In a sweeping move that halts billions in spending, President Trump’s administration has frozen the Department of Energy’s (DOE) activities pending a comprehensive review of its alignment with his priorities. According to a memo from […]
Nuclear energy stocks are experiencing a resurgence due to increased demand from AI and data centers. The Trump administration’s $500 billion AI infrastructure venture further boosted nuclear stocks. Nuclear power is seen as a solution […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
01:29 – Trump Reignites Coal Industry at Davos – Make Coal Great Again MCGA
03:25 – Albany’s new fossil fuels ‘super-fund’ could hit consumers hard
05:57 – Stargate’s first data center is underway in Texas. Public filings show how much it will cost to build.
08:48 – Trump Freezes Department of Energy’s $50 Billion Budget
11:55 – Markets Update
13:31 – Rig Count Update
15:03 – Nuclear Stocks Soar on Stargate AI Infrastructure Announcement
19:36 – Outro
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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Michael Tanner: [00:00:10] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome in to the Monday, January 27th, 2025, edition of the Daily Energy News. Beat Stand up. Here are today’s top headlines. First up, Trump reignites coal industry at Davos. Make coal great again. Got a love here. A lot of good stuff that he was saying at Davos. I’ve been following that all week. Next up will fly over to New York. Albany’s new fossil fuel super fund could hit consumers hard. I’m always skeptical of New York and fossil fuels, so we’ll see what happens there. Evan writes, Do in your backyard starGates first data center is underway in Texas. Public filings show how much it will cost to build. News flash. It’s going to be a lot. Lot. It’s going to be a lot of money. And then finally, Trump freezes Department of Energy’s $50 billion budget, stupid. Stu will toss it all to me. I will quickly cover what happened with oil and gas finances. On Friday, we saw a delayed EIA crude oil inventory report. We did see rig counts drop a little bit. And then finally, speaking of storage, do nuclear stocks soared on that infrastructure announcement. So we will cover all that and a bag of chips, guys, as always, I’m Michael Tanner, joined by Stuart Turley. Where do you want to begin? [00:01:29][79.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:29] Hey, let’s start with my buddy, President Trump. President Trump reignites coal industry at Davos. I think he lit a fuze under the world elite and said, we don’t need you anymore. [00:01:39][10.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:41] He really was wagging his finger. I mean, the whole speech. And then Javier Miller, president of Argentina, basically came in and said the same thing. [00:01:48][7.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:48] He said what? He said, Unbelievable. In classic Trump fashion, the president declared the World Economic Forum, Nothing can destroy coal. Not the weather, not a bomb. It’s a great backup. What this really means is that in Trump’s stance on coal isn’t new. But let’s be honest, it’s sitting in the back seat as oil and gas steal the energy spotlight. Yet this fresh endorsement, as we’re reminded not just Davos, but the world isn’t ready to get rid of coal. President Trump is actually shining a light on grid stability around the world, saying we have to have baseline electricity. You can’t throw haphazard renewables at a grid and have it function normally. This is it is. We laugh about make coal great again. It’s actually make the grid stable again. [00:02:44][55.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:44] Yes. I could not agree more with that analysis. And think about the quote that he said. Go back to what you first said to you. This is the quote out of Davos. Nothing can destroy coal, not weather, not a bomb. It’s a great and here’s the key word, backup, right. Never should be your main supply for a few different reasons, but it’s a great backup to ensure baseload energy supply. China knows it. Some people in the United States know it. Europe certainly doesn’t know it. But, you know, I completely agree. This the Make Coal Great Again movement. You know, I wouldn’t say make coal great again. I would say make coal back up again. That would be my phrase. [00:03:22][37.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:23] That’s a good way to do it. I think that that is a great one. Let’s go over to my buddy, Governor Hochul. This woman has the brain power of a potato. Bud Albany’s new fossil fuels. Super could hit consumers hard. This woman is absolutely horrific. The second order effects of this law that she signed in just after Christmas will cause a hardship on the consumers in New York. The day after Christmas, Governor Hochul signed Bill s 2129 into law, deputizing the Department of Environmental Conservation to find fossil fuel companies billions of dollars for past greenhouse gas emissions. The fund will go into a climate change slush fund for a super fund that will be used to prepare for, manage and advertise weather events like floods. This is crap. What is it? What does this slush fund mean to you? [00:04:26][63.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:04:26] Michael It basically means you’re going to have a nice big piggy bank and no one’s going to be watching what comes out of it. [00:04:32][5.