Energy News Beat

But “competition limited the pass-through of higher costs to selling price … which will harm profits.”

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Overall economic growth accelerated in March from February, driven by a sharp acceleration in services activity, which bounced off the 15-month low in February – with “companies reporting improved new business inflows amid some signs of strengthening customer demand and better weather compared to earlier in the year.”

Some of the businesses reported that the acceleration in services comes “after adverse weather conditions had dampened activity across many states in January and February.”

Manufacturing pulled back in March from the spike in February, which had been the largest increase in output since May 2022, according to the “flash” composite Purchasing Managers’ Index by S&P Global today.

“Factories reported fewer instances of output having been buoyed by the front-running of tariffs, and new orders growth came close to stalling in the goods-producing sector. Input buying in the sector also fell back into decline,” the report said.

“However, export sales showed the smallest decline for nine months thanks to rising orders in particular from Canada, Germany and other EU countries, hinting at some further efforts to fulfil orders ahead of tariff implementation,” the report said.

Employment rose “slightly” in March from February, led by renewed hiring in services, while manufacturers cut headcount for the first time since October.

Indicative of 1.5% Q1 real GDP growth.

The services and manufacturing survey data are “indicative of the economy growing at an annualized 1.9% rate in March and just 1.5% over the quarter as a whole, pointing to a slowing of GDP growth compared to the end of 2024,” when real GDP grew by 2.3%.

So slower growth than in Q4, and slower than the 15-year average of 2%, and a tad slower than Q1 2024 (1.6%), but it would be far better than the recession everyone has been clamoring about.

“Competition limited the pass-through of higher costs to selling price.”

Input prices – cost for companies, including staffing costs – “accelerated sharply, especially in manufacturing, to a near two-year high, often attributed to the impact of tariff policies,” the report said.

“Cost pressures intensified across the economy in March. Across both goods and services, input costs increased at the sharpest rate for 23 months, surging especially in manufacturing (where the rate of inflation hit a 31-month high) but also picking up further pace (to an 18-month high) in the service sector.”

“Higher costs were first and foremost attributed to tariffs, though increased staffing costs were also widely reported,” the report said.

“Higher costs fed through to a steeper rise in manufacturing selling prices, which rose in March at the sharpest rate for 25 months.”

Many of these manufacturers’ customer are not retail customers, where measures such as CPI track inflation, but other companies, including construction companies, companies assembling the components or materials into finished goods, etc. And there often is another layer, such as retailers, between them and consumers. And passing price increases on through that chain is very difficult. Big retailers – from Walmart and Target on down – are currently in tough negotiations with their foreign supplies to eat some or all of the tariffs because they know how tough it difficult it be to pass on the price increases to consumers without losing sales.

“Which will harm profits.”

Selling prices: In terms of services, “competition limited the pass-through of higher costs to selling price,” the report said.

“The March survey also saw a modest acceleration in services selling price inflation, albeit to a level that was historically subdued as firms reported the need to offer competitive prices in a weak-demand environment,” the report said.

“Thankfully, from the Federal Reserve’s perspective, services inflation remains relatively subdued, but this reflects the need to keep prices low amid weak demand, which will harm profits.”

This further confirmed that tariffs are a tax on gross profits of companies, and whether or not they’re able to pass some of them on to their customers depends on market dynamics. Last time, in the 2018-round of tariffs, they were overall not able to pass them on, though they tried. Higher prices can cause sales to plunge, which causes those higher prices to get rolled back.

“The resulting combined increase in prices levied [selling prices] by companies across both sectors was the second largest seen over the past six months – surpassed only by the rise seen in January – but remaining below the survey’s long-run average,” the report said.

The numbers: above 50 = growth, below 50 = decline.

The Flash US PMI Composite Output Index jumped to 53.5, a three-month high, up from 51.6 in February, a 10-month low, according to the preliminary reading today, which captures about 85% of the data.

The Flash US Services PMI Business Activity Index jumped to 54.3 (faster growth) from 51.0 in February (slower growth).

Flash US Manufacturing PMI fell to 49.8 (slight decline) from 52.7 in February (faster growth).

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The post Services Activity Jumps in March, Cost Pressures from Tariffs & Staffing Well Up appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

Net Zero is Dividing the World

We are seeing some notable trends in the energy and finance markets. Energy Policies and laws incorporating the Net Zero mandate from governments have started breaking into two camps. Countries that are heading to Net Zero are having more financial problems, and those that are not moving to Net Zero are focusing on increased GDP and growth. You won’t want to miss the Energy Realities team from Bulgaria, the UK or Canada, and the US as they cover these trends. The hosts, David Blackmon, Irina Slav, Tammy Nemeth, and Stu Turley, have great information from different viewpoints and backgrounds.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:11 – Introduction

02:12 – Net Zero and Global Division

08:31 – Heathrow Power Outage & Net Zero Failures

14:14 – Corporate Shift Away from Net Zero

21:14 – Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism

24:12 – Media Censorship & Throttling of Net Zero Discussion

33:27 – Carney Defends Carbon Strategy, Say Trade With Europe, Asia Dependent on It

36:48 – Ed Miliband admits his solar panels bought for English schools and hospitals are Chinese and may be made using coal

43:08 – Banks picking sides

44:24 – The Fossil Industry Gets Its Revenge on Green Activists

47:07 – The Business Case for Green Energy

47:21 – Tesla’s Electric Dream Collapses As Carmaker Possibly Enters A Blackberry moment

51:58 – The UK’s Heathrow Power Outage sheds light on Net Zero Policies

53:05 – Trump,Zelensky Talk Cease-Fire Conditions in Phone Call – US Looks at Nuclear Power Plant ownership

55:20 – Global Energy Strategies & U.S. Policy Impacts

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

Net Zero is Dividing the World

Stuart Turley [00:00:11] Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy Realities on Monday Morning Live on X, YouTube, and LinkedIn. We have a wonderful show. We’re waiting for Tammy Nemeth from The Nemeth Report. She’ll be here in a little bit, but we’ve got David Blackmon. David Blackmon is a legend in my mind. He is absolutely all over the planet at the Daily Caller, Forbes, and… Everywhere you can possibly imagine, David, welcome, how are you today?

David Blackmon [00:00:43] I’m glad there’s one person who thinks I’m a legend, Stu, always comforting to know. I’m fine

Stuart Turley [00:00:50] you. You’ve you’ve had a lot of great things coming around the corner and here comes Tammy and she’s rolling into the stage. We have also Irina Slav and Irina is also over there at Oilprice.com. She’s got her own substack and I mean, I absolutely love your substack. She is a great authorist out there or author. How are you today?

Irina Slav [00:01:19] Great, thank you, Stu. It’s a lovely spring day.

Stuart Turley [00:01:23] Oh, how’s the gardening going?

Irina Slav [00:01:25] It’s going well now that it’s warmer, everything is growing, including a lot of weeds, but we’ll take care of that.

Stuart Turley [00:01:32] Oh, outstanding. I’ll tell you what, we have got a heck of a show. I’m Stu Turley, president of the Sandstone Group. And I’ll say what, Net Zero is dividing the world into those that have energy and those that do not have energy. And it’s also a… a strong correlation between fiscal responsibility, those with GDP growth, and those without GDP growth. So this conversation is not only just is net zero dividing the world, what kind of shape is it going on? David, what are your thoughts there?

