Energy News Beat

Can Germany Revive Its Industry Without Cheap Energy?

March 2, 2025 Clark Savage

The post Week Recap: Germany’s Decline, Ukraine’s Mineral Deal, and Trump’s Energy Plan appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

n Energy News Beat – Conversation in Energy, Stuart Turley welcomes Wasif Latif, Co-Founder & CIO of Sarmaya Partners, for their third discussion on energy and finance. They explore the growing demand for natural gas driven by AI, the undervaluation of traditional energy sectors, and the role of commodities in investment portfolios. Wasif shares insights on Sarmaya’s thematic ETF (LENS), which focuses on energy, gold, uranium, and industrials. They also discuss geopolitical energy shifts, rising energy consumption, and the financial market’s delayed recognition of these trends. The conversation highlights how undervalued assets present long-term investment opportunities.

Thank you, Wasif, for stopping by the podcast! I had an absolute blast and appreciate your financial leadership.

Please connect with Wasif on his LinkedIn HERE:https://www.linkedin.com/in/wasiflatif/

Check out Sarmaya Partners HERE: https://sarmayapartners.com/

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Intro

01:20 – The Trump Effect & Energy Investment Landscape

02:43 – AI’s Growing Demand for Natural Gas

03:42 – What Makes Sarmaya Partners Different?

07:35 – The Case for Commodities & Energy Investing

08:49 – Global Energy Consumption is Still Rising

10:43 – Bill Gates & BlackRock’s Shift on Natural Gas

13:10 – LNG’s Potential for Global Energy Security

14:50 – The Future of Energy Markets & Infrastructure

17:24 – Turley’s Law: More Renewables = More Fossil Fuels

20:07 – Sarmaya’s Thematic ETF (LENS)

22:26 – Key Investments: Uranium, Copper & Industrial Growth

23:36 – The Energy-Driven Commodity Supercycle

25:32 – The Market’s Mispricing of Energy Assets

27:44 – Closing Thoughts & How to Connect

Full Transcript:

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:00:07] Hello everybody, welcome to the Energy Newsbeat Podcast, my name is Stu Turley, President CEO of the Sandstone Group. We are living in a crazy kind of fun time right now, and today we are going to be talking about energy and finance. So not only energy and finance is changing, we’re talking, I like understanding what is going on in the world. And today we have Wasif Latif. He is the head guy over there at Samaria Partners, and I’ll tell you what, this is our third podcast and I cannot wait to get an update from you. Welcome, Wasif, how are you today?

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:00:46] You’re doing great. Thanks, Stu. Pleasure to be with you again. Great always to catch up.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:00:51] I’m going to be quite honest, as a selfish podcast host, having a great guest come back again is A, rewarding, but B, the first podcasts were phenomenal and I got great feedback on your industry, and I’m really looking forward to getting an update on what you think after we have the Trump effect going on, what is going on in the energy and investment space right now.

Speaker 3 [00:01:20] It’s a lot of excitement for sure. It’s a combination of a new source of demand coming in from the technology space with the AI boom and within the span of six to 12 months, we’ve had a market that’s now in love with natural gas because of the beauty of what the cheap and abundant availability of natural gas can do for the enormous AI needs. which when you look at the commodity price, it actually even baked in. And what moved natural gas earlier was the colder than expected January that we’ve had across the country. But yeah, there’s a lot of opportunity there. And then secondarily, we think that the energy space, especially when it comes to traditional carbon energy, like oil and gas, there’s a case to be made that there’s a lot of opportunity there because it still continues to be by and large by the financial markets, and under loved, overlooked, and largely ignored. And yet these companies are fundamentally strong. Their valuations are attractive and they have a lot of opportunity in front of them, both from the price of the commodity standpoint, but also from the efficiencies that they’re ringing out of their businesses. So we’re very excited about that in the energy space. And then as you know, we also have a bigger exposure to gold in the portfolio as well.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:02:44] I’ll tell you, this is pretty exciting. And especially when you mentioned that I have talked about Wasif on our podcast several times, that regimes will change if people don’t have access to low cost energy and we’re seeing that play out in Europe and the United States has got such a great oil and gas and a solar wind. We’ve got it all here in the United States, coal. And boy, I am looking forward to getting Lee Zeldin on the EPA and getting some regulations cut to help cut energy costs. But if you wouldn’t mind, kind of lead us through what makes Samaria different. Because one of the first things that I noticed when we had our earlier podcast, your investment model is different. And I really appreciate that and if you don’t mind just covering that a little bit right now because people need to hear what makes you different

