Energy News Beat

 

Membership presents an opportunity to challenge the dominance of the dollar and euro, the Burkinabe prime minister says

The post Another African nation interested in joining BRICS appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

The infrastructure bill, once hailed as a game-changer, has flopped—rural broadband and EV stations are stuck in the slow lane, leaving critics fuming.

Democrats have touted the infrastructure bill Congress passed in 2021 as a signature accomplishment of the Biden-Harris administration, but some of its ambitious projects have fallen far short of expectations nearly three years after President Joe Biden signed it into law. [emphasis, links added]

A massive program to expand rural broadband access has failed so far to connect any homes to the Internet. A push to electrify school bus fleets has proved costly and inefficient.

And a multibillion-dollar effort to build thousands of electric vehicle charging stations across the country has so far yielded just a handful of stations.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act contained $1.2 trillion in spending on what the White House called “a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure and competitiveness.”

But critics say the progressive goals of the Biden-Harris administration held back the law from delivering sweeping updates to the nation’s infrastructure.

“I was very skeptical that it would actually deliver those kinds of results,” David Ditch, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, told the Washington Examiner. “It has dramatically underperformed even my low expectations, and there’s a lot of reasons for that.”

“No. 1 is the Biden administration has been absolutely determined to apply as many different left-wing mandates as it can cram in,” Ditch added.

From “environmental justice” considerations to equity requirements for contractors, many programs created by the infrastructure bill came with progressive stipulations for how they should be implemented.

The result has been slow progress in spending enormous sums of money, with little to show for some efforts after nearly three years.

“The evidence of these programs being a complete failure is that none of the recipients, grantees, have featured in a [Kamala] Harris commercial or onstage,” Daniel Turner, executive director at Power the Future, told the Washington Examiner.

“If you received a benefit from the infrastructure bill or the Inflation Reduction Act, you would be front and center saying, ‘Thank you, madame vice president, for this program.’”

Instead, the infrastructure bill has made few appearances in Harris’s campaign rhetoric as she seeks to distance herself from Biden.

Read rest at Examiner

Take the Survey at https://survey.energynewsbeat.com/

1031 Exchange E-Book

Crude Oil, LNG, Jet Fuel price quote

ENB Top News 
ENB
Energy Dashboard
ENB Podcast
ENB Substack

The post Infrastructure Bill’s Big-Budget Projects A ‘Complete Failure’ Despite Billions Spent appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

Automakers are backpedaling on EV targets as consumer demand wanes, despite billions in Biden-Harris subsidies and a push for charging stations.

Automakers have continued to backpedal on electric vehicle (EV) targets over the last year as a slackening of consumer demand has hampered growth despite the billions in subsidies lavished on the industry by the Biden-Harris administration. [emphasis, links added]

A wide array of auto manufacturers have abandoned key EV goals since February, with Volvo, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz all dialing back electric quotas or dropping previously planned product lines.

The shifts in corporate strategy suggest the EV transition — once touted by auto executives like Ford CEO Jim Farley as the industry’s future — may not be as feasible as once thought due to consumer aversion to lower mileage ranges, a lack of charging infrastructure, and higher prices, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The auto industry’s change in direction is despite the billions in subsidies doled out to the industry via the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, with the White House offering a $7,500 federal tax credit for certain EVs to ease costs for buyers, and allocating $12 billion for carmakers to retrofit factories for EV production.

The administration has also put in place stringent regulations designed to phase out internal combustion engine vehicles, including a tailpipe emissions rule that would effectively require about 67% of all light-duty vehicles sold after model year 2032 to be electric vehicles (EVs) or hybrids.

“Even after throwing money at EVs hand over fist, basically paying people tax dollars to drive these cars off the lots, you have a dire spiral of (1) not enough demand to support the number of cars being produced, and (2) the people you paid to buy them now wanting to go back to what they had before,” O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers and the former solicitor general of Arizona, told the DCNF.

Despite the generous tax credits, consumers have been hesitant to adopt EVs at the rate the Biden-Harris administration and automakers had hoped, with EV sales growing 50% in the first half of 2023 and 31% in the first half of 2024, less than the 71% increase in the first half of 2022.

Moreover, a June poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute found that 46% of respondents were unlikely or very unlikely to purchase an EV, while just 21% were “very” or “extremely” likely to make the change.

Consumer sentiment towards EVs has struggled even among those who have already purchased the vehicles, with a June survey from leading consulting firm McKinsey and Company finding nearly half of Americans who own an EV want to go back to a standard vehicle.

