pellets.

Irina Slav [00:07:12] No, that’s biomass. Right of the top

Tammy Nemeth [00:07:14] Okay.

David Blackmon [00:07:16] And I guess you you have to also classify biomass as part of the the real actual power generation grid that keeps the lights on. But as as Timmy notes, the goals of the Labor Party and previously the Tories in Great Britain is to have no natural gas by 2030. Is it? I think it’s 2030, right?

Tammy Nemeth [00:07:36] Yeah, 2030.

David Blackmon [00:07:37] So what are you going to do when you eliminate all the natural gas? How are you going to how are you going to live in Great Britain? It makes no sense. This

Irina Slav [00:07:46] Flywheels, flywheels.

Tammy Nemeth [00:07:47] Fly wheels.

Irina Slav [00:07:49] Somebody expends flywheels or battery storage, which has a question mark next to it on this. Jobs are going to do the job of gas. As gas was doing this job on the 10th of January is just preposterous to me. And by that, by the way, did you see the news reports that the Labor Party is starting to draw coal towards Ed Miliband? That’s all he was going to be kind of practical about energy and they were pleasantly surprised.

David Blackmon [00:08:25] shocking.

Tammy Nemeth [00:08:26] Shocking.

Irina Slav [00:08:27] Yeah, But do that line some some semblance of common sense remnants. Should I say? Could be.

Tammy Nemeth [00:08:37] But he’s an ideological. Kind of guy in this space. And so I don’t see how Cole would even. Come into his vocabulary.

David Blackmon [00:08:53] Well, isn’t he?

Tammy Nemeth [00:08:55] He gets him. In a stocking.

Stuart Turley [00:08:56] He can’t spell coal. Nice.

David Blackmon [00:09:01] He’s basically great. Britain’s equivalent to Mark Carney in Canada. Right. I mean, and John Kerry in the United States.

Tammy Nemeth [00:09:06] John Kerry, he’s like John Kerry.

Stuart Turley [00:09:09] Podesta.

Tammy Nemeth [00:09:11] Yeah. Podesta

Irina Slav [00:09:13] like money, I think.

David Blackmon [00:09:16] But don’t you have to say that it’s really no wonder, given that chart and all the misallocation of resources and capital investments that many that made that we almost had a blackout situation on the grid in in the UK, what was it, last Tuesday or Wednesday? Yeah. Yeah. You sent over that story. You know you can’t. And that’s going to just become more and more common, isn’t it? I don’t know how you avoid it. Even the wind blows sporadically in Great Britain. It’s not like building it out in West Texas where it blows most days pretty well. And then you’re spending all this money on solar on an island that’s in, you know, has pretty strong cloud cover most days. It’s just mind boggling that these institutional investors continue to allocate all this capital to these projects. When we see in real time the impacts of trying to structure a grid like this, it’s just wild.

Tammy Nemeth [00:10:26] Well, I mean, one of the things that they’re doing here in the U.K. is they’re taking up prime farmland and putting the solar arrays across the fields. Right. And, you know, there’s something to be said for the argument that maybe one of the reasons why the inheritance tax in the UK has been extended to farming, which before it was exempt, is to put these farms out of business because we’re coming up to a point where there are a succession for the farms. And you know, because farmers are older, clearly, and you know, if they want to leave it to their children or whatever, that they’ll now be hit with this ridiculous inheritance tax. Property values in the UK are so high that just a really small farm with some outbuildings is already double the limit for what the inheritance tax is. I think it’s something like if it’s over 1.5 million pounds, well, I mean land here is crazy and it doesn’t take much to go over that limit. And so, you know, these families will be stuck with several hundred thousand pounds. They have to pay in cash to the government when their parents die and want to bequeath it to their children, whereas before they could just, you know, they would take over the farm and and it would continue in the family. And so the farmers are arguing, why are you doing this? Why are you trying to there’s no way we can afford to make those payments. And so then some people are suggesting that this is intentional so that they can’t pay for it. And then institutional investors will come in and purchase the land either to put the solar panels across the the good farmland or to turn it into basically big, large farms that are rented out to people.

Stuart Turley [00:12:20] I think it’s. A combination of control so they can have institutional farmers there so they can control the food.

Stuart Turley [00:12:32] We control the food. We Control the population.

David Blackmon [00:12:33] The Bill Gates.

Stuart Turley [00:12:34] Why is the united.

Irina Slav [00:12:36] No. Please continue.

Stuart Turley [00:12:39] Why is the United States had 300 food processing plants self combust in the last several years? Why is China owning 300,000 acres of farmland now? It does not make sense.

Tammy Nemeth [00:12:57] Right. So, I mean, there’s with respect to China owning land, a lot of that is I hate to say it, probably money laundering. You know, so if they’re I know this is the case in Canada where they purchase land as a means to funnel money through and clean it, whatever. So that there’s that possibility. But you know, in the UK, if I can bring it back to what David and Stewart mentioned about the I and that was renounced today or yesterday or something, I was just quickly looking through what they’re proposing and it sounds like they’re going to put a guy in charge of policy and practice where he is that well, it was just like a I will come up with policy options and and make it more efficient to free up people to do other stuff. I’m like, what?