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:03:43] Well, thank you for the opportunity. So, you know, as we’ve talked about before, our firm Surmaya Partners is really all about trying to harness what we think is going to be the next big major themes that are coming up in the market and capitalizing on those and not only investing in them, but basically focusing on them and building concentrated portfolios, looking at them generally through equities and then writing that sort of theme up. What a lot of times what happens is you see a theme and it begins to do well and people are like okay that’s good, that’s enough, we’re going to take some profits. But history shows and I think we’ve shared a slide in the past, I’d love to share it with you again, which shows that you know actually once the theme starts running it runs for a long time and we think that the current one that’s focused on big tech is you know close to its maturity and might end at point and we think that the next big one is going to be around commodities, largely centered on traditional commodities like oil and gas, but also broadly speaking across different ones. So this chart is basically sort of a history of different themes, but our portfolio is squarely focused on this last one here on the bottom right, which is what we’re calling the return to tangibles of what we think is going to be a big driver of the markets in the future. And so one additional thing I’ll just touch on is the broader commodities mean a lot of things for a lot of people. It’s just general. So how do we bring it into something that’s more tangible and focusable in the portfolio? And so what we’ve done is we’ve broken our return to Big picture theme into smaller semi sub themes, if you will, and and they are focused on you know, the the concept of energy is life. We’ve heard that phrase many times. It is critical. And to your point earlier, abundant, cheap energy is the foundation and the epicenter of economic prosperity. And so we are big believers in that. And we think that the U .S. now is in a great spot to be able to capitalize on. on that, particularly when it comes to natural gas, given how we have a lot of it and it’s still on a relative basis compared to the rest of the world. It’s very, very cheap, which gives us a lot of arbitrage opportunities. But then there’s other energy sources as well like nuclear, for example. And then the other themes are around the fiscal challenges that we’re seeing, the high levels of debt across the world in the developed world in Western nations, and the geopolitical risks that we’re seeing elevated over the several years and what that means for the price of gold and how it’s doing well. Interestingly, we’re talking today towards the end of January, and gold is hitting an all -time high today because the dollar is sort of taking a break and a breather today. And then we have a broader swath of commodities in the portfolio. One more slide I’ll show before I’ll stop talking is, in the longer history, so this chart is going back to the 1970s, and it is showing the comparison of stocks to commodities. So as this line is rising, commodities are outperforming stocks through the lens of the S &P 500. And as this line is declining. stocks are outperforming commodities. And so we’re at a point where it’s touching the bottom, fishing right around the bottom of the barrel in terms of commodity relative pricing to stocks. So we think that the environment is ripe, the valuations are attractive, and we think the next several years are going to be very conducive for this type of an asset class and this type of an allocation to do well. So that’s what we’re allocating to portfolio.

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Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:07:36] It makes so much sense. I mean, everything that you’re addressing in your fund is refreshing. It just makes sense. Cause I look at the world from a total energy, global perspective, geopolitical. What to the market and everything else and you got you guys are nailing exactly what’s going on And i’m not just trying to be nice to you because you’re a guest on the podcast I’d tell you if I thought something else was kind of kind of odd. Thank you for that

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:08:06] Thank you for that. We think we are onto something and it really is born out of just looking at the world from a top -down perspective and thinking through what is because it’s all about where we think the hockey puck is going to go, not where it is today. It’s very important to have success in the investment world in your portfolios over the long term. You need to be able to get into stuff that hasn’t really moved yet and is thought of differently by the market. So there’s the potential for the market rethinking the importance and rethinking the value of what you’re buying. So it’s trying to get into like a neighborhood that’s up and coming or is going to be in five to seven years and you’re getting there sort of you know on the ground floor if you will. You need to be.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:08:56] I like that, getting to a neighborhood five to seven years early before the neighborhood goes to hay in a handbasket. I like that.

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:09:05] Yeah. Well, interestingly, it’s already moving in that direction. So for the past few months, it’s been, you know, beginning to move in that direction. So I think there’s some activity there where the market is beginning to recognize it. It’s certainly been there for gold for the better part of the last year. But when it comes to traditional energy, like oil and gas, we think there’s a lot of opportunity there as well.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:09:26] Without derailing our conversation for just a second, I noticed that in the last week, Bill Gates has even said at Davos, I thought this was absolutely hysterical, oh, we’re going to need natural gas power plants for the next five years because we can’t get enough nuclear power. And I’m sitting here kind of going, you know, I’ve been saying that for quite a while, Bill, and I know Bill Gates does not listen to my podcast because he would like what I have to say about him. But, you know, when you sit back and think about Bill Gates going out and saying that to the entire crowd, all of a sudden, Larry Fink with BlackRock also said the same thing. And I’m kind of like, wait a minute. If they’re now realizing that natural gas is OK and low cost energy for AI is required, it’s also required because if you take a look at high cost of energy, Germany is in the process of deindustrializing The UK is de -industriizing, New York is de -industriizing, California is de -industriizing. What thread do they have? High energy costs. Oh, so it’s kind of refreshing that the two big financial dogs of a world would be saying that. Maybe they’re looking at your slide deck.