David Blackmon [00:02:12] Well, that’s absolutely right. And I think, you know, there’s a general awakening that net zero is actually an unattainable goal and even another awakening that it is a scam and always has been a scam, a tool to use to invoke global style, authoritarian style of government over all free countries. And we see that happening in real time in Germany. You see it happening in the UK, see it happening in New Zealand, Australia, Canada. And we did see it for four years happening in the United States. Luckily, we still have free elections in the United States sometimes. And last November’s election went the right way. And so we’ll get a four-year respite from it. I think even Al Gore, Al understands, and I want to reference an op-ed he wrote at the Wall Street Journal last week. understands that the fraud that is net zero goal is dying. And he wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal last week in which he admits and chronicles catalogs a series of withdrawals from international agreements by big investment houses, by insurance companies, you know, in both Europe and the United States from these net zero alliances that are falling apart. And he talks about the fact that the United States and EU governments are backing away from some of their net zero goals now. United States is just willy-nilly going to cancel everything by the end, at the end of the day. That’s another topic for another show. But then the rest of his piece focuses on trying to encourage the big investment houses and companies to continue to ramp up their investments. and low carbons, energy solutions, and spends several paragraphs touting his own scam in that realm that he’s a partner in. So even Al Gore understands the world is changing, and it’s changing very rapidly. The landscape is changing very quickly, where climate alarmism is concerned. I think it’s a net positive for the whole world that the United States is now playing leading role in making that happen. And over the weekend, one last thing I want to reference, while all these countries in Europe, the EU and Germany, UK and others, are still, you know, maintaining their headlong dash into this net zero madness, deindustrializing their economies, the Prime Minister of India put out a very public post on Sunday celebrating the fact that India has now achieved a record level of coal production. That’s what India’s proud of in the energy space. And at the same time, China, of course, last year permitted the building of more new coal plants in a single year than all the existing fleet of coal plants in the rest of the world. So without India and China on board, net zero is a fantasy. It was always a fantasy even with them on board. Certainly can’t succeed without them on-board and the whole thing is falling apart. So. We even see Al Gore now preaching an alternative narrative, and that’s a net positive for everybody.

Stuart Turley [00:05:43] David, this brings up a point that you had shared out on LinkedIn from one of your friends out there. I’m not sure where this came from, but this is a beautiful representation and we take a look in the 1800s for our podcast listeners out in the 18 hundreds there’s wood, you know, sticks and then you come over here to the 2000s and you look at coal oil gas nuclear. And it is really renewables on the trillions of dollars of renewable unsustainable energy, how much it’s really added to it. And it’s not that much. I mean, it’s less than.

David Blackmon [00:06:26] amazing graphic. It shows basically that we still get about 80% of our primary energy from fossil fuels today, despite $20 trillion in subsidy investment for renewable energy, which is essentially the same percentage that fossil fuels provided in 1995. So there’s been virtually no change in primary energy delivery. The other thing that shows, well, it doesn’t show because It only goes through 2020. So it doesn’t show the last four years of the ramp up again in what they call traditional biomass, which is essentially burning wood for energy. Right. You know, we began, England began its transition from away from burning wood for energy to burning coal in the 16th century, 500 years ago. And last year we burned a record amount of wood for energy, an all time record high global. Energy transitions never eliminate the existing fuel source. They only add to fuel sources. And that’s exactly what’s been happening in this quote, energy transition, we’re supposed to be in the middle of. So it’s a great, it’s wonderful graphic. I wish I knew exactly who created it, but I don’t.

Stuart Turley [00:07:46] Speaking of bio.

Irina Slav [00:07:47] How demand is rising.

David Blackmon [00:07:50] Yes, and the land has just spiked since, you know, one of its ministries.

Stuart Turley [00:07:57] Tammy, speaking of biomass Heathrow had a horrific issue and let me show you what on Heathrow’s had a power outage was it Thursday evening, Friday morning, our time and something like that. And Heathrow’s emergency backup systems went to net zero. for biomass reasons and their infrastructure is absolutely horrific. So let’s go to this video here.

Video Speaker 1 [00:08:31] requires a backup and I can exclusively reveal this morning to you your viewers and your listeners having spoken to an industry expert it appears that Heathrow had changed its backup systems in order to be wait for it net zero compliant and therefore they had got rid of their diesel generators and had moved towards a biomass generator that was designed not to completely replace the grid but work alongside the grid and therefore basically their net zero compliant backup system has completely failed in its core function at the first time of asking. I mean it beggars belief.

Stuart Turley [00:09:17] And so when you sit back and kind of go uh Heathrow going down is absolutely horrific. Tammy, how are you this morning? You’re having some technical difficulties this morning.

Tammy Nemeth [00:09:29] Yeah, I don’t know, I must be because I was working on the carbon border adjustment mechanism article and it just my computer function. So I’m on my iPad. I have to move around the house because it uses the Wi Fi and our old house that’s parts of get a good signal. So yeah, I know the the Heathrow thing was very fascinating. Catherine Porter on what logic had a really great detailed assessment of the grid and what the what they were supposed to do and whatnot and and I forget if it was she or someone else had talked about some of the American airports have backup electricity so that they could run for days without being on the grid. So it’s like Heathrow which is like one of the biggest airports in the world. doesn’t have that and that supposedly this backup system is not really a backup but is it runs these other things in parallel? I don’t know. The whole thing is

Stuart Turley [00:10:34] You can go to energynewsbeat.co and their first article up there has got a detailed history on it on my substack as well. It’s pathetic.

Tammy Nemeth [00:10:43] It is. It is and you know that this is what I find so interesting and contradictory because on the one hand the environmental people who are part of the climate change committee want to shut down air travel except for certain times for people or you know for the elites and that kind of thing. But then there there’s others who are encouraging like Rachel Reeves who’s a die-hard socialist and full on with this green stuff. wanted to expand the runways at Heathrow and was giving approval to expand the runway at Heathrow. And in Canada they’re trying to encourage the pension funds to take over the investment in airports. So on the one hand they’re like we’re going to shut down the airports but we want pension funds, to invest in them and we’re going to expand airports but who’s going to be using them? I understand. So it’s one of these you know, green contradictions that we talk often about on the channel.

Stuart Turley [00:11:49] So, Irina, what do you think about the EU in net zero?

Irina Slav [00:11:55] Well, I think companies are moving in the opposite direction of governments from what I’ve been reading, you know, all these companies, not just in the United States. But some European companies, large companies, are reconsidering their net zero pledges and commitments and the sustainability language. There was a new story in the Financial Times just a couple of days ago, was it today, I can’t remember, saying that the FT just went and looked at companies websites about their commitments and slashing emissions and all that. and they have pulled these texts. I’m sure that pretty much everyone is doing it in the corporate world. Some of them are blaming Trump, of course, the Wall Street Journal is blaming Trump. He told Trump’s fault because of this pressure. But I think, as I’ve written in my sub Saturday, that they’re doing it with a deep, deep sigh of relief that now they have an excuse to start walking back these commitments. But the governments in Europe. Well, the central brain of the thing, of this creature that the EU has become is still doubling down on stupid. It will take a while before they realize that corporate money is not coming because they don’t want to waste this money. And another interesting story that confirms this is from China, it’s from Bloomberg where The Chinese corporate world has realized that they have reached the point of over-saturation with solar, specifically, and there was one guy, an executive, I think, saying that coal and gas are going nowhere because they’re providing very, very necessary backup, Heathrow Airport, backup, wind and solar, because they can’t operate without backup. hence all these new coal power plant approvals last year. Diverging paths between corporate and government is going to be interesting.