“The [EV market] headwinds come from physical realities that translate into economic and practical realities,” Mark Mills, a distinguished senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and an expert on the automobile market, told the DCNF.

“EVs are inherently more expensive… and most consumers are very price sensitive; EV fueling for most people is far less convenient… [and] EV fueling infrastructure is extremely expensive and will take a long time to build out.”

The average cost of a new EV was 10% higher than the price of a standard vehicle as of January, with the 2024 electric version of a base Ford F-150 costing roughly $20,000 more. The Ford F-Series was the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. in 2023.

Ford canceled plans to produce a three-row electric SUV in August and reduced output of its F-150 Lightning pickup truck in January.

The reversals follow Ford’s loss of $4.7 billion on EVs in 2023, equating to nearly $65,000 per EV it sold. When reached, a Ford spokeswoman referred back previous comments to the DCNF, stating that “we aren’t going to launch vehicles unless they are going to be profitable within 12 months of launch.”

Beyond a lack of infrastructure, charging can simply be inconvenient for consumers, with refueling times ranging from 20 minutes to upwards of 50 hours…

“These are staggering costs to impose on American families,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF.

EV carmakers Tesla and Lucid have also struggled in the last year, announcing plans to lay off roughly 10% and 6% of their workforces, respectively.

On top of sheer cost, expanding charging infrastructure has also been a challenge for manufacturers, with the Biden-Harris administration having built just [eight] EV charging stations in four states as of April 2024, despite the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill earmarking $7.5 billion for the creation of a national EV charger network.

A lack of demand, union requirements, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, with the Department of Transportation requiring applicants to promise to perform “intentional outreach to underserved communities” by hosting “neighborhood block parties” to qualify for funding, have significantly slowed down the project’s rollout.

Beyond a lack of infrastructure, charging can simply be inconvenient for consumers, with refueling times ranging from 20 minutes to upwards of 50 hours depending on charger voltage and battery size, according to American automotive resource company Edmunds.

Even “fast charging” in the urban center of Washington, D.C., can take as long as 35 minutes.

Faced with these obstacles, Volvo Cars abandoned plans to offer an all-electric line-up by the end of the decade, instead aiming to have between 90% and 100% of its cars be fully electric or plug-in hybrids by that time.

Mercedes-Benz made a similar announcement back in February, slashing its target of selling 100% EVs by 2030 to just 50% after its net profit fell 21.5% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Read rest at Daily Caller

Take the Survey at https://survey.energynewsbeat.com/

1031 Exchange E-Book

Crude Oil, LNG, Jet Fuel price quote

ENB Top News 
ENB
Energy Dashboard
ENB Podcast
ENB Substack

The post As Demand Drops, Automakers Reverse EV Targets Despite Billions In Biden-Harris Subsidies appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

 

Across California, the companies that are trying to build charging stations for electric trucks are being told that it will take years — or even up to a decade — for them to get the electricity they need. That’s because utilities are failing to build out the grid fast enough to meet that demand.

This poses a major problem for a state that’s aiming to clean up its trucking industry. California has the most aggressive set of truck electrification goals in the country, and compliance deadlines are coming up fast.

State legislators did pass two laws last year — SB 410 and AB 50 — ordering regulators to find ways to speed up the process of getting utility customers the grid power they need, and last week the California Public Utilities Commission issued a decision meant to set timeframes for this work.

But charging companies, electric truck manufacturers, and environmental advocates are not happy with the result. They say the decision does next to nothing to get utilities to move faster or work harder to serve the massive charging hubs being planned across the state.

“It’s shocking how little the commission did here. They basically adopted status quo timelines across the board,” said Sky Stanfield, an attorney working with the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, a nonprofit clean energy advocacy group.

California’s struggle to deal with this issue is raising doubts about not only whether the state can meet its own climate goals but also whether truck electrification targets are achievable at all. States in the U.S. Northeast and Pacific Northwest with transportation-electrification targets will also need to build megawatt-scale charging along highways. Those projects will likewise require grid capacity upgrades that take a much longer time to plan and build than charging sites for passenger vehicles.

Stanfield and IREC believe that the CPUC’s decision both is inadequate and runs counter to clear instruction from California law. SB 410 orders the CPUC to craft regulations that ​“improve the speed at which energization and service upgrades are performed” and push the state’s big utilities to upgrade their grids ​“in time to achieve the state’s decarbonization goals.”