Irina Slav [00:13:49] These people are just not serious. This is

Tammy Nemeth [00:13:55] how could it be? But this is their plan. They’re going to start building it out at Culham, which isn’t far from where I live and which is also where the nuclear authorities are in the UK, if that’s any relevant. But what’s interesting is this when the potential came last week for the grid to fail, they do have demand control measures, which means they start cutting people off and there’s a prioritization of who gets cut off. So once you have air on the grid and then maybe they’re going to have independent power generation like they’re talking about in America and in Canada and whatnot. But I doubt it. You never know with the UK, but okay, so let’s say they don’t and let’s say he’s on the grid. They’re going to have priority because they’re managing stuff right there. They’re more important than your grandma who is going to be freezing because she has no power, because they forced her to take out her her gas heater. Right. So you then you get this. How is that prioritization going to work if they’re going to build out all this air like they’re talking about? And apparently they’re investing at least 12 billion pounds? I don’t know. It was a really large number. At the same time, they’re saying they don’t have enough money, They have to raise taxes and they have to cut off benefits to old people to keep warm. So that’s the priorities of the Labor Government, not people

Irina Slav [00:15:22] As well They generate a lot of money to make even a fraction of what they’re planning work and it will still not work. But regarding food, based on Clarkson’s farm and the Government is already dictating what farmers should grow if they want to get some grants. So there is already of a fair, fairly serious level of control of the food chain. What gets me, you know, what I don’t really understand is when these institutional investors take over the farms, because this sounds like a quite likely prospect and they put these solar panels or even onshore winds on these farm land and it does not perform at peak capabilities. The only way they can reasonably expect to make money from these projects is with subsidies.

Stuart Turley [00:16:27] Tammy, the astonishing 380 million for not generating electricity marking historic high last year, 101.86 billion paid to a Scottish wind farm.

Irina Slav [00:16:44] That’s why my advice today. Yes.

Stuart Turley [00:16:47] For not unbelievable for not producing energy

Irina Slav [00:16:56] They get paid for not producing energy.

Stuart Turley [00:16:59] Wow.

Irina Slav [00:17:02] To. To continue operating these turbines even if they cannot produce electricity because there is no demand. They built on a chronic, you know, on a chronic basis. Right. It’s not dissimilar to what’s happening to two coal and gas power plants because they have to be paid to to continue existing.

David Blackmon [00:17:31] Right.

Irina Slav [00:17:32] For such a time when demand calls for reliable power. But in this case, we have waste of already generated electricity from the wind farm

Tammy Nemeth [00:17:45] curtailments. Right.

Irina Slav [00:17:46] Curtailments. . Yeah. That being getting paid for this. Which, as we remember last year, led to manipulation of the data. Remember when a few wind farm operators got paid their sums because they estimated that they could sales a lot more than they actually could? Sales?

David Blackmon [00:18:10] Yeah. Yeah. That’s the environment.

Tammy Nemeth [00:18:14] Yeah. So, you know honestly with this kind of goes back to is what Meredith and Gwen had talked about in her book Shorting the Grid, where it’s when they changed how these prices and would buy by changing how they develop the pricing system affects what ends up on the grid and the instability of the grid. You know, there was a time and I hate to be one of these, I’m going looking back in the past, but there was a time when you had long term contracts so that you had a steady rate. You knew what you had to afford in order to keep the lights on and make sure things were operating efficiently and effectively. And you could do the maintenance because you had a steady idea of what the price was. And to, you know, as much as I’m a market based person, I think market based electricity. I don’t think that always works. And I think of, you know, the UK model is is a disaster. The EU model doesn’t really work. What goes on in Texas and whatnot, I’m not really sure that’s the most effective, but please tell me if I’m wrong.

David Blackmon [00:19:30] No, I mean, our models are very little different in Texas than than the California model. It’s all based on Enrons model that led to the greatest energy fraud in in American history. That’s how California and Texas both structured their power grids. And it’s awful. And it’s it’s our our utility rates. The same time they imposed a 15% target for renewable energy focused on wind. This was in 2000, 2001. And and so since that time, our utility rates have skyrocketed. We began to suffer blackouts and brownouts and rolling blackouts that are managed just like California does. We have all the capacity in the world that we need that it’s completely mismanaged by Ercot and our regulators, and it’s all Republicans doing. And that’s the grand irony of this. We blame the Democrats for California, which is an even bigger fiasco, much bigger fiasco in Texas. But Texas is fortunate because at least our Republican government here hasn’t chosen to start shutting down natural gas power plants needlessly like they have in California, and stupidly. And our our nuclear facilities. And so but our model is essentially the same the way the market works. So it’s it’s really bad. It’s terrible. And we never had blackout issues. We never had power shortages used in Texas at all before. The legislature decided to adopt that model in the 2001 session.

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:06] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:21:07] David What scares me, though, is the demand in Texas in Ercot is expected to double in the next five years. Well, they took a hundred years for the grid.

David Blackmon [00:21:19] Massive overstatement. That’s it’s going to be more like 20 or 30%.