Stuart Turley [00:14:14] I think we’ve got a video Tammy that really shows someone that understands net zero and T and I think that when we sit back and understand the people that are defining it net zero financial policies and energy policies may not have all the information but let’s let’s hear your thoughts on

Video Speaker 2 [00:14:38] Because I’ve never had any before, so I’m trying Sleepytime Tea, and I got the big one because I’m assuming that I’ll probably like it. So I’ve got this out of the package, it’s just the square of tea, I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. I already have my.

David Blackmon [00:14:58] Pause it, Stu, can you pause it? Everybody needs to understand this is a 2021 clip of Jennifer Granholm developing energy policy at the Department of Energy.

Video Speaker 2 [00:15:15] And then you just dump it in. I’m gonna get a spoon quick. All right, so you just stir it around and I’m assuming it’ll dissolve into the tea at some point. Maybe just in a couple minutes. It’s been a few minutes and nothing has happened. I tried it obviously and it is a total mess so they really should make something that contains it. Otherwise, it just goes everywhere. 0 out of 10.

Tammy Nemeth [00:15:46] Oh my gosh, is this for real?

Stuart Turley [00:15:49] Perfect example of energy policy based on climate activism without an understanding of physics or fiscal responsibility.

Tammy Nemeth [00:16:01] Well, unless they were, there was that study that said tea bags like that are sources of microplastics or something.

David Blackmon [00:16:09] Oh my god.

Irina Slav [00:16:11] How do they make this paper?

Tammy Nemeth [00:16:13] I don’t know, but this is what the study said, that you shouldn’t use tea bags like that, because it puts, I don’ know, some chemical in.

Irina Slav [00:16:22] I’m fine, the cleaner! UGH!

David Blackmon [00:16:27] I want to reinforce a point Irina made about the changing corporate language around climate change and the fact that they’re backing off these commitments. Everyone should think back. If you ever have watched investor presentations by the CEOs of these big corporations, think back to the 2020 through 2022 time frame. And if you watched any of those, listened to them, you would the CEOs of major oil companies, coal companies. every company you can imagine leading off their investor presentation with their climate change commitments and their ESG plans and all this stuff that was not central to their core business. I listened to, well, I won’t say which company, but the investor presentation of one of the big oil companies back in February. Zero mention of any of that other and the investments, their business unit. on these kinds of projects are making and the profitability of those projects, not the climate impacts of the projects, but the profitability. It’s a complete change of priorities, complete change in language. It began at the end of 2022, early 2023, we saw the first manifestation of it at Air Week Conference in 2023 when there was just this big focus. on energy security rather than climate change and it’s only expanded since then. And it’s a welcome change because these companies are focused back on their core businesses and doing what they’re supposed to do, which is maximizing profits for their investors.

Tammy Nemeth [00:18:11] Okay, so I will add to that with the because I’ve been doing all this research on the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which kicks in for real next year. So right now, it’s been a transition for how companies should calculate their emissions and how they should set up their infrastructure to do so. And then this whole process for reporting. Now everybody thinks with the carbon boarder adjustment mechanism. It’s just a tariff. But it’s more than a tariff. It creates an entirely new bureaucracy in order to calculate, verify, report, and then decide how much an importer will have to pay for whatever they’re importing. Now, right now it’s six major high-emitting commodities or products. But eventually there’ll be everything that’s on the European trading system. So by 2030, it’s almost everything. So for the EU, it’s great that the companies are like, well, I don’t really wanna have to talk about this. Let’s sort of move back to our main focus and everything. But there’s no moves to get rid of this. They’re doubling down on it. And by 2030, it will cover almost every product entering the European Union. So I mean, people could, maybe companies should say, well,I don’t wanna deal with the EU. I don’t want to export because we’re going to have to. do invest all this money into counting our emissions. And it’s not that they care about what your environmental regulations are. Like if you’re really looking, you have all these regulations for managing the water and the land or your employees. So they don’t care about any of that. They only care about what your embedded emissions are. And it goes through the entire supply chain. So one, two, and three. So it’s crazy. And on the one hand, it’s when we talked about the bifurcation last year, where you had the bricks going in one direction, and you had the western nations with the EU, and the G7 and everybody on the other. And now that America is joining basically where the bricks were at, in saying, we don’t want to have to do all this stuff. But then at the same time, you have California introducing carbon disclosures. You’ve got New York just introduced it. I think Illinois might have been introducing something in their legislation. So you have blue states that are going to be demanding this information. then you have people who are going to have to export to the EU or they’ll have to find a different thing. So there’s all these divisions taking place and what that will mean for how companies operate, where they trade and all of that. I think we’re just sort of at the beginning of how this is all going to play out.

Stuart Turley [00:21:14] Tammy, you just nailed a huge home run mess. And congratulations on Monday morning here in the United States for what a mess. But an honest question is the Obama era EPA regulations of putting in CO2 as a pollutant, which is actually plant food. And you sit back and kind of go, wait a minute. the place gets greener with CO2. It’s the pollutants in particular matter in a coal plant or the other kind of things that that redefinition is going to go on. What do you think as a world, and I’m going to open this up to the panel, net zero or what does the redefiniton of CO2 mean to the rest of the world for net zero?

Tammy Nemeth [00:22:04] That’s a great question. I don’t know how that’ll play out. I think countries like India will say, wow, that’s great. We don’t have to worry about that anymore. China is trying to play all sides. I mean, one of the articles I’m going to talk about is the UK going over there signing who knows what deals memorandum of understanding. at the same time the UK government is announcing they’re going to put solar panels on every school and government buildings and so on. Where are you getting those from? Well, we’re going to buy them from China until we make them in the UK. When are you ever going to make them in the U.K.? Unless it’s a Chinese company that sets up here. With what energy? I mean, We don’t have the materials, don’t have the energy. So they’re just gonna keep importing container after container of Chinese solar panels. So China’s like, yeah, okay, we can report all this stuff because we probably with social credit already have all that data and information. And if not, we know we can make it up and who’s gonna verify it. Now, the EU market does have provision for verification and they will actually part in the little flowchart I saw, they will send inspectors to foreign countries to verify what they’re doing. I’m like, OK, how is that going to work? In China, are they going to hire local Chinese who will carry out the inspections? How does that work?

Irina Slav [00:23:33] And how do you verify these numbers, yeah, emission numbers, how?

Tammy Nemeth [00:23:38] Right. So they go there, they inspect their data or I don’t know, their processes, they want geolocation for where they’re getting their energy from. And I’m like, okay, well, China will say, we have these factories in this particular province, and they have X amount of solar and wind. Ta-da, we’ve got no green electricity, right? And who’s going to say, I’m sorry, China, we think you’re lying. Can we still have those solar panels you’re making for us? Like it makes. Anyway, so that’s my little thing for today.

Stuart Turley [00:24:12] Um, I noticed that I have zero views on X and I’ve had people sending, saying it’s not showing out there. So I’m even being throttled on X when you start talking about net zero.

David Blackmon [00:24:24] Yeah, and I’m being followed on Linkedin.

Stuart Turley [00:24:28] So everybody needs to subscribe to our substack so this can go out there. Unbelievable.

Tammy Nemeth [00:24:36] Are we streaming from Substack?

David Blackmon [00:24:40] Um, No no The Substack doesn’t have that capability unless you use their tool.

Stuart Turley [00:24:47] Right.

Tammy Nemeth [00:24:47] OK.

David Blackmon [00:24:50] but we will repost this at Substack.

Stuart Turley [00:24:53] Right.

David Blackmon [00:24:54] And on YouTube.

Stuart Turley [00:24:57] But you know,.