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:10:41] Maybe you’re looking at your slide deck. Yeah. So you’re, you’re spot on Stu in, in the natural gas, sort of the world coming to it and saying, oh, wow, this is, this is really good. And I think it’s been sort of this step -by -step process where, number one, you saw over the last couple of years the challenges that have been there for renewables, solar and wind, have surfaced to a point where people are realizing it can’t withstand the heavy -duty industrial baseload that we need, number one. Number two, what else can we harness? Well, nuclear is fantastic. It’s clean. It is so, so efficient and abundant in terms of its strength that one nuclear power plant is going to be, you know, so much energy efficient. That’s great. But it takes a long time to build them. So in our portfolio, we have uranium. We like uranium for that longer term journey. But we also have a lot of natural gas because the next logical conclusion is well, what’s clean and what’s abundant and what’s cheap and is very, very easy and quick to implement. and it all comes to natural gas from that perspective. And one of the reasons that we’ve liked natural gas even before this AI boom has kind of taken it with it was the differential in the prices on a global basis. So natural gas here in the U .S. is very, very cheap. In Europe and in Asia, it trades at a much, much higher price, like multiples of what we have And so it is a very much historically. It’s been a very much localized market, right? It’s because whatever you produce you sell locally unlike oil which is a global market because you can ship it around you can So the price of oil is very efficient and it’s like global globally set with natural gas Because it’s been local you have these differentials, but now you’re in the process of actually beginning to Globalize this market because now we are building and have terminals that we can ship LNG overseas and have that arbitrage and so what happens naturally over time is we believe that this localized market is gonna become global and you’re gonna see this sort of parody coming to play it’s gonna be a long journey but that means that the beneficiaries of that will be US natural gas producers and exporters because they have the cheaper product that the rest of the world wants and so as that comes in you’re gonna see these companies and sort of the U .S. players.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:13:10] isn’t that great now there’s two things that i want to bring up i think that the lng to power plants like vietnam just put in and they’ve just taken in their first deliveries if we could do the same for hawaii because they’re hawaii is running 60 percent of hawaii’s power plants are on fuel oil. Fuel oil is just as dirty as coal. Yeah, you know, I hate to tell everybody that but you know here we have our paradise and why don’t we get rid of the wartime power act for the Jones Act and allow an LNG to power plant in Hawaii I think was if we need to go ahead and get this thing rolling so we can go do a walk around and approve it Personally so you and I can fly there and go check it out So you like.

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:13:56] Yeah, I’d be happy to take a trip to Hawaii for any excuse. Oh, yeah. I think you’re onto something because what you’re talking about is the comparison of the price of oil versus the price of natural gas. And we know that natural gas is cheap, but there’s this thing about the US oil dollar equivalent price of gas. And historically, it’s generally been roughly 6 to 1 ratio. So, so if you think of it that way, natural gas is cheaper on a relative basis to oil as well. So not only is it beneficial from sort of, you know, the emission standard, emission standpoint, it’s also very economical. And that’s why you’re seeing sort of this rush of people moving in that direction. So yeah, so we’re excited about that. And then lastly, I’ll also mention the overall usage of energy around the world and have a chart we can share that has continued to rise. I love this chart. Irrespective of what you know what what sort of the the expectations might be or what the the world thinks it is because there’s there’s always this perception that and there’s been this idea that for the non -traditional stuff or the energy transition to materialize and be effect traditional energy must die. And that is completely not true. And this chart kind of proves it that since 1965, there has been a steady clip of increasing consumption of energy around the world. So this is global. It’s everybody around the world. And we have done nothing but increase the usage of energy. And it’s because as the world develops, as more and more countries grow economically, their populations, Asia is the biggest continent in the world in terms of population, and as those countries continue to develop and their citizens consume more and more energy, this charge is going to continue to go northward. And so that’s one point, that this line continues to rise, number one. Number two is that when you look at the breakdown, oil and natural gas are still some of the biggest chunks of this. Coal is a very big chunk, and we know that’s because a lot of countries in Asia like India and China are continuing to burn that. And that might not go away unless and until they find that attractive substitute, which could be natural gas. But the point of this is that the stuff that’s being used in the market in the world is the stuff that’s being underappreciated by the financial markets. And that’s where we think that that adjustment is going to occur. And we think that as the supply around the world ultimately ends up being not as abundant as the world thinks. And again, it’s all about expectation. It is. So the supply is going to continue to be there. But in order to continue to supply the energy of today, we need to continue to reinvest in wells. We need to continue to reinvest in that technology. And that needs to continue. And unless that continues, the supply might face some challenges. And as a result of that, we think the market is thinking, oh, there’s abundant supply, it’s never going to end, and therefore we don’t think this is going to be a pricey thing. We think that the supply and demand dynamics are actually going to prove that not only is the demand going to continue to grow, but the supply is not as readily available as the markets are thinking. Oh yeah, I think Yeah, so we’re – and have a chart.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:17:24] This brings up about 19 different points, and one of the biggies is that I’ve found over the last several years, I love that slide by the way, well done to you and your staff, is that the more money is spent on renewable energy, the more we will use fossil fuels. Call it Turley’s law, if you will. I had another guest call it and said, hey, that sounds like Turley’s law. And that is the more money we have spent on renewable energy the more fossil fuels are used. Well, I mean that has been coming to pass and that slide really points that home that we’re using more energy. And if you take a look at the cost that renewable energy of wind and solar, they’re not that sustainable.