Stuart Turley [00:21:23] Yeah, that’s still when let’s take 20% increasing 20% demand on the Texas Ercot will not happen very conveniently without large investments in natural gas pipeline. I mean, in natural gas power plants. Yeah. Coal will not get approved. So it’s going to get ugly. And I believe the UK is just going to be just as bad.

David Blackmon [00:21:54] Yeah, I mean, we’re in a lot better shape than most places in Texas. That’s the grand irony of it, is with our horrible market model. We’re in a lot better shape because our legislature is at least been wise enough not to disadvantage gas.

Irina Slav [00:22:07] And it’s not made up of Californians.

David Blackmon [00:22:10] Right? Right. Yes. But anyway, you know, our our power grid problems in the United States are a bipartisan issue. You know, I spent a lot of time slamming Democrats because that’s who runs California, the northeastern grid up in New England, which is far worse than Texas. And but in reality, Republicans in Texas have completely mismanaged our grid. Eventually, they’re going to pay a huge political price for that. We’re going to have another huge cold snap this coming weekend in which temperatures are going to stay well below freezing for 3 or 4 days. And and it’s going to put a strain on our grid and we’ll see how we do. But if we should have blackouts again like we did in 2021, then, you know, people here in this state are going to start getting fed up. The state’s been run by Republicans exclusively for 30 years now. And if we continue to have these hiccups on the grid in which people get killed, 300 people died in 2021 during that massive winter storm, you know, eventually there’s going to be a big price to pay and we’ll go you know, we’ll do even worse because we’ll start electing Democrats and then things will get really, really bad. So I’m just I criticize the Republicans just out of a sense of self-defense and praying that they start getting these things right, which I think everyone in and in the UK needs to start doing do, obviously.

Irina Slav [00:23:39] But are they prepared? I mean, the forecast said there will be frigid weather during the weekend. And I think we had to handle it. Yes. Risk.

David Blackmon [00:23:52] Right. Because they did learn some lessons out of the 2021 theory. And they did go about forcing plants to weatherize, you know, winterize themselves and pipelines and compressor stations. And so since then, when we’ve had big freezes the last three years, you know, that natural gas system hasn’t failed at all. Wind and solar still drop off because they’re useless when the weather’s bad and everybody knows that. And so you have to plan for that. And the failure in theory was not reinforcing the natural gas power grid to kick in in a big time way and not freeze up when wind and solar fail, which, you know they’re going to do. And so since then, we have fortified the grid and built a lot more solar capacity. So if it’s not snowing in the sunshine, we’re going to get some some kick in from solar. But the you know, the wind turbines are going to freeze up in west Texas like they always do. And you just have to plan for that. Unfortunately, part of planning for that is building a dual grid, a double grid and all the capital cost that ratepayers have to pay to pay for that. And so my electric bill since 2020 has doubled at my home because of that. And it’s bad planning on the part of Republicans in the legislature and the governors from from Bush through this current governor. And, you know, it’s all Republicans. So when things fail, they’re going to get the blame and they should.

Irina Slav [00:25:28] Hold them accountable. There was one comment at the beginning. Somebody asks, how are people putting up with this in the UK population? Ignorance? Well, I’d say yes. People don’t know how the grid works. We’ve talked about this before.

Tammy Nemeth [00:25:47] You could go if you the the last comment there by Patrick where he says the UK is more concerned about freezing out pensioners and arresting people for criticizing violent street behavior than for providing reliable energy.

Irina Slav [00:26:02] Does the government do the regular people? How regular people? Why are they putting up with this?

Tammy Nemeth [00:26:08] Well, it’s like you say, Irina. I think a lot of people don’t understand the grid. They there are some people who who firmly believe that renewable is the way to go and that these are just sacrifices that have to be made. And, you know, that’s that’s a sad testament. But it’s also sort of the the British mentality is not to, you know, to keep calm and carry on. You know, is their motto kind of thing. They remember that from the war. And it was it’s kind of been instilled in the in the people but.

Irina Slav [00:26:43] You know keep cold and try to carry on.

Tammy Nemeth [00:26:47] Right. But, you know, when I talk to some of the old people, it’s like, well, I’m not going to complain. I’m just going to put another sweater on. You know, why don’t people just wear more sweaters? And I’m like, Well, you shouldn’t have to. This is a modern, you know, because your house is 12°C inside. I mean, really? So, yeah, I don’t know. There’s this tension, I think, between people who think they’re complaining and being ungrateful if they if they push back on this and other people say, this is crazy. And unfortunately, the people who say this is crazy aren’t getting the same kind of influence as the others do. And it goes back to the unit party. Right. The conservatives took them down this road. They never got rid of the climate change committee. When they formed government under David Cameron, they kept it. They kept all of this garbage. They they pursued net zero quicker. Everyone thought Boris Johnson was going to be helpful, you know, he was pro-Brexit and all that kind of thing. And then he doubled down with the Glasgow Climate conference and no, we’re going to go faster and all that kind of stuff.

Irina Slav [00:27:56] But what about these people who use it? Some people think that it would seem ungrateful if they’re complete. Ungrateful to whom? To the people who you keep in their jobs by paying your taxes.