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:32] Exactly. The scheme sets a target of 75 billion over 25 period, which means it’s going to go into the coffers. It’s going to be used for all this corruption. It’s just stupid. And all it’s going to do is I talked to a bunch of folks that are in the oil and gas business that are fairly high muckety mucks and they say, we are leaving New York. [00:04:52][20.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:04:53] Well, yeah, because here’s what’s going to happen. So basically what it is, this climate change super fund is a retroactive levy on firms that are, quote, engaged in trade or business of extracting fossil fuel or refining crude oil during a, quote covered period. Starting January 1st, 22, December 31st, 2018. And if you exceed and in any firm that exceeded 1 billion metric tons of emission is is liable for this and that sold their products into the Empire State notably large foreign producers like Chinese National Petroleum Company, Russian oil and gas interests, where we know a lot of their rights. [00:05:36][43.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:36] Are Russia. [00:05:36][0.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:37] Are exempt from that. So. Well, I’m so I’m glad we’re not fining Russia and China, but we’re finding the American bitch. I mean, it’s it’s asinine. [00:05:46][8.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:47] It is about as dumb. And like I said, I believe she has a potato. Bud has more brain power synopses firing and then she does. Let’s go to Stargate. Stargate First Center is underway in Texas. Public filings show how much it will cost to build. 500 billion are a project by Stargate. Earlier, the first data center is in Abilene. I’m going to go take a few pictures of it with Oracle CTO Larry Ellison and public filings for Abilene. Matching Ellison’s description shed some light on costs and estimated. Campus on this is now $1.1 billion. That’s a lot of servers. [00:06:28][41.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:29] That’s a lot. So what is Stargate? It’s a it’s a joint venture between Oracle Open, AI and SoftBank. I mean, if that doesn’t make the the the the hair on your neck stand up a little bit, it gets worse because they’re pledging to spend $500 billion on data centers. There was some real spooky stuff that they were talking about specifically there are being able to create MMR, MRSA vaccines in minutes. Yeah, I’ll probably be avoiding using those a little bit more about this project. Basically, it’s called Project Ludacris. It’s a thousand acre site as some other things is, is we’ve, you know, basically each building is about half 1,000,000ft². There are ten buildings currently being built and we will expand to 20 and other locations beyond Abilene. It is interesting that the owner of Project Ludacris is listed as Abilene, DC One, LLC, an affiliate data center of startup Caruso Energy. Which are we? We love them. There are there are, you know, excellent gas folks who created kind of off grid database solutions using flared gas in North Dakota they’ve since expanded off of they’re a super interesting super super interesting what they’re doing. But on one hand I think, yes, we need to be investing huge amounts of money into this. On the other hand, some of the stuff that’s come out of that, Sam Altman and Larry Ellison have said about the goal of Stargate is absolutely creepy. [00:07:57][87.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:57] And scares me to. [00:07:58][1.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:58] Release with the release of Deep Sea this week, having spent basically in the millions of dollars, I’m talking less than $10 million to train deep seeks open source model, which is, yes, it’s Chinese based, but on par and even better than some estimates have said it’s cost over $1.5 billion to develop that algorithm when it comes to the infrastructure and the people that build that and Deep six now come out with a better AI model for less than $10 million. It makes you wonder, 500 billion wonder what what why all that money exactly? [00:08:34][35.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:08:34] A There is close ties to several three letter agencies that I do not trust, so we will just leave it at that. I am not going any further than that because I don’t like those three letter agencies. Let’s go to the Trump Freezes Department Energy $500 billion budget in a sweeping move that holds billions in spending, President Trump’s administration frozen the Department of Energy’s activities pending a comprehensive review. And I know that Chris right is absolutely thrilled out of his mind so that he can stop whoever is shoveling out the money, because Chris right, is a no nonsense business guy. And once we can get him in there to say, let him put get his hand on that buzzer and go, Nope, we’re going to have the Chris right. Gong Show at the doorway. No money for you. [00:09:28][53.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:29] Is that is that Harvey or Mila? Video Department of Education, Iowa. [00:09:33][3.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:34] Department of Resources. When you’re closed. Goodbye. You know, so, you know, I really think it is it is absolutely unbelievable that Trump President Trump has done more in a week being a president than the Deep State has done in 50 years. And he’s he is really absolutely turning the corner on ending the deep state. [00:09:56][21.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:56] Now. It’s it’s it’s very good. And, you know, again, it gives you know friend of the show Secretary Wright the ability to come in and determine what’s necessary and not I mean a lot of this money is. You know, is going to nuclear waste clean up. But there is a lot of pork in this budget. [00:10:14][18.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:15] In the words of Dan Bongino, a hawk you lost. [00:10:19][3.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:19] Yes. Extremely. Porkulus. Alright! [00:10:21][1.1]