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:18:15] And I would agree, I think the, so not only is it the cost. But it’s also, as you know very well, Stu, is the difference between intermittency and the baseload needs. Exactly. And that’s where countries like Germany are being challenged, where they have plenty of that type of energy, but it doesn’t help grow or maintain your industry. In order to grow and maintain your industry, you need something with a very reliable and significant baseload capacity. And that comes from oil and gas. and you get here and it is.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:18:49] It is so sad that they have stopped their nuclear power plants, they’ve reopened their coal plants, and now they have even made the suggestion Chancellor Schultz is now having to face a runoff because he had a vote of no confidence, and his challenger is saying will somebody please fire up the one remaining Nord Stream pipeline to get us some low -cost natural gas. I’m like, I did not have that on my bingo card, you know, it was pretty sad.

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:19:24] I mean, to me, it’s a reminder to not put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to this type of security. This is about, it’s a national security type of a question. And so it’s important to have the backup and they relied solely on the cheap natural gas coming in from Russia and when that stopped and that’s when all of these troubles began for them and they’ve been scrambling ever since trying to find other options. So yeah, it is definitely a challenge. But we think, you know, over time, there should be some remedies that they work on, but in the meantime, they’re losing ground to, you know, their industrial strength and advantage that they’ve had to others.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:20:07] You know, I just, I thoroughly enjoy our discussions, Wasp, because your outlook on how investing is done is unique. And I find it refreshing, not because you agree with me, it’s because you look at it from a different view that I see from other folks. So I’m sorry for being nice to you. And I’m not trying to be too nice. How do people find out how to either get your slide deck and or invest with Samaria?

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:20:42] Yeah, so thank you for that. So we this this stuff that I’ve been talking about, it’s it’s it’s not just theory. It’s an actual strategy. Yeah, we have been managing for for quite some time. And just recently, we launched our Sermaya thematic ETF that No way! that captures this strategy. The ticker is called L -E -N -S, so it’s lens. And we pick that because it encapsulates what we’re doing. We’re looking at the world through our lens and solving a puzzle for our investors to create a portfolio where we think that you can find what you think is going to do well in the next market cycle and the next mega theme and really capitalize it and focus only on that and build a concentrated portfolio. So it is a stock portfolio. We’re investing in the companies of these types of commodities and industrial companies that are gonna benefit from these themes. And we’re doing it for a much longer term. So we’re investors, we’re not traders, we’re not looking to get in and out of this stuff. We’re buying these things because we know that there’s a secular growth phase that’s in store for these companies. So Lens, L -E -N -S. and that’s where that’s if they go to our website for the ETF is called SarmayaETF .com S -A -R -M -A -Y -A -E -T -F .com and they should be able to it immediately will take them to a page where there’s all the information they need and even the holdings that’s fantastic.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:22:17] Are you, do you have some uranium, you have your companies that you are invested in there on that, like EQT and a few others on there, is that correct?

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:22:26] Yes, yes. We have, you know, majors in oil and gas plays. We have majors when it comes to uranium and mining. And we also have exposure to copper, which we didn’t talk about, because copper we think is also poised for a lot of secular growth in the future. I know we also have industrials, you know, companies that are either shipping stuff around the world or companies that are building stuff that’s going to be needed. So if you’re going to build a factory in your on -shoring designs or your near -shoring goals, you’re gonna need copper, you’re gonna need industrial capacity. So we have some industrial companies exposures to help with that. But by and large, it’s a portfolio that’s focused on the benefit that we think is gonna happen from the commodity super cycle that we think is coming. So it is largely in looking at things like oil, gas, gold. Gold, we didn’t talk about as much, but today, as I said, it’s hitting an all -time high. And there’s a lot of benefits to having gold that may come in an environment of the one that we’re looking at between fiscal challenges, budget challenges, as well as the geopolitical environment that we’re in.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:23:36] I’ll tell you, this whole thing is, is, is pretty crazy. And I did not have a lot of, you know, president Trump is absolutely setting the world on fire and I can’t say he’s his hair’s on fire. Cause I’d love to have his hair. I’m a little bit challenged in the hair department, but when you sit back and take a look, he’s, he’s really hit the ground running with his executive orders and the rest of the world is now going it makes sense. I’m totally flabbergasted that I, like we had just talked about, Wasif, the simple fact that Bill Gates and, you know, and Black Rock Larry Fink sit back and go, well, we need natural gas. That was not on, you know, on my list this week for a discussion point. Because they were so anti -fossil fuels, quote unquote, and I think the fact of And I And I don’t want to use the word common sense. Maybe we can turn some partners into instead of common sense, make it look like some area partners way of looking things, because honestly, your way you look at things, Wasif is really truly common sense, but it’s not common to everybody.