Tammy Nemeth [00:28:10] I know. I don’t understand it. Irina.

Irina Slav [00:28:16] But what I find puzzling is the fact that these people, these green transition pushes promised lower electricity bills and instead they are skyrocketing. Okay. Believe whatever you want, believing sacrifices that need to be made. But how how do they square this circle?

David Blackmon [00:28:42] Right.

Tammy Nemeth [00:28:44] Right. I mean, so. No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Stuart Turley [00:28:48] Was this the article you were talking about? You put in the chart, I believe.

Tammy Nemeth [00:28:51] Right. So this is the new AI plan and it’s 14 billion originally like what the government’s going to put in. And then they’re saying that industry will put in another 25 billion. And if you scroll down on that one, he talks about how they’re going to have an and AI AI I growth zones and then an AI Energy Council and the AI Energy Council will be formed, you know, some point in the in this spring where they’re going to talk about expert insight into the energy needs. Well I don’t think you need to be a super expert to understand. They need a lot of energy and it needs to be reliable. It can’t be. G The winds are blowing today. I got to wait for my interconnection. You’re going to need something dedicated. So now they’re talking smores. Well, they’ve been talking simmers forever. And how long does that take to build? All right. Maybe at the column center, they maybe they’ve got an experimental one that maybe they can tap into. But there’s a lot of maybes there. And then with the air growth zones they’re talking about, well, because we’re going to designate them a growth zone and that this is super important for for the national future, we’re going to run roughshod over the planning process. So it’s going to be expedited planning to to develop whatever energy is required for the AI.. But because UK is also signing on to and implementing the sustainability standards, if AI company needs to use natural gas, which is reliable, they’re going to have to offset in some way with renewable. In order to get their emissions down. So what does that mean? Are they then going to say, well, we’re going to have a nice natural gas power plant or an SMR whenever it’s ready and in the. So we’re going to offset that by building up wind and solar on some fields somewhere.

Irina Slav [00:30:59] I you guys winning the battle with Germany over who is more idiotic?

David Blackmon [00:31:05] Who’s going to collapse first?

Irina Slav [00:31:07] What what what you just said. Tammy about this plan. Definitely puts them in the lead. Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:31:15] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:31:16] Yeah. Patrick brings up a great point, Tammy. They will make sure the air load centers have ample, reliable energy and even make a priority of their over other loads. This is going to bring up a whole new business model that is already happening and that is microgrids. Microgrids are going to happen for those businesses that can afford it. Those costs are going to be associated and then put onto goods and services. And you’re going to see self preserving microgrids come into play. And those that cannot afford it are not going to have power anyway. Sorry.

Tammy Nemeth [00:31:57] Yeah. Patrick, that’s that’s what I said earlier about prioritization on the grid. So if they don’t have their own bespoke energy production, like let’s say they build their own little micro natural gas generator in order to keep the, the air data center going. And in, in the document, they’re talking about starting out at 250MW. And then they’ll need to expand to 500MW and that’s at one site. So and then it’s like, okay, so what size of power plant do you need for that for reliable energy? Well, it’s going to need to be natural gas or it’s going to be in some are the small ones are around 300MW, I guess. But I mean, none of them are operational in Europe yet. And in UK there are processes take forever. So when do they plan on having that? And they want to say, I like tomorrow. So I don’t know.

Irina Slav [00:32:51] Yes. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:32:52] And the other big overriding thing that we all have to think about is there’s only so much so big a pool of capital available for power generation needs. Right. I mean, there’s a limit to how much investors are going to be willing to put into power generation capacity. And so when you have big businesses who can afford to contract for their own nuclear power or their own natural gas power plants that are dedicated to their business operations, that is inevitably going to create a situation in which the public power grid struggles to maintain adequate capacity in the future. And it’s going to be a real tension in the system because there’s there’s just a limited pool of capital that’s going to go into these power projects. And so policymakers are going to really have to struggle with this in the U.K. and everywhere else, because in order to prevent the public power grid from from just running out of capacity to meet their customer needs.

Stuart Turley [00:33:58] We we’ve all kind of alluded to something that is really kind of been I’ve been talking to George McMillan for several weeks now, and I’ve got about 30, 40 hours worth of interviews that he’s done.

David Blackmon [00:34:11] That guy is brilliant.

Stuart Turley [00:34:13] He is brilliant. And what we’re seeing. Thank you, David, that I have to have great guests on my show because they’re a lot smarter.

Stuart Turley [00:34:25] Better looking than he is. But he’s brilliant. And here’s the thing. Germany is failing. Germany is de industrializing. Germany went down the wind and solar. And then what is the German word for wind stopping.

Stuart Turley [00:34:45] Bless you, whatever that was. And so that has stopped. And now we have total deindustrialization going on in Germany. Germany, the new German chancellor Scholz, who I joke all the time, I see nothing because his ancestor used to be on a TV show and he is now being voted out. And then when you have his new replacement coming in, she’s already calling for the Nord Stream two pipeline to be activated. It’s out. We’re out. Were you laughing about a a rumors from Islamic country president saying that a U.S. company will be buying a the Nord Stream pipeline remains and then firing it up because they’re trying to get all this going. If you don’t have if Germany does not get low cost Russian natural gas, it will have a regime change period. You’re going to see people change and get upset over low cost energy. I think 2025 is going to be a very big year for people to wake up and realize that the green new scam, the Green New Deal, is a scam. Net zero is a scam. And as a will transfer. Did I just get us all canceled? I’m sorry.