But the state’s electric truck targets simply won’t be met if charging stations aren’t built more rapidly, Stanfield said. ​“No one’s going to buy a fancy EV truck that costs well over $100,000 if they can’t charge it.”

IREC isn’t alone in this perspective. Powering America’s Commercial Transportation, a consortium of major EV charging and manufacturing companies, wrote in its comments to the CPUC that the decision ​“does not comply with either the requirements or legislative intent” of the law.

PACT asked the CPUC to set a two-year maximum timeline for utilities to build new substations and complete the more complex grid upgrades required by large EV charging depots.

But instead, the CPUC simply had Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison , and San Diego Gas & Electric report how long these major ​“upstream capacity” grid projects are taking today and then used the lower average of that historical data to set maximum timelines that utilities should meet in the future.

Those timelines are much, much too long, electric truck manufacturers, charging-project developers, and clean transportation advocates say. They stretch from nearly two years for upgrading distribution circuits and nearly three years for upgrading substations to nearly nine years for building the new substations that utilities say they’ll need to power truck-charging depots currently being built.

(California Public Utilities Commission)

“We’ve put in millions of dollars in the facilities we’ve already upgraded, and more that are in motion,” said Paul Rosa, a PACT board member.

As senior vice president of procurement and fleet planning at truck leasing company Penske, he is responsible for the company’s transport projects, including truck-charging projects in Southern and Central California.

But those projects represent just a fraction of the 114,500 chargers required to support the 157,000 medium- and heavy-duty vehicles that the California Energy Commission forecasts the state will need by 2030.

“If we can’t get the power, this all comes to a screeching halt,” Rosa said.

The slow and burdensome process of getting new customers connected to the grid — ​“energization” in CPUC parlance — isn’t a problem for just EV trucks.

PG&E has been under fire for years for failing to deliver timely grid hookups to everyday commercial and residential projects — a result, critics say, of poor planning and resource management.

The CPUC’s new decision does set a 125-business-day maximum timeline for these less complicated energizations. If those targets are met by utilities, ​“maximum timelines for grid connections could be reduced up to 49 percent compared to current operations,” the CPUC noted in a fact sheet accompanying the decision.

“I think the commission got it right” on these less complicated energization targets, said Tom Ashley, vice president of government and utility relations at Voltera, a company building EV charging projects across the state.

But how the commission handled the larger-scale grid upgrades — the kind needed to get EV truck-charging stations up and running — is a different story, he said. ​“That is where the industry is really frustrated that we didn’t get the help, and the utilities didn’t get the direction.”

The state’s Advanced Clean Trucks rule requires truck manufacturers to hit minimum targets for zero-emissions trucks as a percentage of total sales over the coming years, ratcheting from 30% of all medium- and heavy-duty vehicles by 2028 to 50% by 2030.

And California’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule requires the state’s biggest trucking and freight companies to convert hundreds of thousands of diesel trucks to zero-emissions models over the next 12 years, with earlier targets for certain classes of vehicles, including the heavy trucks carrying cargo containers from California’s busy and polluted ports.

Right now, many of the plans to build charging hubs for those trucks are stuck in grid-upgrade limbo — and the CPUC decision offers little indication it will get them unstuck.

“We’ve submitted for well over 50 projects in the past two years, looking for the right property to acquire,” said Jason Berry, director of energy and utilities at Terawatt Infrastructure. The startup has more than $1 billion in equity and project finance lined up to build large-scale charging hubs, including a network that will stretch from California to Texas along the I-10 highway, a major trucking corridor.

But of the sites Terawatt has scouted in California, ​“about 95% of those do not have the power we’re trying to request,” Berry said. To serve proposed charging hubs in California’s Inland Empire, utility SCE has said that it will need to expand existing substations, which takes four to five years, or build a new substation, which takes at least eight years, Terawatt said in May comments to the CPUC.

Terawatt is far from the only company facing delays. In testimony to the CPUC, Berry pointed out that Tesla has told the agency that 12 Supercharger sites with 522 charging stalls are facing delays because of capacity issues in SCE territory. A state-funded electric truck-charging project in the Inland Empire is also held up due to similar constraints.

The main problem is that large-scale charging sites can be built much faster than utilities are used to moving, Berry said. ​“We’re building projects, maybe ideally starting at 10 megawatts and then going to 20 megawatts,” Berry said. That’s about the same load on the grid as would be caused by an entirely new residential neighborhood or big commercial or industrial site.