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:24:52] Yeah, no, that’s ultimately what we’re trying to do. So you know, I’m an investor, I’ve been an investor my entire career, that’s how I look at the world through the lens of that. And I think your comments are, when I look at it from that standpoint, to me, it’s about what makes sense rationally, and what is actually possible based on the opportunities, but also the constraints that the world is seeing. What I mean by that, what I mean by that is, you know, we’d like to have, you know, free energy for everybody that doesn’t have any problems. That’s not the reality. So given the constraints that we have today…

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:25:32] Nice.

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:25:33] and the resources and the opportunities that we have, what is a rational outcome? And then you kind of have to navigate that because what you think is rational and ultimately might prove to be true, like the example you’re giving, but it might not happen tomorrow. So you have to kind of manage that through as the world gradually comes to the realization. And from an investment standpoint, to me the last important thing is, ultimately it boils down to valuations. So, Warren Buffett has famously said, and I’m paraphrasing this, that, you know, price is what you pay, but value is what you get. In other words, the price you pay becomes extremely important. So, you know, we’ve seen this in the prior cycle where companies that are, they’re good companies, they’re great, they’re global leaders in what they’re doing, they’re generating a lot of cash flow, they’re generating a lot of returns, but their stock prices and valuations are very, very high. And if you buy them at that stage, then you need to think about what is the future expected return on that price, not what’s already happened, because you’re buying here. And so then you have to think about, can this company grow to the same degree that it has in the past? And it needs to surprise you even more than what the market is already expecting, because that story, that expectation, it’s already in the price. And on the flip side, if stuff is really cheap, like the sectors that we’re looking at, you know, energy and gold, for example, the expectations are very low. And when the expectations are low, you get an attractive price because not many people are expecting anything out of it. And then when it does begin to surprise on the upside, that’s when the price begins to move up. So the way I think about it is in simple terms, for high richly valued assets, The good news is already in the price. One day the good news might not be as good and that leads to disappointment. On cheap assets the bad news is in the price and one day the bad news might not be as bad and it begins to look a little bit better and that’s what begins the re -rating process of the market saying this is so bad maybe we should buy some. And so that’s when you start seeing assets move in different directions.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:27:44] I like the way you articulate that, because that is absolutely brilliant, and again, I apologize for being really nice to you today. I normally am just a real horse’s room.

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:27:54] Maybe we can do an episode where it’s intentionally just, you know, going at it.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:27:57] Okay, I’m normally a horse’s rear to everybody and and I I really think that this is really cool How do people get a hold of you?

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:28:06] Well, first of all, thank you very much for letting me share our story and giving us the opportunity to talk about what we’re doing. They can get a hold of me through our website, which is sermayapartners .com. They can find me on Twitter or X at sermayakar, that’s S -A -R -M -A -Y -A -K -A -R, or I’m also on Substack and I’m under my own name, Wasif. They should be able to find me, Wasif Latif, on Substack. and career advice too, I’m now very active on Substack. It’s a great resource for sharing ideas and learning and finding like -minded people. So it’s a great location. So those are the places I would suggest.

Stuart Turley – President and CEO of Sandstone Group [00:28:49] Sounds fantastic. Well, thank you so much for stopping by, and I just really appreciate you, and I cannot wait for another update, because I just have to run out and go, man, this was a great discussion. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Wasif Latif – Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer Sarmaya Partners [00:29:03] My pleasure, and thank you for having me. We’ll talk next time.

The post The Undervalued Energy Boom: Why Natural Gas and Commodities Are Set to Skyrocket appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

Beijing has opted for defiance instead of flattery. Will the strategy backfire?

​Analysis

The post Why Isn’t China Playing Trump’s Game? appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

ENB Pub Note: This is an interesting perspective on the EU energy and financial crisis they are currently facing. Mix this in with Trump’s Tariffs, and you have a recipe for a real problem. Vice President Vance was right in his speeches to the EU. They are their biggest problem. The article hints that the U.S. will have a problem increasing its manufacturing in the United States, but I disagree. Buckle up; we are in for a wild ride in the news, prosperity, and despair. I am betting on the U.S. to get on track before the EU or the UK. The United States has a very deep pool of leaders on the Trump Administration bench, and the Democrats and EU are lacking in a strategic gene pool.

The author’s title kind of hints at failure. “Heavy Industry is Europe’s Trump Card.” Well, they have to fix their energy policies first, and that does not look like an excellent forecast. 

 

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The continent has an upper hand in its looming security competition with the United States.

​Analysis

The post Heavy Industry Is Europe’s Trump Card appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

The post Trump Goes All in on Crypto  appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

ENB Pub Note: The U.S. needs to step out of the UN and throw the UN out of the U.S. They have been trying to take the United States down through covert programs and have done nothing positive for humanity or the United States. Should we rejoin the UN, it should be under a new agreement with massive restrictions. 

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The UN is suppressing climate debate, pushing biased policies and promoting misinformation, and ignoring scientific uncertainties and better solutions.

​The United Nations is at a crossroads.

President Trump pulled out of the World Health Organization, cut funding for the UN’s Climate Convention, and more withdrawals are likely in the pipeline. [emphasis, links added]

He calls the UN an “underperformer,” suggesting it is a swamp to be drained.