Tammy Nemeth [00:36:15] thank you. You mentioned for Europe. That’s not going to happen if Thierry Breton gets his way, right? Because

Irina Slav [00:36:21] he’s not in the EU anymore.

Tammy Nemeth [00:36:24] But, you know, I think. Right . But I think there’s still that attitude, the fact that he. You know

Irina Slav [00:36:32] Yeah,.

Tammy Nemeth [00:36:32] About Romania

Irina Slav [00:36:33] Way too obvious. We they can pull it off twice in Romanian.

Tammy Nemeth [00:36:39] But they’re going to do it to Germany if they don’t get the outcome they want.

Irina Slav [00:36:42] Well, they didn’t they didn’t succeed in Georgia either. And I take this as a good sign. If they try to do something like this in Germany. Eyes will start thinking.

David Blackmon [00:36:54] If they’re going to have to think There’s a different president in the United States, too.

Irina Slav [00:36:59] It will really, really stink and it will be really obvious, although apparently they don’t have a problem with being obvious. Yeah. These people because

David Blackmon [00:37:09] if the EU continues to cancel elections fraudulently like they did in Romania, the Trump administration is going to aggressively react to that and by aggressively react to it. I mean, you’re going to start losing funding for things like Naito and all these other EU priority items until that stops.

Irina Slav [00:37:31] But, David, isn’t that meddling?

David Blackmon [00:37:34] Yes.

Stuart Turley [00:37:35] And I, I personally

Irina Slav [00:37:37] Guy’s doing it, so that’s okay, right?

David Blackmon [00:37:40] Yes.

Irina Slav [00:37:42] I love this world. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:37:43] I would personally like to see the United States out of NATO. Totally. I would like to see the United States out of the EU in totally and then renegotiate our way back in so that we could come back in with new operating first. Throw the U.N. out because they’re the number one source of problems for trafficking humans around the world. Throw them out.

Irina Slav [00:38:12] So renegotiate everything.

Stuart Turley [00:38:16] It’s got to get entertaining, folks.

Irina Slav [00:38:19] These organizations have basically outlived their.

Tammy Nemeth [00:38:24] I agree.

Stuart Turley [00:38:26] Gail brings up a great point. Remember our AI centers? We love Doomberg. I’ve had three conversations or conversations with them, and David is a great one, getting us hooked up with him. So argues it A.I. data centers will be operating independently with natural gas. And Michael McCaffrey. Now we’re reverting all back to coal in Germany. Yes, coal is king and coal mines are going and it can be done cleaner than in the past. I.

Irina Slav [00:39:03] No, you didn’t. You didn’t just say that.

Stuart Turley [00:39:05] No, I did not put that up there. Sorry, Patrick.

Tammy Nemeth [00:39:10] So I would argue I agree with Doomberg that in North America, that’s what will happen, is the AI centers will have their own separate jet power generation, just like a lot of institutions used to have like a power plant attached to them to ensure reliable electricity. But what concerns me in the UK with the sustainability standards is that if they do that, they have to offset. Now how are they going to offset? Does that mean then that they build up the wind and solar for the country in which they’re operating? Does it mean that they’re buying carbon credits elsewhere in order to make up for for what it is that that because they’re technically polluting or whatever they want to call emissions these days? So if for for the UK and Europe, I think the situation might be a little bit different than than what will transpire in North America. But when David, when you made the point about investment money, one of the most disturbing changes that they want to introduce in the UK is that the the the different counties in the UK have pension plans and each pension plan does their own thing. Now the UK government wants them to pool all the pension plans so that they can make investments in things like energy infrastructure, like air data centers. So they’re going to take the public pensions, put them into these, you know, somewhat questionable investments because they have no other money. And then when it fails, what’s going to happen? Right. People are going to lose their pensions. And it’s like in Canada. The finance minister before she resigned, changed some of the the the the limits of the Canada pension plan before the Canada pension plan investment fund could only or own a 30% controlling interest of a company. And she removed that limit. Why? So that they could make these these more risky investments and have, you know, almost full control over a company in order to assert whatever priorities they have with respect to the transition. So I think people need to be worried about where their pension money is going.

Irina Slav [00:41:30] Yeah. Well.

David Blackmon [00:41:31] Thank. So the Labor Party is a bunch of communists and that’s exactly what you should expect Communists to do is centralize and pool everything like that so the government can manipulate it. And so it just goes back to the overriding point that many people have pointed out about the whole green energy scam is that green the energy transition is just a plot to advance socialism globally. I mean, it just is. And transfer wealth to the elite classes from the poorer classes, which is exactly what’s happening. And everything they do is designed to to create that end goal. And, you know, it’s going to slow down in the United States to some extent over the next four years. But unfortunately, it’s speeding up. We see it accelerating in England. We see it celebrating in Germany even at the cost of collapsing the economies. And it’s just it’s just wow, It’s just so insane. So,

Stuart Turley [00:42:32] You Know, for any of the for any of the EU folks that are or excuse me, the UK folks that are watching this podcast and want to go after David Blackmon, remember that he is from Texas.