But while those sites typically take years to plan and build, a new truck-charging site can go from planning to completion in less than a year.

“They have to have a mechanism to start on those things, or every single project is going to be four to five years out — which is what we’re being told on so many of these today,” he said.

The same point was made by Diego Quevedo, utilities lead and senior charging-infrastructure engineer at Daimler Truck North America, which joined fellow electric truck manufacturers Volvo Group North America and Navistar to weigh in on the CPUC proceeding.

“Trucks can be manufactured by OEMs and delivered approximately six months after receiving an order,” Quevedo said in testimony before the CPUC. But fleets won’t order trucks if they lack the confidence the utility grid infrastructure will be built and energized when the trucks are delivered.”

Utilities’ grid-capacity additions are taking from seven to 10 years to ​“plan, design, budget, construct, and energize,” he said. Unless those capacity expansions can be sped up significantly, ​“electric trucks become expensive stranded assets that are unable to charge,” he said.

California’s major utilities have a different perspective. They’ve argued in comments to the CPUC that it may be difficult or impossible to move more quickly on such complicated work.

First, as utilities have pointed out, many of the things that can slow down major grid projects are beyond their control. In a filing with the CPUC, PG&E noted that ​“one capacity upgrade project may face an extended timeline due to lengthy environmental assessments and permitting processes, and another may encounter challenges in acquiring materials in a timely manner due to manufacturer issues.”

IREC’s Stanfield conceded that equipment backlogs and environmental and permitting reviews are barriers to moving more quickly. ​“But we have to make it go faster if we want to hit our climate goals, if we want manufacturers to build clean trucks.”

And there’s an even bigger challenge to making major changes to the grid in anticipation of booming demand from EV charging: the cost involved.

“Lack of funding is the big block to meet the anticipated load growth,” Terawatt’s Berry said.

California’s utilities are already spending more than they ever have on their power grids, for myriad reasons. They are passing the costs of grid-hardening investments and integrating new clean energy into the power system on to customers in the form of electricity rates that are now the highest in the continental U.S.

Electricity rate increases are an economic and political crisis in California. Keeping them from rising any further has become the chief focus of lawmakers and regulators in the past several years. Any proposals that could raise customer bills even more face a tough battle — including plans to build grid infrastructure for electric truck-charging hubs.

SB 410 does give the CPUC permission to allow utilities to increase their spending in order to meet tighter EV-charger energization timelines. But the bill also calls on regulators to subject these requests to​“extremely strict accounting.”

PG&E was the first utility to submit a ratemaking mechanism under SB 410 earlier this year. The Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer advocacy group, quickly filed comments protesting the utility’s plan to create a ​“balancing account” that would enable it to recover as much as $4 billion in additional energization-related spending from customers — a structure that falls outside the standard three-year ​“rate case” process for California utilities.

“PG&E’s electric rates and bills are now so high that they threaten both access to the essential energy services that PG&E provides and the achievement of the state’s decarbonization goals, which rely in part on customers choosing to electrify buildings and vehicles,” TURN wrote in its comments.

TURN wants the CPUC to limit the scope of SB 410’s extra cost-recovery provisions to ​“specific work needed to complete an individual customer connection request,” rather than the kind of proactive upstream grid investments that truck-charging advocates are calling for. TURN would prefer that those projects remain part of general rate cases, the sprawling proceedings that determine how much utilities spend on their grids.

But those general rate cases can take up to five years to move from identifying the broader, systemwide analyses of how much electricity demand is set to rise to winning regulatory approval in order to build the expensive grid infrastructure needed to actually meet those growing needs. That’s too long to wait to fix the problem, charging advocates say.

At the same time, ratepayer advocates are challenging utility efforts to expand the scope of their larger-scale plans to meet looming EV charging needs. In SCE’s current general rate case, TURN and the CPUC’s Public Advocates Office, which is tasked with protecting consumers, are protesting that the utility is overestimating how much money it needs to spend to prepare its grid from growing EV-charging needs.

Terawatt and other charging developers and electric truck manufacturers argue just the opposite — that the utility isn’t planning to spend enough over the next three years. In his testimony in the rate case, Terawatt’s Berry complained that TURN and PAO are challenging utility and state forecasts of future charging needs based on outdated data, and that failing to approve the utility’s funding request will ​“ensure that California fails to achieve its zero-emission vehicle goals.”

Charging advocates have also asked the CPUC to create a separate regulatory process to consider the grid buildout needs spurred by large-scale charging projects. But the CPUC rejected that concept in its decision last week, stating that ​“preferential treatment based on project type is prohibited by California law.”