David Blackmon [00:24:57] Our problem is with YouTube is that they’re gonna throttle it and it’s hard to find. And so yes, the thing for people to do is check our various Substack

Stuart Turley [00:25:07] The, you know, this whole thing of policies generated by people on the left have a negative impact. And we’re seeing that play out with Tesla. Tesla is a great brand. I, you, I want the choice to be able to buy an electric car or not buy an electric car. And if I buy an electric car, I’m buying a Tesla. I like the fact that it’s going to be able to make. life better for people for driving longer periods of time. I’ve got a 90 year old dad. I’d love to be able to see him drive till he’s 95 with a Tesla, an auto driving Tesla. But why is the left being so bad? So the people making left-wing decisions is like a wife doing something really bad to a husband. I mean, there are things that just shouldn’t be done. Now, imagine if you’re making policies and you put all these airheads. I don’t understand that analogy. But if you make all these policies, it’s like putting a bunch of airheads in lemonade and then forcing the rest of the public to drink it, like this poor woman did to her husband.

Stuart Turley [00:26:58] People that make policies think that they’re giving us lemonade, but it’s actually so tart we cannot even stand it when we start failing as an economy.

Irina Slav [00:27:11] They keep asking, why aren’t you drinking the lemonade? It’s so good for the planet.

Stuart Turley [00:27:17] And a shout out to Gayle. She’s seeing it on LinkedIn. And Patrick, you’re on LinkedIn and Greg is on your LinkedIn. So, it’s not totally shut down. Oh, cool. Sorry. I like all forms of if you hate us, give us your feedback. That means you’re watching

David Blackmon [00:27:42] It’s like Lyndon Johnson. I don’t care what people are saying about me just as long as they’re talking about.

Irina Slav [00:27:48] It wasn’t wrong.

Stuart Turley [00:27:52] I like the, I actually like open discussions. And David, your open discussion is kind of like what the Biden administration did when they buried this report. This was a fairly huge story that LNG was shut down and our own president did not know that he did when he was speaking with speaker Johnson. And speaker Johnson goes, wait a minute, You did not. Shut down, LNG.

David Blackmon [00:28:26] So this story, the news media suddenly found this story this past week, late last week, and I look back and I had actually, someone had revealed this to me, and I think I know who it was and I probably shouldn’t mention, in Washington DC had revealed this to be and I actually wrote about it in a piece in the Daily Caller last September, but it didn’t make a lot of news at that time. And that is that DOE on this stupid, Ludicrous. LNG pause that Biden, Granholm, and John Podesta put into effect in January of 2024 and lasted a full year, had zero basis in anything resembling science. And it turned out that the Department of Energy, even though it pretended to be conducting its own study last year, it actually conducted the exact same study in 2023 and found that LNG exports and LNG production globally is actually a net benefit to the United States and both environmentally and economically. And of course, Jennifer Granholm and the people at DOE decided, well, we have to hide that 2023 study because we’re pretending to conduct the same study in 2024, but they didn’t succeed in hiding it permanently. And so the media actually, reported on it last week, six months too late, but whatever, better late than never. And, you know, but it’s just the kind, it’s the links the Biden administration would go in order to create this insane suite of energy and climate policies, all based on hysteria about too much plant food and the atmosphere. And now, of course, we have an energy secretary and an EPA administrator. uh, who are going about reversing that and all that stuff. And of course, EPA is going to reconsider the endangerment finding. And I think we’ll succeed in reversing it. And that’s going to put every policy, both Biden and Obama put into place in real jeopardy of being reversed. Gail Campbell, Andrus. I have the same conclusion, but I’m coming at the net zero issue from a different angle. I am in the private sector and can make fuel efficient devices for transport trailers and large trucks. Yes. I cannot get introduced to anyone involved in carbon markets or carbon credit markets. I’m led to believe that carbon markets are fraud. Yes, a lot of us are led to belief that. US companies are interested in investing in my company until they find out I’m located in, oh God, okay. I should have incorporated in the US it seems, oh boy. Well, sorry you had difficulties, but she illustrates a really good point is, You know, none of this means that companies should or are going to stop investing in environmental friendly solutions. None of this means that’s going to happen.

Stuart Turley [00:31:30] The biggest thing.

David Blackmon [00:31:32] The ones that work.

Stuart Turley [00:31:35] And Irina, I think one of the biggest things that we see is it’s not that I’m sitting here with my oil and gas for executives for nuclear hat. I am an oil and glass kind of guy. But I love nuclear. I love no waste or no damage to the environment. That’s what this is all about. And you write about that all the time. I mean, it’s about the environment.

Tammy Nemeth [00:32:04] Yeah, it’s also about what works in the most in the best and most efficient way. And as we’ve seen with solar and wind, outside of certain niche areas, like where it’s really difficult to connect to the grid or something like that. It’s really an abuse of the planet, I would I would submit it takes up way more space in dangers way more animals and land and Water and air to some extent if you’re looking at hydro, for example, it I mean there’s Significant impacts on on the environment then you have the built environment Which apparently we’re supposed to care about except when it comes to that. There’s there’s always seems to be exceptions for pursuing this this ideology and It it’s it becomes an issue if there’s something better that comes along Like fusion or whatever. I would absolutely jump on that, you know But it’s not there yet. And until those things are there, the best that we have are oil, gas, coal, hydro in some areas that have already been developed, and nuclear.

Stuart Turley [00:33:19] I’d love to see nuclear exported from countries that have it to those that don’t. And Tammy, on your stories this week, you had Carney defends carbon strategy. Holy smokes, Batman. What a good timing. This was a great, you know, intro to your stories. This week says trade with Europe, Asia depends on it. I’m not sure this guy, I don’t know.

Tammy Nemeth [00:33:43] He’s right about, so he’s the new leader of the Liberal Party and I guess as Prime Minister, but he called an election yesterday, so we’ll have our election at the end of April. And he, his very first trip was to jet around to Paris and London, a really quick two-day trip, where it looks like he was trying to stay, try and get Canada to be able to buy or be involved in the new EU defense. procurement stuff and is looking to buy European equipment, I guess, or something instead of American, which, you know, what’s the interoperability with NORAD and, you know, whatever continental defense. I recall Canada bought some European little light trucks or something back in the late 80s, early 90s that were terrible, couldn’t even run in the winter. So, you know, we have a history of making poor decisions with respect to defense procurement, especially with our relationship with Europe. Anyway, but what he said there is that when he talks about carbon strategy, he’s talking about mandatory climate disclosures and carbon tax. So he’s got rid of the personal carbon tax that everybody could see that everyone was paying and it was very visible. So he got rid that, he set it to zero, but is going to increase what is currently being charged to industry. So industry will end up picking up the slack for whatever they were charging for individuals and he’s saying we absolutely have to have it in order to trade with Europe because of Europe’s carbon border adjustment mechanism. And it requires mandatory climate disclosures. It requires being able to account and verify your emissions. And then if you have a carbon tax, it gets deducted off what you would have to pay through this tariff. Then he said Asia depends on it. Actually Asia doesn’t. And so that was just a straight up lie or he was misspeaking, I suppose. So, um, where he says you you need it for Europe absolutely but we have eight percent of Canada’s trade goes to the European Union why would you want to increase that and then on the one hand he’s complaining that America wants to make us a 51st state but then he said let’s go join the EU so how is that any different in fact it’d be worse if Canada were to join the you because member states. are forced to put into their own law what the European Union decides. So you really have little control over what you’re doing. It has to be in complete alignment with what Europe is doing or the European Commission. So that would actually be worse for Canada than if it were to have some kind of relationship with the United States. And then, as I mentioned before, Ed Miliband jetted off to China, was there for a couple of days. for signing these memorandum of understanding and the solar panels that he’s buying to put on all English schools and hospitals are made in China and will likely, oh yeah, they might be used, made using coal, might be, probably, you know, like, come on, give me a break. And if it isn’t using slave labor, yeah, you, know, from his perspective, doesn’t matter, We just need to have lots of solar panels and… We were driving around the UK countryside on the weekend and saw a whole bunch of really beautiful farm fields being solar panel installations going up, hundreds, if not thousands of acres of farmland being used for solar.