David Blackmon [00:42:47] I mean, Substack. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:42:48] You can find him on Substack. But we know a lot of people in Texas and come on. We’ll, we’ll.

Irina Slav [00:43:00] Just make one one direction if they.

Stuart Turley [00:43:02] Want to show up, please.

Irina Slav [00:43:04] So, Yeah, because we’re 43 minutes in and we have headlines to address. I just wanted to note that, David, you talk about socialism, but socialism is built on the premise that everyone is equal. And we have been talking about being equally poor. But this will not be the case. People, because those power generators like that. Something. Something. Energy in the UK. They are making good money from unreliable energy, supplying unreliable and they will not be able to the rest of us. So socialism remains elusive. But totalitarianism, on the other hand, has been tried. It works for a certain period of time and then it fails. But nobody cares about that because there’s money to be made. Yes, please go on.

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:06] So Patrick has a great comment here. He Patrick Devine, says the Social Security fund in the U.S. is funded by a separate payroll tax. It’s not part of the federal budget. But the U.S. government has tapped the fund. And they always threaten to delay Social Security payments whenever an annual budget is not approved.

David Blackmon [00:44:27] All right. Screw, Screw the old folks first. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:44:31] And Social Security has been robbed by the Democrats to even fund President Trump’s first impeachment. So it is a piggy bank that has been robbed by the rhinos and Republicans and Democrats. It’s disgusting. Anyway, here is Tammy’s news stories.

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:54] Okay, so the first one in the Unherd is about the near-miss blackout last week. And Katherine Porter, who is an expert on on all things kind of UK grid. She’s got a great blog called What Logic. And she had tweeted out and written a blog post about this near miss and then the the National Electric System operator, or Nisa, which is now under control of the government, came out and said she was wrong. But when they were pressed to say, well, what part is she wrong, they they couldn’t actually explain why she was wrong. They just said she’s wrong. And it’s a really great article. If you want a better understanding of of how they came to almost having to use demand control, which is cutting off people, some of the demand control measures the UK has instituted is that they will ask you to curtail you as an individual in your household to curtail your electricity use, and then they’ll pay you money to do so. But it’s like pennies per kilowatt hour or something, so it’s really not worth it for a lot of people who tried to like me. Actually, no, I didn’t like being so cold. I didn’t like not having to do my wash. So, no, I’m not going to do that again. And then the second article is unrelated to the wind energy in a way, but it’s this fantastic article in the Sea to Sea Journal, written by a former litigator about how the Canadian Supreme Court screwed up when they when they gave a decision about whether or not the Canada’s carbon tax was constitutional. Now, it was a reference case, which means it was just supposed to be referring to that question of whether or not it was constitutional. But in explaining how they arrived at their idea in this really kind of circuitous way, they made a statement that the climate change crisis was an existential threat. And so this article explains how this court case is being used wrongly as a precedent for other court cases in Canada regarding climate change and how it’s really being exploited by various activist groups in order to get courts to rule on any kind of things that aren’t in alignment with whatever the energy transition the Liberal NDP government wants. So for Canadians out there and even Americans who want to understand how court cases can be exploited and manipulated, this is a really great article.

David Blackmon [00:47:42] Cool

Stuart Turley [00:47:46] And your substack is.

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:50] The Nemeth report dot substack.com. And I’ll have another article this week.

Stuart Turley [00:47:56] All right. Mr. Blackmon

David Blackmon [00:48:02] well, okay. So I’m going to go to the second one first. The collapse of the UN Net Zero Alliance last week. BlackRock and State Street as leaked information indicating they’re about to pull out of the UN net zero alliance. We’re pretty much every major American bank has pulled out of this thing over the last month. It’s completely collapsing. It’s a group of it was set up by the United Nations to serve as a forum for banks and investment houses like BlackRock to boast about their green energy virtue signaling. And it’s all collapsing because everyone understands that zero is not attainable. And the whole ESG philosophy has become a curse word, especially in the United States. And so nobody wants to talk about it anymore, which that’s all great news for everyone concerned and hopefully will have a result of a more rational distribution of capital for energy projects. Trump promises to un-Ban Biden’s huge Offshore drilling Ban. That’s a piece I wrote for The Daily Caller. That one is, you know, Biden set aside all the Atlantic coast, all the Pacific Coast, the big part of the Bering Sea on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, off limits to future leasing and drilling, using the provisions of the Offshore Land Leasing Act of 1953. Trump immediately promised to unveil it. I’m not sure how he’s going to do that because the provisions in the ACA sell or little difficult to see how he’s going to just do that with an executive order. Frankly, I think it’s going to take an act of Congress to unbanned those areas. So we’ll see how all that goes. But it’s it’s going to be a real controversy early in the early days of the Trump administration.