At this critical juncture, one could reasonably assume the UN would justify its existence by sharpening its focus on peace and prosperity through sound, data-based advice.

Instead, it is boldly working to suppress open debate on climate change while pushing prosperity-wrecking policies.

The UN has partnered with the government of Brazil to launch a global initiative ominously called the “Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change,” which will promote the publication of “verified” climate change information by media outlets and on social media.

The UN bluntly states that its objective is to “boost support for urgent climate action” — revealing that the goal is not to highlight the broad scientific consensus that climate change is real, but to boost just one allowable policy response.

As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has made clear, “urgent climate action” means a race to net-zero, extremist, economy-punishing policies, including rich countries paying poor countries huge sums for climate reparations, sweeping new climate taxes and ending fossil fuels entirely within 25 years.

In determining what policy response you must choose, the un­elected UN is engaging in pure propaganda.

Imagine if it were to regulate the migration debate and would only allow statements that supported an extreme policy of completely open (or closed) borders everywhere.

The UN is ignoring the inconvenient truth that there are many important, ongoing debates among climate scientists and economists.

Even after decades of extensive research, huge uncertainty remains on how much the world would warm from a doubling of CO2.

Research from climate economists also shows that most current climate policies are vastly inefficient.

The UN would dismiss policy discussion — and even facts — in the name of promoting a singular response to climate change.

We know this because the UN initiative’s early work setting out its supposed “facts on climate” already shows its unabashed bias.

One such “fact” the UN is promoting is that sea level rise could submerge small islands like Kiribati.

This claim is often repeated by progressive media outlets, yet ignores the vast scientific literature showing that almost every atoll including Kiribati is stable or increasing in size — evidence acknowledged even by The New York Times.

Among the whoppers

Another UN “fact” is that climate change is a major threat to human health because fossil-fuel-caused air pollution causes some 8.7 million deaths a year.

Not only is this figure more than twice what the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, but the UN deliberately confuses climate policy (which cuts CO2) with the real solution, which is cutting air pollution through scrubbers on smokestacks and catalytic converters on cars.

In misstating the threat to life, the UN ignores the fact that deaths from climate-related catastrophes have declined 97.5% over the past century — or that far more people die from cold than heat.

The UN also repeats the oft-told lie that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels.

They gloss over this mistruth by measuring the cost only when the sun is shining or the wind blowing, ignoring the costs of intermittency and unreliability.

The fact is, no country with significant solar and wind has low electricity costs — indeed, on average, electricity costs are two or three times higher than for countries with little solar and wind.

Among the UN’s other supposed facts is that “solar panels and wind turbines make good use of land” (in reality, solar and wind are some of the most land-intensive energy forms) and that the transition to clean energy will create millions of jobs.

The latter is an economically illiterate mistruth: In the US, solar employs 35 workers to produce the same amount of energy that one natural gas worker can produce, meaning natural gas is much more efficient because 34 workers can be freed to do other important work, increasing social welfare.

Predetermined narrative

All these lies speak to the bigger problem: The UN will only “verify” the claims and narratives — whether true or not — that “boost support for urgent climate action.”

The UN will not “verify” the fact that the most recent research on the costs and benefits of net-zero climate policies shows average annual benefits of $4.5 trillion over the 21st century and much larger costs of $27 trillion per year.

Indeed, in the UN’s Orwellian world, this fact would likely be deemed “disinformation.”

The United Nations is trying to control what people can hear, read, and think about climate change just when social media companies like Meta are reversing their years-long policy of “fact-checking,” climate change policy debate—which Meta admits resulted in censorship.

The proposal that taxpayers spend hundreds of trillions of dollars on poor climate policies is surely worth debate.

The UN has no place suppressing that discussion.

If it is to survive, the UN and other multilateral organizations need to return to their roots of helping humanity to navigate the world for peace and prosperity.

And they must learn that free and informed debate poses no threat to that cause.

---

Bjorn Lomborg is President of the Copenhagen Consensus, Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and author of “False Alarm” and “Best Things First.”

Read more at NY Post

The post How The UN Suppresses Climate Debate, Pushes Biased Policies, And Ignores Science appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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PBS and AP push climate alarmism, ignoring data showing CO2 benefits, declining climate and disaster deaths, and stable marine ecosystems.

​The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) recently published an article by Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press (AP), titled “Scientists say EPA just needs to look around the world to see the growing dangers of climate change,” which says that proof of catastrophic climate change is found in obvious “growing dangers” evident for all to see. [emphasis, links added]

This is false.

Borenstein’s story, which PBS didn’t bother to verify or even question, paints a false picture of an impending climate catastrophe, citing everything from worsening wildfires to supposed ocean acidification, while conveniently ignoring the very real benefits of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).

“As President Donald Trump’s administration looks to reverse a cornerstone finding that climate change endangers human health and welfare, scientists say they just need to look around because it’s obvious how bad global warming is and how it’s getting worse,” says the AP’s Borenstein.

Obvious in what way? It is certainly not obvious looking at the available data on weather trends or measurements of human welfare like lives lost to weather-related disasters and temperatures.