David Blackmon [00:37:45] One question, this personal carbon tax that Carney set to zero, wasn’t that personal carbon tax originally placed on citizens in Canada by his own political party?

Tammy Nemeth [00:37:59] Yeah, yeah. And that was going to this is what the conservatives have been railing on about for at least three years to the whole campaign was ax the tax. So Carney like, Oh, look, we did it. And so in typical hypocritical fashion, on the one hand saying, we’re not American, America’s bad. He then sets up a little table and pretends to do an executive order, which you can’t do in Canada, and then finds it like Trump does. I’m like, okay, so America’s bad, but let’s do copy them in all these different things.

David Blackmon [00:38:35] She just can’t make this stuff up.

Tammy Nemeth [00:38:39] Yeah, the carbon market scale, you’re absolutely right. You have to be in the in-group in order to participate in the carbon-market. Now, there’s a group where they’re putting some chemicals into the water in the sea off the coast of Nova Scotia in Halifax Harbor, where it’s supposed to capture… um co2 and turn it into stone or i don’t know something in the water and they’re getting carbon credits that they’re selling to companies like google um google alphabet meta i think was one of them microsoft was one there was like a list of about five companies stripe is the one that set it up mark carney used to be on the board of strike and so they set up this carbon market where if you’re actually removing CO2 and storing it away, then you can participate in the carbon market. But if you have to demonstrate that you’re actually storing it in order to be part of these things. So it’s kind of weird how they set that up.

David Blackmon [00:39:57] Canada could copy the US better if Alberta became our 51st state.

Tammy Nemeth [00:40:03] Interesting. Okay, that’s my thing. Thank you.

Stuart Turley [00:40:08] Good job. and your Substack

Tammy Nemeth [00:40:13] Yes, so it’s the TheNemethReport.substack.com and I’ve been working on this carbon border adjustment mechanism piece for a long time, but I realized it’s way too long, so I’m going to break it up into a couple of different parts, so the first part should be up today.

Stuart Turley [00:40:30] So put it as paid subscribers only. That would be the best way to do that.

Tammy Nemeth [00:40:36] Well, I don’t do paid subscriptions right now. I’m just, it’s just all out.

Stuart Turley [00:40:41] If you should and I let’s go to Irina next here. There we go, Irina.

Irina Slav [00:40:48] Thanks, but could I please address Greg’s second comment which presents it news?

Irina Slav [00:40:56] Germany anchors net zero by 20, 45 in constitution. Germany is on a suicide mission. Emissions from global construction sectors stop rising. Okay, are we sure? BYD unveils new EV tech to charge vehicles in just five minutes. Does anyone need any more evidence that the Chinese are killing it technologically? I mean, there’s no debate about that. Germany earmarks 100 billion euros for climate action, yes, because the party that won the elections needs green votes to pass these changes and it had to make promises. Germany has been in a recession for two years, all thanks to its climate policies. EVs are going to save you 20 million tons of CO2 emissions in 2025. If this is according to Amber, I’m sorry, but I’m taking it with a really big pinch of salt. And Germany is on track to hit 2030 climate goal of cutting emissions to 65% below 1990, of course, because they are in a recession, because there are industrializing. If you cannot afford to use the energy that you possibly produce, you will use less energy. and this will work towards hitting this emission target. So please, I mean, let’s be serious.

Tammy Nemeth [00:42:23] If you go live in a tent, you’re not emitting.

David Blackmon [00:42:29] Germany is the poster child for this. You depress your economy, you de-industrialize, you send all the emissions to China, and you pretend you’re helping here.

Irina Slav [00:42:39] Exactly, Germany is the case study that we all wanted to see, and the UK as well, and they’re both failing.

Stuart Turley [00:42:48] David, you also mentioned Germany, but I believe there is the close second behind that with the UK, New York, Delaware, California, and a couple others. Sorry, and I mean, here’s your stories for today.

Irina Slav [00:43:07] Well, that’s okay. Now, the first story I think I’ve already referenced, some of the stuff I’ve written in there about corporates walking back their climate commitments and pretending it didn’t happen and citing challenges and supply chain problems and all this. But ultimately, they’re going back. on what previously used to be their top priority, climate action, emission reduction, scope three reporting and all that. They saw it’s not working, they saw it not making money. So now they’re going back on these pledges. It’s not just banks, it’s all sorts of companies, Aviva, the insurance giant in Europe did just that. and Some companies in Europe, before they tied ESG performance to executives’ remuneration, now they are decoupling ESG targets from the compensation packages of executives because it’s not making sense and they’ll never make any money. So yeah, that’s that. What was the second story? Oh yeah, that’s a lovely headline from the Wall Street Journal, how the fossil fuel industry gets its revenge on green activists. This is not a revenge, this is justice, you people. Well, yeah, the green activists have been, you know, destroying stuff and protesting and interfering with people’s lives. I like this angle, tell me. Yes, and they have assumed that nobody will ever do anything to stop them and they will not be punished whatever they do, I assume short of killing someone. But now with this verdict against Greenpeace… Did you hear about the just top oil people who appealed their sentences but only some of them got reduced by a year and the others were upheld by the court, which is again a win. It’s not a matter of revenge, it’s a matter punishment for wrong action, for wrong doing.

Stuart Turley [00:45:32] I think the people that are actually terrorizing Tesla right now deserve their 20 years in jail when they do firebombs and those kind of things. I hope…

Irina Slav [00:45:44] And all the emissions from these fires, all these natural fires, that’s a serious emission generation going on that do they not care?

Stuart Turley [00:45:55] I want to know from our listeners, if they have any questions, but I’m hearing that everybody that I know is running out and buying a Tesla and they’re actually going to, I think Tesla’s, this is maybe a marketing strategy. I don’t know how, but I think that they’re, actually, I’m trying to find out how many Tesla’s- It’s gonna boom in their sales, yes. I think it’s actually increasing sales. I don’t know. I would want to see. I want to see numbers on it and I’m trying to find those but.

David Blackmon [00:46:29] We’ll see at the end of the month. Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:46:31] Yeah, how do we find your uh Substack there.

Irina Slav [00:46:34] by typing Irina Slav on Energy or just Irina Slav plus Substack. And it’s right there on Google.

Stuart Turley [00:46:42] I love your articles also on oilprice.com as well, too. So those are.

David Blackmon [00:46:48] The headline to the shocking truth about actions. That’s perfect.

Irina Slav [00:46:54] A real shopper.

Stuart Turley [00:46:56] And let’s go to David next year. I’m trying to find your slide here. I think it’s this one. There you go, David.