Stuart Turley [00:50:06] And your substack.

David Blackmon [00:50:07] Well, yes, I’m at energy transition absurdity. So you just go to David Blackmon or blackmon.substack.com and you’re going to land right there on that landing page. Love to see it. Whoops. I’m done.

Stuart Turley [00:50:22] And then Irina has two slides here. Discarded wind energy. I’m not sure where that came from.

Irina Slav [00:50:30] So my my second link, the one we mentioned and Tammy mentioned in the comments that wind turbine operators were paid more when they were not sending an actually sent was a great then they were when they were sending electricity into the great big is curtailment. Increased by 91% last year because there is no way to expand the grid, the transmission network. So to make it possible to incorporate all these newly generated electricity from new wind turbines and take it to consumer. And I think this is complete insanity because you’re paying these companies to waste the energy that they’re producing because you can’t take it to consumers, but you can’t let them go bankrupt because there will be no one to generate electricity to turn on the turbines when there is wind.

Stuart Turley [00:51:39] Wow.

Tammy Nemeth [00:51:40] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:51:42] Completely. Horrible.

Stuart Turley [00:51:44] Wow.

Tammy Nemeth [00:51:46] I’m missing out some batteries.

Irina Slav [00:51:48] More of these before they expand transmission lines. They keep putting the cart in front of the horse and they see nothing wrong with it. It’s not just the UK.

David Blackmon [00:52:02] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:52:03] There we go. Sorry. Sorry about that.

Irina Slav [00:52:06] Yes. And in more horrible news, the EU’s 2024 new wind capacity was less than half than was needed for climate goals. Now the real tragedy. We didn’t build enough wind.

Stuart Turley [00:52:22] The slackers in the EU

Irina Slav [00:52:25] And of course, it’s permitting.

Tammy Nemeth [00:52:29] That’s what the old labels.

Irina Slav [00:52:30] That the government is doing everything in its power to throw money at windfarm developers, wind turbine developers, and those people are still not happy.

Tammy Nemeth [00:52:43] People don’t want it in their backyard, and I think they’re honestly running out of where to put them. I mean, when we did our trip in Germany over the summer. It was. Insane.

Irina Slav [00:52:53] So imagine that land is finite. Actually, there are limits to where you can stick a wind turbine. But I think that really all of these people, wind and solar developers, they really like to complain about permitting. Do they want to just be able to decide to stick a wind turbine right there?

Tammy Nemeth [00:53:16] Yes, because they know better.

Irina Slav [00:53:18] Without any any red tape at all. Because I think that’s what they want.

David Blackmon [00:53:23] Exactly. That’s exactly what.

Tammy Nemeth [00:53:26] Well, here in the UK, the AI will probably make that decision.

David Blackmon [00:53:32] Just ask.

Irina Slav [00:53:33] Who is that will need gas. So it’s really. And.

Stuart Turley [00:53:37] And who programs the AI?

Tammy Nemeth [00:53:40] Yeah. So the air will be like, I need reliable gas. So the rest of you, I’m going to tell you, we’re going to build wind turbines here, here and here. So preservation.

David Blackmon [00:53:51] Your work.

Stuart Turley [00:53:53] I love it.

Irina Slav [00:53:55] But it’s it’s sick.

Stuart Turley [00:53:57] Real quick, while we go through this, this is shorting the grid that was mentioned earlier by Tammy AB. I absolutely love the electric grandma. She is phenomenal. Go to her energy substack and it is phenomenal. As you can tell, i, I went through this like you wouldn’t believe. This is a phenomenal book. And if you’re a grid balancing authority, I’m going to have to check your alcohol content drinking because you guys earn your money trying to balance the grid. Holy smokes. Okay, back to this. Sorry about that. Trump is to issue a six month moratorium on offshore wind projects, and I got really tickled at some of his comments. He goes, They are the president elect whose inauguration is set for January 20th is stated. He’s calling the war wind turbines like dropping garbage in a field and the wind turbines themselves are rusting, rotting, closed and falling down. You got to love President Trump for entertainment value. And then when you sit back and take a look. Tougher U.S. sanctions by President Biden. Why did President Biden have all the sanctions on the Russian oil and do nothing to enforce them for Iran, Iraq? And you take a look at the imports for California as California’s burning down right now. California last year imported 73,000 barrel. I mean, I believe it was like it’s 2% or 3% of their oil came from sanctioned countries. Why is it that, said Parker see at its finest? And then what do the oil and gas exports mean to the Russian economy? I’ll tell you what, this is an amazing thing when you consider shipping company and I cannot pronounce this half okie, half Texan speaking Russian is not good.

Irina Slav [00:56:15] Which one.

Stuart Turley [00:56:17] Solve come fort.

Stuart Turley [00:56:21] Thank you. Shipping company, the biggest carrier of Russian oil, 183 vessels believed to be part of the shadow fleet. The shadow fleet is estimated to be around 800 vessels. And they just added 183 new vessels to foreign trading companies that are selling Russian oil and dozens of Russian energy ministry. Why did the Biden administration choose to do this now when they raided the SVR to sell to keep our gas down, they want to have higher.