PBS fails to acknowledge that the climate has always changed and there is little evidence to support the notion that human activities have altered climate in a way that is leading us toward disaster.

Let’s break down some claims in the AP/PBS article and counter them with real-world data.

One of the most misleading claims in the PBS article is that climate change is “acidifying the ocean.”

This is a classic case of alarmists misrepresenting basic chemistry to scare the public. First, the ocean is not turning acidic—it remains alkaline. The proper term would be a slight decrease in alkalinity, and even that is overblown.

Studies show that while atmospheric CO2 has increased, ocean pH levels have not dropped anywhere near a level that would threaten marine life. The term “ocean acidification” is largely a misnomer used to create fear rather than inform.

A study published in the journal Nature Geoscience reinforces the idea that marine ecosystems are not on the verge of collapse due to small changes in pH. The ability of marine life to evolve and adapt over time is a critical factor that climate alarmists often ignore.

Moreover, research compiled by Climate Realism demonstrates that phytoplankton, the foundation of the marine food web, are not in decline due to ocean pH changes.

Instead, they have remained stable or even increased in some regions, contradicting claims that marine ecosystems are on the brink of collapse.

If the ocean were truly becoming inhospitable due to CO2 levels, we would see significant disruptions in marine populations.

Instead, fisheries worldwide continue to thrive, and coral reefs have shown remarkable resilience. The Great Barrier Reef, for instance, has experienced record-high coral cover in recent years.

Nor is climate change resulting in more deaths due to extreme weather or non-optimum temperatures.

As Climate Realism has discussed when refuting dozens of other false articles, climate change, contrary to the AP/PBS report, is not causing an increase in human diseases or health complications.

In addition, data clearly show that human mortality resulting from extreme weather events and other natural disasters has fallen by more than 99 percent over the past 100 years, as discussed in Climate Realism posts here and here.

Extreme weather events killed nearly 500,000 people annually in the 1920s, but by 2021 only 7,790 deaths were attributable to extreme weather events. (See the figure)

Deaths related to extreme temperatures are also in decline as the Earth has modestly warmed, according to multiple large-scale peer-reviewed studies in top journals.

For example, multi-country studies covering multiple decades published in The Lancet show that cold temperatures kill far more people each year than hot temperatures.

They also demonstrate that as temperatures have modestly warmed, the number of deaths tied to non-optimum temperatures has declined.

Concerning hunger and malnutrition, also mentioned in the PBS/AP article, research cited in more nearly 200 articles posted at Climate Realism show that as carbon dioxide levels have risen, crop production has boomed for almost every crop one cares to discuss in nation after nation spanning all parts of the globe.

As a result of this fact, hunger and malnutrition have declined more sharply in the latter part of the 20th and early 21st century than in any other period in history.

In point of fact, while the AP and PBS fixate on the easily debunked perils of climate change, they conveniently ignore one of the most significant positive trends: the greening of the planet. Increased atmospheric CO2 has led to a dramatic rise in plant growth worldwide, an effect known as global greening.

According to NASA satellite data, over the past several decades, the Earth has become measurably greener, with vegetation expanding across deserts and arid regions. This is due to the fertilization effect of CO2, which enhances photosynthesis and allows plants to use water more efficiently.

Increased CO2 has led to record-high crop yields, helping to feed a growing global population. Data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) confirms that crop production has consistently set new records.

Wheat, maize, and rice—staple crops that feed billions—have all seen significant increases in production over the past 50 years, thanks in part to higher CO2 levels.

If PBS were truly interested in honest reporting, they would acknowledge that the net effect of more CO2 has been a more food-secure world—not a climate apocalypse.

PBS also links to an associated article tying climate change to recent wildfires. Yet, in doing so, PBS ignores the fact that data from NASA and the European Space Agency show that the total global area burned by wildfires has declined markedly in the United States and globally over the past century.

To the extent that some areas have seen a spike in wildfires in recent years, research cited at Climate at a Glance shows that [fires are] largely driven by land management practices, not climate change.

In the United States, decades of fire suppression policies led to excessive fuel buildup, combined with a sharp decline in logging and active forest management in recent years,  has made fires more intense when they do occur.

PBS and AP may prefer their narrative of climate doom, but the data and facts tell a different story.

As for hurricanes and extreme weather, the data simply does not support claims that they are becoming more frequent or severe.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledges that there is no significant trend in global tropical cyclone activity.

The United States has experienced long periods without major landfalling hurricanes, and the overall trend does not indicate an increasing crisis.

PBS argues that contrary to what the Trump administration is expected to do, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should uphold its 2009 finding that carbon dioxide endangers public health and welfare.

To support this they write:

“[n]ew research and ever more frequent extreme weather further prove the harm climate change is doing to people and the planet, …

[as a result] ‘There is no possible world in which greenhouse gases are not a threat to public health.’”

Yet, as the evidence presented above shows, such claims are false.