David Blackmon [00:47:04] Okay, so the second one, let’s look at that first. That’s the op-ed that Al Gore wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week, and we’ve talked about that already. Al is very upset that the tide has turned against him and is beginning to lash out. Texas electric dream collapses as carmaker possibly enters a blackberry moment. This is from… an investment advisory website. I’m trying to remember what it’s called. God almighty, I can’t remember. Anyway, so their thesis is, we all remember that Blackberry was the personal handheld device that dominated the market for a decade before Apple introduced the first iPhone in 2007. And that step change in technology by Apple, which kept up and recognized societal trends and took advantage of the new technology. can introduce this step change in technology, collapse Blackberry. Blackberry still exists, but it’s a dramatically reduced market share company from what it used to be. So this Seeking Alpha is the website where this article appeared. You know, their thesis is that, well, you know, Tesla is facing the same kind of dilemma because of all these violent attacks on its infrastructure and its cars. I don’t think that’s true. I think actually this is a real buying opportunity for Tesla. The stock price has fallen by half since January and is a really good time for people to be investing in Tesla because what people don’t really understand about Tesla, it’s a highly diversified company. Yes, I mean, sales of its cars is its main revenue stream, but it is developing all sorts of other technologies that it is selling all over the world. and it’s a very robust business model at this point. It’s not the same one trick pony it was 10 years ago. Elon Musk is not a stupid man. He’s probably the most brilliant business mind of our generation and maybe any generation. And so probably this is a real buying opportunity to invest in Tesla, not a blackberry moment, but I thought it was interesting that that story got written.

Irina Slav [00:49:22] It’s really stupid because there’s no better technology in EVs. People are burning cars because they’re angry.

David Blackmon [00:49:30] They’re stupid and

David Blackmon [00:49:32] and it’s all an organized campaign. What people need to understand about the attacks on Tesla is this is all a campaign organized by a dark money group funded by George Soros and the open society foundations. It’s going to last for a limited amount of time and then there’s going to be a full recovery in Tesla and Tesla stock. Yes, the market has plateaued for electric vehicles in the United States, at least temporarily, but think about who their competitors are. Every pure play EV company competitor to Tesla in the United States is either in bankruptcy or teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. And the EV divisions at Ford and GM are failing disastrously. Ford’s lost five billion dollars each in the last two years on its EV business unit and probably won’t continue in the same form going ahead they’ve talked about. rejiggering their plan to invest in hybrids rather than pure-play electric vehicles. And so everybody’s failing with Tesla in this market in the United States. This is a buying opportunity.

Stuart Turley [00:50:41] You bet. My father-in-law just picked up his yesterday. So, I mean, it’s pretty cool.

David Blackmon [00:50:47] I’ll never buy one. I’m not gonna go out and buy an EV. I don’t like the technology, but look, people need to understand what Tesla is and what it is.

Stuart Turley [00:50:56] their robots are making a major announcements here very quickly and I think that that is a whole new animal for them. David and your substack, I’m trying to get to your substack here, there we are.

Irina Slav [00:51:12] Sorry guys.

Tammy Nemeth [00:51:12] Bye, Irina! See you next week.

Stuart Turley [00:51:19] There you go.

David Blackmon [00:51:19] See me at blackmon.substack, energy transition realities. Love to have you there. You’ll get a laugh every once in a while.

Stuart Turley [00:51:26] And if you really care about emissions, people should buy a Prius. Toyota has been great with standing the net zero movement. I love Toyota. And I think they’re leading the world in hybrids. And quite honestly, I think hybrides are the technology forward to lower emissions. I’m all in on let’s be good on the environment. I think that that is a wonderful kind of a thing. So. And for our stories here, we’ve already covered the Heathrow outage on net zero. I think that exemplifies totally what is going on with the net zero policies based on false climate narratives equals a false narrative of an energy secure country. and I think this is going to mold into one other next statement, there will be those countries with fiscal responsibility and growth and there will be those countries without fiscal responsibility and growth, and they’re going to be in decline. We’re going see a microcosm of that in the United States, and that’s going to be the blue states are going to failing even further, the red states are going to be successful. until more of the blue people come into the blue states and if we don’t get our elections fixed, the whole thing’s going to fall. So sorry about that one. But this next story bringing up here is Trump Zelensky ceasefire conditions on US looks at buying a nuclear power plant. And I find this one very interesting and very important from several different aspects. Zelensky went to the EU and reportedly was offering the minerals to the UK. And then he also offered the minerals the EU. So I think those minerals are actually worthless and Trump is actually doing a great thing and saying, okay, I don’t need your stinking minerals. I will take your grid. Holy smokes, Batman. So now, if you think about it, what has Russia done great? They have a 4% GDP growth last year. With a 4 percent GDP growth, countries love 4%. And so when you sit back and what are they exporting? They’re exporting energy, they’re exporting their nuclear technology, they are exporting their oil, they exporting their LNG, but their LNG has had a really hard time because their dart fleet is not nearly as much. But in this case, if the United States exported clean technology for scrubbers, we do coal generation better than anybody else. Why don’t we export that to India and China and teach them how to really clean the emissions out of coal plant? Oh, we can make a lot of money. It’s kind of like Canada in their turbine generators that are needed for natural gas plants and pipelines. Canada does a great job on those things. If you focused on that technology, Canada would be doing very well on those kind of exports because their turbines are phenomenal and needed. So, if United States focused on owning grids around, let’s say, Africa and we helped jobs in Africa would help jobs in the United States, that to me makes sense.

Tammy Nemeth [00:55:20] That wouldn’t happen in Africa until the World Bank and IMF leadership changes. Because I mean, if the United States were to go in and make those investments, I think people would be upset because they’re trying to get the debt under control. So why go and try and make these U.S. government investments in places like Africa? I understand the Ukraine one, because I think Trump is working from the perspective. If we own that nuclear power plant, and Russia attacks it, that’s a declaration of war against America. And that was the whole point of him wanting to be able to be involved with the rare earths and the different minerals in Ukraine, because then it would be like, if Russia is trying to do something, then that’s an attack on the United States. But, you know, to do that in Africa, I don’t know, I didn’t see that there would be a real public support for that in the United states. But hey, you guys are Hurricane. What do you think?

Stuart Turley [00:56:19] I’m thinking that if we did something other than what we’re doing now, it would be successful. And what we are doing now is funding USAID, which is the CIA and overturning governments around the world. I think if we actually tried to become business partners, I think that it would make a huge difference. And when I visited with Nj Ayuk, who is the head of the African Energy Chamber, he’s out there saying, don’t give us any more handouts. give us and work with us as business partners and he’s out there. We’re seeing more and more United States big oil companies going and drilling all over the world. Look at Kazakhstan. I can’t even look at Kazakhstan, and it’s got. Exxon, you’ve got Luke Oil, which is 5% of it, but you’ve got Chevron in there at 50% of the production over there. That’s where you take a look at that same expertise, but let’s export our great how we get clean energy and produce it and make that a focus. I think that would be a much better solution.

David Blackmon [00:57:38] Help with the trade deficit too.

Stuart Turley [00:57:40] Oh, absolutely. And then you can find me on the energynewsbeat.substack.com or energynewsbeat.co or energynews,beat.com. And then after that, we would be like these dogs having a great day. Now, I can only play this song for 10 seconds because it kind of gets into a copyright. So I’m going to cut that out after this. But these dogs, imagine playing that song in your head as these dogs are just zipping around and doing this. This is United States exporting clean energy around the world and everybody’s happy and business partners, as opposed to having us overthrow businesses and countries. And I think this is the way we need to do business.

Tammy Nemeth [00:58:33] Yeah, to do to be responsible, to have responsible development.

Stuart Turley [00:58:42] With that, I think we had an absolute blast. David, any last words?

David Blackmon [00:58:48] Uh, no, man, last week was one of the busiest weeks and major energy stories I’ve ever seen that we, we missed some big stories on this podcast that we may, we can get to them next week. So, uh, it’s great. Wonderful. Yeah. What do you think? Well, one thing was, was our secretary of energy, uh. Classifying climate alarmism as a quasi religious movement. Imagine. Three years ago, if any official in any government in the Western world had said that, it would have been the major news story for a week. And instead, nobody in the media even talked.