Irina Slav [00:56:59] Sir. I know.

Stuart Turley [00:57:01] Go ahead.

Irina Slav [00:57:02] Because they don’t care about price at the pump anymore because they are going out of the White House and they want to, you know, stick it to Trump by making oil more expensive.

David Blackmon [00:57:16] Exactly.

Stuart Turley [00:57:20] I knew. And Irina? I do. I loved you. You are absolutely brilliant. And I continue to steal this. Now, one of the key things is as Putin, as George McMillan has been saying, and this is critical information, Putin has won. He has to do nothing. And if he does nothing, this is from him, not me. I’m too stupid to come up with this. If President Trump is now in a really bad situation to try to end the war, President Putin is now moving all of his natural gas to Asia. And if he does that, he is going to continue. He has increased. I believe it’s now 37% of his GDP is energy exports. And you take a look at the agricultural exports. The world needs Russian food very badly so.

Irina Slav [00:58:18] at least.

Tammy Nemeth [00:58:19] Yes.

Stuart Turley [00:58:20] Do what now?

Irina Slav [00:58:22] Fertilizers. They’re much more than what the European producers are making.

Stuart Turley [00:58:28] I’ll tell you what. If we don’t realize that natural gas is going to be the way that 2025, we’re going to watch. Bookmark this podcast. 2025 is going to be the year of the natural gas power plants. Take a look at Vietnam. They just had their LNG two power plant come online. Those are going to be very critical coming along in the in the near future. This is my substack, the Energy news beat substack. Had a great interview with this good looking gentleman, David Blackmon. And he is very, very sharp and I do appreciate it. But I do have something for we got one minute and this is something. Can your cats do this? I, I feel like a worthless should checks out and all of a sudden, the dog. Started doing all this Okay. I’m a. Worthless. Pet. Look at this.

Tammy Nemeth [00:59:37] Wow.

David Blackmon [00:59:40] Why is that for real? Me? Is that dog really doing that? Come on.

Tammy Nemeth [00:59:51] No way.

Stuart Turley [00:59:53] Watch this. Okay. I got a mini Austrian shepherd who trains her. She trained me, man.

Tammy Nemeth [01:00:03] Wow.

Tammy Nemeth [01:00:08] It must have taken a long time to train.

Irina Slav [01:00:10] Yeah, because what it was, was.

Stuart Turley [01:00:14] Look at that.

Irina Slav [01:00:20] Poor thing

Tammy Nemeth [01:00:23] Roomba and help.

Stuart Turley [01:00:27] Okay, Now so we can put on the room and.

Irina Slav [01:00:31] Not stoop so low as to do.

David Blackmon [01:00:34] Look at whatever do any of that.

Stuart Turley [01:00:37] Well, we have an absolutely wonderful group of comments. Real quick, are the bans in the U.S., oxy, water, deep water still open game because it’s international waters? Correct? I witnessed Chevron USA Exodus from Ventura, California offshore back in the 1990s, but there still remains so much recoverable oil reserves. David, you want to go there?

David Blackmon [01:01:02] Well, U.S. waters extend 50 miles out. They started the three mile offshore to 50 miles of most states of Texas. You know, Texas is always different. We got 12 miles of state waters before the federal waters kick in. But yeah, further out than 50 miles is international water. But you still got to get the permits to put the pipelines in to the onshore right to move the gas onshore. So the federal government still has a lot of say so. Yes.

Stuart Turley [01:01:34] Laura brings up a great question. Any thoughts on Musk’s new role in the administration when it comes to energy? I’m going to take a first stab, and I think that you have Doug Burgum with the interior. You have Lee Zeldin with the Energy, the EPA. And then you have Chris Wright, who I am over here going. Chris, Chris is absolutely a wonderful human and is going to do great. You have those three amigos. They’re going to do great things. And then when musk with doge, if doge has teeth and I love the logo, a dog. If we can get that dog chewing on the budget, yes, he will have teeth because we can get them information to help reduce the debt. So I think that’ll, that’ll help.

Tammy Nemeth [01:02:27] Yeah. I don’t think Musk will interfere so much with respect to pursuing more renewable like wind and solar options and batteries. I mean, he might say in remote areas, the Tesla power banks could be helpful, but I don’t know if he’ll have that much influence. I think Trump kind of said he wants to keep Musk a bit separated away from those energy policy decisions.

David Blackmon [01:02:51] So, yeah.

Stuart Turley [01:02:52] But Trump does say Trump has said publicly solar is not bad and has a place. And so his first action is those those ugly wind farms.

David Blackmon [01:03:04] I mean, we all agree with that. It has a place.

Tammy Nemeth [01:03:08] It’s just not as.

David Blackmon [01:03:09] In even.

Tammy Nemeth [01:03:10] Not as the backbone of a grid.

David Blackmon [01:03:13] Right. Exactly. You just can’t beat your own grid

Stuart Turley [01:03:17] I think. Patrick, say you’ll have a great week. Everybody, this was a great show.

David Blackmon [01:03:22] Thank you.

Tammy Nemeth [01:03:25] Thanks Everyone. Thanks for all the comments. Bye.