[00:10:21] Let’s go ahead and jump over to finances, guys. But as always, we got to pay the bills. Thank you for checking yourself here on the world’s greatest website. www.Energy news beat.com Stu in the team, do a tremendous job making sure that website stays up to speed. Everything you need to know to be the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy and the oil and gas business. You can also hit that description below for all links to the timestamped links to the articles. The best way to also stay in touch with the show is to go ahead and give us a follow on Substack. The best way to support the show was sign up for a paid subscription. There was going to be dropping multiple paid only articles this week. We’ve got a new white paper coming out on on the critical minerals space. That’s a follow up to another paid article we dropped about two weeks ago, specifically talking about critical mineral demand. So a lot of great stuff there, guys. Highly recommend going to the energy news be.substack.com. It’s also never too early to start wondering what 2025 income is going to look like. And if you have always wanted to invest in oil and gas, we have great, great material on how you can learn all the which ways about investing in oil and gas, how you can save huge money on taxes. I’ll create another distribution and income stream for yourself and most importantly, become Billy Bob Thornton. Inland Man, I can’t stress that last part enough. You can become Billy Bob Thornton from Land Man by investing in oil and gas and your life will be similar to what he experiences in that show. So if you find that at all interesting, I highly recommend going to invest in Oil.Energy Newsbeat.com. We will send you all the education materials and put you contact with the right people. [00:11:54][92.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:11:55] Let’s go ahead and just look at top line indices on Friday. S&P 500 down about 3/10 of a percentage point. Nasdaq down about 5/10 of a percentage point two and ten year yields, but basically the same, down 6/10 of a percentage point. Dollar index down 6/10 of a percentage point. Bitcoin at basically dancing around 104,600. So it’s, you know, basically flat for over this week. And obviously it’s open. Crude oil basically flat up, basically up 0.05 percentage point 7466. Brant Oil was up about 3/10 of a percentage point 7847. Natural gas peaks above $4, closed at $4.02. That was up about two percentage points or about $0.08 day over day. Our actual people are empty. Securities contract actually got slashed harder than prices was, down 1.3 percentage points, down to 140, 74. You know, pretty interesting. You know, I think a lot of people are, again, absorbing what’s going to be happening with the Trump administration, what type of tariffs they’re going to put on. You know, we’ve we’ve you know, they’ve Trump has vowed to put tariffs all on everybody Mexico, China, Canada, the European Union. We did say crude oil inventories. We can go ahead and put this up on the screen. We did see the EIA crude oil inventory numbers drop. We did see about 1 million barrel drop from the from the commercial Cushing Reserves. And we also did see domestic production sit there at about 13.4, 7 million barrels. So about a 4000 barrels per day drop week over week. So basically flat there. Pretty unbelievable that we’re sitting there at about 13.4 million barrels. And we did also see rig counts there dropped again, still four rigs shed now down to 567. We can go and put that up there. It’s it’s pretty unbelievable, I think, what’s going on. I think, you know, the you know, the you know, the last line of the the last article that we covered, which was Trump praising the Department of Energy bill, talks about the drill baby drill initiative. Again, I think if that’s really what what both Doug Burgum and Chris Wright, who are going to be chairing the Energy Council for the United States, have really their mission is to drill, baby, drill. I think it’s gonna be difficult. And what’s what’s great is somebody like Chris Rate understands the dynamics, having been the CEO of a large publicly traded oilfield service company from the standpoint of he’s going to understand why operators aren’t necessarily going to jump out and keep drilling more. So I again, I think it’s I think it’s fascinating from that standpoint to see, you know, I think other things that we saw was, you know, you know, basically everybody was at the World Economic Forum on Friday. You know, I do find it interesting that Trump, while he was there, said he would demand OPEC and Saudi Arabia to