Stuart Turley [00:59:31] This is the reaction from them when they found out that they were just classified. Sorry, can you imagine that that’s that is Al Gore on the left as he realized he was now, you know, classified as bad, so sorry, out on his carbon credit scale. Yeah, that’s right. But anyway, I think it was a great show for Tammy, and what are your last thoughts?

Tammy Nemeth [00:59:57] I would just say to Brian Zinchuk, who had a comment about Qatar’s LNG. From what I understand, Qatar has been looking at some kind of emissions trading system, but they don’t have one. They don’t a carbon tax. And they made basically a threat to the EU saying that if the EU was going to follow through and put LNG under this climate disclosure and carbon border adjustment mechanism system, then they would find other markets. but they would stop shipping to the European Union. So yeah, the same thing would be for Canada. We could make a business case for LNG for sure, but it becomes a matter of do we want to participate in these types of emission systems that will add the expense on the business side, on the exporter side, and then the importer would pay whatever difference that is.

Stuart Turley [01:00:57] All right, well, thanks, guys. I think with that, we will call this a show. Have a great day, and thanks for all the great comments from Gayle, and David, and Brian, and Patrick. We sure love everybody. Have a good day. We will see you guys next week.

Tammy Nemeth [01:01:11] Thanks, everyone. Have a great week. Bye.

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ENB Pub Note: This is an article from the BOE report in Canada by Terry Etam. I have reached out to him to record an episode on this topic on our podcast.  Terry is a great author and has excellent points about Canada and their energy policies and investments. How will Canada attract investments when their energy and regulatory policies are not going to be as friendly to businesses as the United States. He brings up some excellent points. 

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It seemed fitting the other day, when discussing current global events with a particularly erudite friend (and if you think that’s a ten-dollar word hold onto your hat), the word ‘haruspicy’ came into the conversation. Haruspicy is “a form of divination that inspects the entrails of sacrificed animals, particularly the liver of sheep and chickens, looking for omens.” We had exhausted all other options. The mission was unsuccessful; two buckets later we were no closer to understanding what was going on, and that was pretty much our last hope.

As online dude Trader Ferg (great Substack follow for investment thoughts) said in his weekly note, it is mentally taxing to keep up with the news flow and what matters. Everyone is used to spotting a headline and integrating it into their framework of “how the world works”. The higher up the ladder you went, geopolitically speaking, the easier that was, because, well, that’s who controls the frameworks in our societies. We have developed expectations, for better or worse, how the EU will react to something, or Russia, or China, or the US.

But now we have situations like, for example, the US’ top trade representative/negotiator not knowing what tariff levels will be later that day because the President will be deciding that number. Now, that might make sense from the highest level because Trump is playing the negotiating game that he is legendary for (for good reason), but on the ground, the question of what tariffs mean on actual products or imports has left everyone befuddled. (Some products are exempt, but no one is really clear on what…some have been treated as exempt because no one bothered to do the paperwork…or the example the Wall Street Journal gave of a piston crossing a border 7 times (Mex/Can/US) before being sold to a customer – how on earth is that to be tariffed? Or will that piston now be worth $1,000?)

These days, all the analytical inputs are so wild and unpredictable that analysis of what is going to happen feels hopeless, like garbage in, garbage out, and we know our assumptions are garbage before we even input them. People try to process three or four conflicting bits of information and the only way to integrate it into a singular thesis is if the outcome would be regarded as a lunatic’s statement on its own.

There are no simple answers anymore. Not even in the chicken guts. But thankfully, we’re here to talk about energy, and that is mercifully more clear than everything else. Well, that’s not quite true. Things go go any which way at all. But at least with energy, there are a few structures being built that we can reasonably assume will remain, and plan around them.

Ironic as it may seem, given the chaos of tariff wars, one firm element comes from the US. From Canada on the same topic, we have an ominous silence. Or worse. I’m referring to expectations of future energy policy.

In the US, the latest White House energy blast is about as crystal clear as it gets, and is going to send a shock wave through Canada of immense proportions, on the energy front, in a way that is exclusive of tariffs. If you can believe it. What is happening is that the US is dismantling, or looking to dismantle, the vast federal/cultural apparatus that sought to accelerate an energy transition. The policy prescriptions put forward are every bit as engulfing as that sounds.

Let’s walk back in time a bit to five years ago, when Greta Thunberg roamed the land, touching foreheads and curing the lame. It was a wild time for energy. It was particularly hard for energy writers; describing the energy world over the past decade has required ever more bombastic language, which is no fun to use because well who wants to be the next tabloid, but it is an undeniable fact that, compared to decades before, the most recent one has been the wildest by far. Prior cycles were defined by price shocks. Well, we had those, but we also had a new industry arise – one that wanted to obliterate the existing hydrocarbon industry that keeps everyone alive. It was surreal. Short-cycle memories cry out “Oh come on, you’re exaggerating” at that statement, but in 2019, children were indeed marching in the streets, around the world, carrying signs with slogans that they couldn’t possibly understand such as “Fossil fuels are killing the planet” or some such, at the very moment their idealistic but misled little skulls kept from freezing by the very fuels they sought to destroy. A subset of society did indeed make a very public (and well funded) objective to dismantle/defund our existing hydrocarbon energy system. These well-paid groups (e.g., Sierra Club, which calls itself a “charitable organization” and yet proclaims in their annual report such programs as “New Jersey does not need another power plant” which is a very odd charitable activity don’t you think but anyway Sierra Club has annual revenue of nearly $200 million, $84 million of which is spent on “studying and influencing public policy” which again stretches the definition of the word charity by a considerable margin.), with literally nothing else to do, embraced every sort of guerilla tactic imaginable to decimate the hydrocarbon industry, including funding endless lawsuits, public protests, lobbying governments, physically blocking new projects, etc.

They were immensely effective at swaying public opinion, at damaging the hydrocarbon-based energy sector, and at increasing energy prices (no one wanted to talk about that last one out loud, but we could all see it). They made it simple: Hey world, would you rather get your energy 100% organically from the wind and sun, or dirty old oil? And the world, that knows next to nothing about how any of these things happen, said Well of course we’ll take the clean twins. And energy ignorance took over the land. We could see those vectors in the energy world, definitely with a direction, in Canada, in the US, and in the EU.  The International Energy Agency added credence, saying in 2020 that, to meet climate goals required for our survival from a climate emergency, there could be no new fossil fuel development/investment after 2021.

All that is now out the window. (This past week, the IEA said that we do indeed need new fossil fuel investment. But that’s not the half of it, and few get worked up about IEA demand projections anyway.) Us poor energy writers must reach again for the hyberbole, because the word bombastic is the most fitting one to describe the new energy program unleashed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA, under new leadership (Trump appointee Lee Zeldin), is literally blowing up almost every facet of restrictive energy policy implemented over the past 10-15 years, the policies that ENGOs such as Sierra Club so carefully crafted and had implemented. Zelda recently announced “31 Historic Actions to Power the Great American Comeback”, in 31 snappy little bullets. Each is a big deal.

Alex Epstein does an excellent job of clarifying what many of Zeldin’s bullet points actually mean (here). There are too many to go through, each with significant energy policy repercussions, but a few are worth noting for their significance.