To the contrary, with the assertions that weather and health trends are worsening being abjectly false, the EPA’s endangerment finding and the regulations that it has spawned are wholly unjustified now, as the finding itself was when the former President Barack Obama administration imposed it.

PBS follows a familiar script: cherry-pick extreme weather events, misrepresent ocean chemistry, and ignore the overwhelming benefits of CO2 to justify heavy-handed government intervention.

PBS and AP may prefer their narrative of climate doom, but the data and facts tell a different story. The reality is that climate trends are far more nuanced than Borenstein, the AP, and PBS admit.

Data suggest that CO2 is not an existential threat but rather a net benefit for agriculture and ecosystems.

Rather than stoking fear, we should be focusing on adapting to natural climate variations, improving energy efficiency, and embracing the undeniable positives of a CO2-rich atmosphere.

Read more at Climate Realism

The post PBS Pushes Climate Doom, Ignores Real Data Debunking Global Warming Hysteria appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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Civilian employment at the federal government accounts for less than 1.9% of total payrolls.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Because it has been the topic in the news for weeks, we’ll talk about civilian employment at the federal government first, though it is just a tiny part of overall employment.

In terms of timing: Today’s employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics about jobs at “establishments” – employers of all kinds, including governments – is based on who is on the payroll in the week that includes the 12th. In February, this reference week was February 10-14. So these payrolls in roughly mid-February don’t include the departures in the second half of February. They’ll show up in later reports. Also, some of the layoffs are tangled up in uncertainty and court challenges, and it may be a while before the fog clears up.

In the prior month, in mid-January, civilian employment at the federal government, not seasonally adjusted, fell by 18,000. Then, in mid-February, employment fell by another 11,000, bringing the two-month total reduction to 29,000, not seasonally adjusted, which reduced the employment level to 2.99 million, where it had been in April 2024.

But there is normally a big drop in January, followed by a smaller increase in February. So seasonal adjustments are used to iron them out.

These seasonal adjustments converted the mid-January job loss (-18,000) to a gain of 5,000, indicating the drop was seasonal, and that the already announced DOGE layoffs hadn’t made it to the mid-January payrolls yet.

In February, seasonal adjustments reduced the job loss (-11,000) to a job loss of 10,000, and reduced seasonally adjusted employment to 3.01 million, indicating that the first batch of layoffs made it to the mid-February payrolls.

The spike in federal government employment (seasonally adjusted) reflects the hiring for the 10-year census. And there’s this dip in February:

Federal government employment as a percent of total payrolls has been historically low for years as a result of total payrolls growing much faster than government employment. But in 2023 through mid-2024, the growth rate of government employment was higher than the growth rate of overall employment, and the ratio rose and peaked in May 2024. Since then, the ratio has been declining. In February, it fell to 1.89%.

This relatively low ratio of federal government payrolls (3.0 million) to overall payrolls (159.2 million) indicates that the job cuts at the federal government won’t make a major dent in overall employment, unless government contractors – from SpaceX on down – also start shedding lots of people.

Beyond the federal government…

Total payrolls in mid-February rose by 151,000 from the prior month, to 159.2 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics today (blue in the chart below).

The three-month average, which includes the revisions and irons out some of the month-to-month squiggles, dipped to 200,000, which is in solid territory.

Note the consistent decline of the three-month average from May 2024 (200,000) to August 2024 (84,000), which had been a worrisome trend that lots of people were fretting about, and it triggered the Fed’s big rate cut in September. But by that time of the rate cut, the trend had already reversed.

Average hourly earnings rose by 0.28% in February from January (+3.4% annualized), a deceleration from the hot increase in January of 5.2% annualized.

The three-month average rose by 3.6% annualized, a deceleration from the prior months (red line).

Year-over-year, average hourly earnings rose by 4.0% in February, and the increases, despite some ups and downs have been in the 4% range for over a year.

Unemployment rose by 203,000 to 7.05 million people who were actively looking for a job during the survey period, according to the BLS household survey today. Unemployment has been in this range since July.

The three-month average dipped by 23,000 and has been on a slight down-trend since July (red)

In terms of the laid-off government workers: They show up here if they looked for a job during the survey period. People who decided to retire after getting forced out and therefore weren’t looking for a job are not considered unemployed, but retired, and they don’t count here.

The headline unemployment rate (U-3), based on the survey of households, edged up to 4.1% in February from 4.0% in January.

Over the past seven months, the unemployment rate has stabilized at the historically low range of 4.0% to 4.3%, with July having been the high point.

The unemployment rate = number of unemployed people who are actively looking for a job divided by the labor force (number of working people plus the number of people who are actively looking for work).

The unemployment rate of 4.1% is historically low, and a sign of a solid labor market, and well below the Fed’s median projection in its Summary of Economic Projections at the December meeting which it lowered to 4.3% for the end of 2025:

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The post Federal Government Layoffs & Quits Begin to Show up in the Jobs Data, Barely Dent Solid Labor Market appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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A tug-of-war between governments and illegal miners is igniting conflict. To avoid the worst, states must make room for legal artisanal mining.

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