All these conflicting imperatives leave the CPUC with tough choices to resolve the gap between charging needs and grid buildout plans, said Cole Jermyn, an attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund.

The CPUC ​“can and should do more here. I don’t think the timelines they set here are as strong as they could have been,” Jermyn said.

At the same time, ​“the commission had an incredibly difficult job here. The targets are not easy to set, and they had a very short timeline to do it.”

That’s why multiple groups have asked the CPUC to focus its next phase of work on implementing SB 410 and AB 50 on a key issue: aligning grid planning and EV charging needs.

“Part of the work here is figuring out what that proactive planning looks like,” Jermyn said. ​“The utility cannot wait around for customers to come to them and say, ​‘We need 5 megawatts of capacity.’ They need to be looking out into the future to start proactively preparing their distribution grids for all this electrification.”

At the same time, ​“how do you balance that need for proactive planning and investment with ratepayer investments along the way to make sure this isn’t building assets that won’t be used and end up on someone’s bills?” Jermyn asked. That will be complicated, but, he added, ​“I think it’s doable — especially for a state that has such clear goals.”

SB 410 also specifically called on the CPUC to take California’s decarbonization goals into account in tackling energization delays — but last week’s decision ​“was relatively silent on that issue,” Jermyn said.

“This is something we think is incredibly important to be in the next phase of this proceeding, because it wasn’t in this one,” he said. ​“We don’t know if the timelines they set are meeting that goal or not. We should figure out if they are.”

EDF has advocated for years for utilities and regulators to approve grid spending in advance of EV charging needs, noting that such spending will end up reducing costs for utility customers in the long run.

That’s because California’s utilities don’t earn profits directly through electricity sales. Instead, their rates are structured to repay their costs of doing business. More customers buying more electricity can spread out the costs of collecting the money that utilities need to operate and invest in infrastructure, which can reduce the rates per kilowatt-hour that utilities must collect in future years.

This isn’t just a California issue. Nearly a dozen states — including Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington — have adopted advanced clean truck rules. They’re not as aggressive as California’s rules, but meeting them will still require grappling with the same challenges around proactive grid planning.

Voltera’s Ashley worried that the CPUC’s decision may set a bad precedent for other state regulators on this front. ​“The commission has a really hard job. They’re tasked with a lot of complicated policy and execution,” he said. ​“And at the end of the day, they have some overarching mandates, including affordability for ratepayers,” that complicate the task.

But California also has ​“the most aggressive targets, goals, and statutory requirements around not just electrification of transportation but electrification of other segments” of the economy, he said. ​“If California doesn’t get this right, who will?”

Source: Energynews.us

Take the Survey at https://survey.energynewsbeat.com/

1031 Exchange E-Book

Crude Oil, LNG, Jet Fuel price quote

ENB Top News 
ENB
Energy Dashboard
ENB Podcast
ENB Substack

The post California’s backlogged grid is holding up its electric truck dreams appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

Daily Standup Top Stories

Is driving electric now more expensive than petrol or diesel?