bring down prices but don’t see how they’re going to really change their fundamentals. I think it’s going to be interesting. You know, obviously, the harsh sanctions that are being put on Russia and Iran are going to drive prices up. So he’s hoping that he’s hoping that OPEC can raise production to kind of fill that gap. We will see if that remains to be seen if that happens. Lastly, Stu, going back to Stargate, nuclear stocks have been soaring on the. I and Stargate infrastructure announcement nuclear stocks have have basically in the last three months and really over the last week have seen a huge resurgence due to the increased demand both from A.I. and the data centers that power them. Obviously the $500 billion infrastructure investment via Stargate plans to and also boosted those stocks. You know, really the reason and the reason why is people, I think, are looking to nuclear as the solution to long term, cheap baseload energy. I mean, obviously, natural gas is a it can work, but if you can if you can create nuclear, you know, these small modular nuclear reactors do these small these small cars that Stu wants to throw in everybody’s car and all these people that he’s been interviewing specifically, one of our favorite uranium companies are Nano Nuclear Energy, which has been on Stu’s podcast. I’m going to bring him in in a second to talk a little bit about it. But really, these nuclear solutions are seen as as the long term solution for these incredibly huge data centers. They’re going to be needed to cool power. I eventually we will be replaced by air. And what I mean, we I mean, Stu and I eventually you’ll just be seeing air versions of us doing this podcast, which could be actually sweet because then. [00:16:23][267.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:16:23] There will be nearly as funny. [00:16:24][0.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:16:24] I’m just going to turn up the liberal knob on Stu, so all of a sudden you’ll know it’s a I when all of a sudden Susan says, you know, maybe Joe Biden was right about that. [00:16:32][7.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:16:33] Right? [00:16:33][0.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:16:34] So you do you’re more in touch with this, the nuclear side of this. What’s your thoughts on all these nuclear sites? Stocks are taking off. We’ve seen, like I said, nano nucular, Okla, visceral corpse energy. They’re all up over 250% over the last six months. What say you about all this? [00:16:51][16.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:16:51] I love it. But when Nixon actually came through with this, I just was doing a podcast on this and Nixon created the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. We have had nuclear submarines and we 80 nuclear ships in the US military on small modular reactors since 1955. So why can’t we let the public do it? Well, the United States owns the patents for those small nuclear reactors and they don’t want to let that out. So the regulatory agency that Nixon created stopped the nuclear from proliferating. They wanted to electrify everything back under Nixon, and our regulatory process stopped it. So when you have like Jay you I absolutely love Jay from a nano nuclear technology. They have great products. I think they’re going to be fantastic. But Bill Gates at Davos said we are going to need that natural gas in a big way between now and 5 to 6 years because we cannot build a nuclear fleet or modular reactors in time. There’s only one company that I’m aware of, and that’s Copenhagen. Atomics That may be ahead of everybody. I need to follow up with him. I’ve interviewed that CEO before as well, too. So the stocks that I would be looking at are oil and gas stocks. I would also be looking at companies that build natural gas power plants because as I do, my evaluation on how much power demand is going to be increased versus what we have and what is in the pipe, natural gas is the only one, the only way that we can meet the demand in the next five years. [00:18:41][109.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:18:42] Yeah, no, it’s it really is true. I still will be making sure you keep cover in that so we can stay up to speed with all that, guys. But I think that’s it for the shows. Do what should people be worried about this upcoming week? [00:18:53][11.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:18:54] Keep your head on a swivel. And I’ll tell you what, I think it’s absolutely hilarious that Tom with the border the borders are is launching them all over the place. Columbia said no, do not drop your people being exported here. And within one hour, President Trump said you now have a 25% tariff on anything exported out of Colombia and give it a week. And if it not, it’ll be a 50% tariff. They’re now taking them back in. So tariffs are going to be allowing us to get rid of a lot of illegal aliens in the United States. So President Trump is on a roll. [00:19:31][37.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:31] He he’s he is on a roll. So it’ll be fascinating to see how that all plays out. But with that, guys, we’re going to let you get out of here, get back to work, start your week. We appreciate you checking in with energy news. Be put to beginning your week. But for Stuart Turleyy, I’m Michael Tanner See yoou tomorrow folks. [00:19:31][0.0][1141.4]