One of Zeldin’s bullets (sounds like a sci-fi book) is “Reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding”. The 2009 ruling being reconsidered declared that greenhouse gases qualified as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. This was a massive decision, not just because it made your breath illegal, but because it required that the EPA regulate these pollutants. The 2009 Endangerment Finding therefore became the biggest club you can imagine in the fist of governments and ENGOs that were salivating to use it. It became a pillar of these entities’ objective to dismantle the hydrocarbon industry. We can see how valuable it was to, for example, the aforementioned Sierra Club. From their website: “Climate advocates reacted with rage,” Sierra Club noted in a response that outlined the myriad ways in which $84 million worth of lawyers would soon be marshalling resources to neutralize Zeldin’s bullets. (A previous Sierra Club posting from Feb 2025, in reference to the looming EPA-gutting, ruefully noted: “That is the playbook. They said what they were going to do, and they’re doing it.” The Sierra Club et al don’t want to get into this much notion much, because it highlights what needs to be highlighted: This was indeed a plank upon which Trump ran, and on which he won; a popular revolt against “environmental” overreach. If you hate Trump, no one cares. This was spelled out before the election as a certainty, and it’s happening now.)

Those are US examples and a tangential reference to where the US might go from here, industrial policy wise (you can’t shout “iNVEST HERE” much louder). Attach value judgements as you wish; I can’t even begin to opine on whether, for example, “Reconsideration of Particulate Matter National Ambient Air Quality Standards” is a worthwhile pullback of governmental overreach, or something that will reintroduce smog. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but in today’s world, nuance is for weiners. I will let the partisans decide to love it or hate it, the emotionless fact of the matter is: It’s here, and likely to become real, and it (along with all the others) will dramatically tilt the global investment landscape.

Which brings us to Canada. We should all know by now that, as an old Canadian Liberal named Jean Chretien once wisely said, “There is nothing more nervous than a million dollars – it moves very fast, and it doesn’t speak any language.”

Canada’s productivity has been falling relative to other large industrial economies, one of the reasons being insufficient capital investment. Whether anyone likes it or not, Canada is going to have to be competitive with the US to attract capital.

There are many facets to that discussion – ‘how to attract capital’ is a fairly grand strategy statement that touches on a lot of things, and could fill a book – but for the purposes of energy that is as cheap or cheaper than the US as the industrial base, the walking back of all these EPA regulations places a large spotlight on Canada, like an interrogator’s uncomfortably close lamp, and asks the Great White North: What you gonna do about it?

The Conservatives have been running on the plank of “Axe the Tax” for some time now, in reference to the consumer carbon tax, and it was a good tactic because it sure as hell resonated with people. Eventually and bizarrely it even started to resonate with the people that implemented the tax; few saw coming the strategic gambit thrown down by the governing Liberals, to also turn on the tax that they had championed for so long, and then theatrically rip it up in a successful annihilation of a key Conservative platform. (I smell the cleverness of Gerald Butts, but whatever, it seemed to work, somehow…they really have Canadians figured out.)

These actions make sense from a political perspective, because consumers vote and businesses do not. Politics is a simple sport in that dimension.

But thinking heads need to get back to Chretien’s comment, and ask; so…you both now favour axing the consumer carbon tax, what are you going to do about the business carbon tax? And that is a very important question, the answer to which will arguably have far bigger consequences on Canada’s economy (and possibly autonomy) than the tariff brouhaha, which will almost certainly be resolved within half a year.

We know where Mark Carney stands, and where the Liberals will go. Carney has made the ‘climate emergency’ his hill to die on, and we should expect nothing less if he gets elected prime minister. His overall plan is to still go hell-bent-for-leather on climate action, but to have businesses exclusively carry the load. He is all in on the topic. Recall that he tried to orchestrate the actions of the world’s financial and insurance industries to squeeze hydrocarbons out of existence at the fastest pace possible. He didn’t just participate, he spearheaded the entire GFANZ movement. He might have recently joined the Conservatives in denouncing the consumer carbon tax, but his first policy statements indicate that Canada will do it’s part to “save the climate”, but that it will be business alone that will do the job (you don’t need to tell me what happens when costs are added to businesses, I’m well aware, just trying to keep as many voters engaged as possible, because it’s the silent majority that will decide our next election).

It does not take much imagination to see what that will do to our capital-attractiveness relative to the US, which is moving in exactly the opposite direction.

And it would be awesome to have a political alternative to point to, but we do not have one from the Conservatives. The silence is almost equally as alarming. Who knows what they will come up with before the election, but as of today, the Conservatives’ website has this to say on the subject: “Carbon Tax Carney will pause the Liberal tax for a few months to get through the election and then bring in the mother of all carbon taxes—a job-killing, inflationary tax that will drive jobs into the hands of President Trump.  The Common Sense Conservative plan will axe the tax for everyone forever. We will also axe the sales tax on home building to save you $50,000 on a new home and cut income taxes so hard work pays off.”

We need to know fairly rapidly what that means. Does “axe the tax for everyone” mean businesses as well? It’s kind of odd (which is why I quoted their political sloganeering) how the Conservatives’ messaging leaps from talking about axing the tax on everyone to talking about cutting sales taxes on home building…with no mention of anything in between, no comment whatsoever on what they will do to industrial carbon pricing. It’s quite strange, actually; repealing the sales tax on home building will save Canada’s home building industry money on the order of magnitude of possibly a few hundred million dollars, or heck let’s even call it a billion. An industrial carbon tax of any stripe, applied to Canada’s energy and energy-intensive, critical industries like steel and aluminum manufacturing, will cost Canada tens of billions, and even more critically will chase away investment capital.

Canada may get creative and force pension funds to invest more in the home land, but take a wild guess at what that will lead to in the longer term – subpar returns by forcing huge funds to invest in a small Canadian market, one that is hobbled by regulation and carbon taxation, will set up future pension challenges. But hey in the world of politics that’s the next leader’s problem.

Go ahead and hate whoever you want, for whatever reason you want. It’s a free country. Sort of. At any rate you can still vote for whomever you want. Just think about this.

Canada faces some enormous challenges at present, obviously. Voters will soon have to decide if the fight against climate change is at the very top of that list. Because when the smoke clears, that will be the clear priority in one outcome, and it will not, in the other.

Regardless, the world is changing rapidly; we are not in 2019, and no matter who is elected, they won’t be in a parade with Greta Thunberg. But what they do after election is critically important. Make a point of understanding energy policy during the campaign.

Energy is the basis for everything. It is the foundation upon which successful industrial bases are built. Particularly in light of what the US is doing – deregulation, encouraging industrial investment, etc. – , Canada’s competitive future is at stake. We need investment. We need to diversify markets for our products, and we need to find ways to add value to products that the world needs, that will secure employment and tax revenue, that will take back control of whatever we can from huge and powerful trading “partners”. In the current round of issues, in the year 2025, we don’t have a strong hand. Over the longer haul, our hand is one of the strongest in the world. We have everything the world needs, including the US (bombast notwithstanding, the US very much needs what Canada has, and will for a very long time – imagine how long it would take the US to develop an aluminum industry, for example…or, what oil price would the US need to replicate Canada’s production? A whole lot higher than it has now, a state that Trump has vowed unacceptable…so we should rest easy on that front if we survive the year). We have the option of playing it as a strong hand, if we buckle down and get to work now, across the country, cooperatively, in a way that attracts global capital and does not repel it.

The chicken guts were very clear about that.

An energy transition is far more challenging than most realized, which is why we are we are where we are. Find out why in The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity – the energy story for those that don’t live in the energy world, but want to find out. And laugh. Available at Amazon.ca, Indigo.ca, or Amazon.com. 

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