Follow Stuart On LinkedIn and Twitter

Follow Michael On LinkedIn and Twitter

ENB Top News

Energy Dashboard

ENB Podcast

ENB Substack

ENB Trading Desk

Oil & Gas Investing In 2024

– Get in Contact With The Show –

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 into the Tuesday, September 24th, 2024, edition of the Daily Energy News. Beat Stand up. Here are today’s top headlines. First up, is driving electric now more expensive than petrol or diesel? This is a great little article out of the UK. We’ll stay abroad. Austria election brings into focus Russian gas addiction. Ooh, crazy. Then we’ll come back to our favorite state. California Sues Exxon over Global Plastic Pollution. Unbelievable. I will then quickly finish off and talk all things oil and gas finance guys, as always. I am Michael Tanner. Stu is out on assignment, so I am rocking a solo show [00:00:56][45.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:00:56] So let’s go ahead and kick it off. First up here is driving electric now more expensive than petrol or diesel? This is actually a study that came out of England. Britain’s public charging network is I’m going to read straight from the article here is facing criticisms for high costs, making the EV driving potentially twice as expensive as using petrol or diesel cars on a year over year basis. UK has actually added about 12 2500 rapid and quote unquote ultra rapid charging stations, which is about a 40% increase year over year, according to some data that was shared with the Times. These chargers cost an average of 80 pounds per kilowatt hour, which makes it extremely difficult for people who don’t have access to a low cost home charging network to actually make the switch. So just like in the United States, where we spend all of this money to build out infrastructure that nobody uses. They build out all this rapid charging infrastructure. And now guess what? You can’t use it because it’s so expensive. What’s even funnier is, according to that same report, even those using the slower public chargers may pay more per mile than petrol or diesel. [00:02:07][71.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:07] I mean, guys, here’s the thing. The reason why gasoline and fossil fuels are currently dominating the market is because they’re so efficient. It’s the lowest cost, most efficient fuel. It’s not just the lowest cost. It’s not just the most efficient. It’s lowest cost combined with the most efficient. That’s what everybody looks for. So the market will gravitate towards things that work. People in the UK want to use EVs. They’d love nothing more. We know. We know how they are up here in the UK. I’m sorry if anybody’s listening to this from the UK, but we you know, you guys, these are definitely a little bit more left leaning than us here in the States. So we know you want to use EVs. The problem is you can’t because there are unfortunately too expensive or they do take too much time. I love to call Ultra rapid. It’s like, shit, takes what, 20 minutes to charge? So they’re dying over in the UK due to these EVs. And again, I think you’re going to, you know, something that you and I have talked about. I think you’re going to see people continue to move between hybrids, which gives you a little bit of best of both worlds. [00:03:05][57.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:05] Let’s move on to the next one. Austria election brings into focus a Russian gas addiction. This one’s interesting. So they have an election coming up here on September 29th. And one of the biggest I would say, issues right now in this election is where they’re getting their gas. This general election and I’ll read straight from the article, is facing growing pressure on both sides of the political aisle to diversify its energy supply away from its dependance on Russian gas. Just as the economy is stuck in reverse gear. I’ll continue on here. No party is expected to win enough seats to win an outright majority. Opinion polls give a slim lead to the opposition far right Russian friendly Freedom Party. And the result could influence the speed of a so-called energy transition. Here’s a quote from Stefan Schmemann. Buchan is a senior economist for the Australian Institute of Economic Research. Other countries aren’t happy. Austria is still consuming such large volumes of Russian gas. If you guys remember, the EU committed to phasing out Russian gas by 2027 after the invasion of the Ukraine. But you know, even with that pledge, 83% of Austrian gas was still being imported via Russia. To give a comparison to the rest of the EU, only 15% of gas imported was from Russia. So it’s pretty unbelievable. They they’re saying, hey, we want the low, we want the lowest cost energy. I mean, they need it. Opinion polls do show that FPO support at around 27 to 29%, which it’s lead slipping to as little as one point over OVP, with three parties forecasted to win close to 10% or more. The FPO, which is that conservative leaning party, says that Russia, quote, Russian gas must remain part of Austrian energy mix. And they say there’s another little quote here. Okay, here we go. Chancellor Karl Nehme Heimer, he’s The Australian’s People Party, has pledged to win the quarter of Russian gas. The high dependance on Russian gas supplies is a major economic security risk for Austria. Hey, I mean, you’re probably right from that standpoint. The ministry said in a statement, is therefore essential for our country to seek further reduce gas consumption and stop buying Russian gas. Well, the question is, okay, where are they going to diversify from? They noted that there’s much more Norway gas that they could take, which would be a great boon for Norway. Clearly, they’re going to continue to start drilling up that North Sea. So it goes to tell you, having diversification is great. You never want to be blending on one on on one person or one import for your oil. I mean, China imports from anywhere. India imports from everywhere. You always want to make sure you are not you don’t have a choke point or you’re dependent on one person. So again, do I think they should wean themselves off Russian gas? I don’t know. You should have multiple people. You shouldn’t have 85% of your gas from one country, whether it’s Russian or not. You probably should need to wean that down a little bit. The problem is some analysis from the former utility head of regulator E Control, Walter Bolts says that a 20 or a sudden stop to Russian supplies would likely book a wholesale gas price by about 20% for 2 to 6 months. So that’s a decent amount. If you’re middle to lower income Austrian, that’s a significant if for six months, that’s a prolonged period. They’re obviously dealing with inflation. So Austria is in a upper creek without a pattern is going to be interesting to see what happened. The election. We will be closely following it. [00:06:25][200.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:06:26] Let’s move on to the next one, though. California sues Exxon over global plastic pollution. This one’s pretty unbelievable, folks. So California and several environmental groups sued ExxonMobil on Monday and accused the oil giant of engaging in a decades long campaign that helped fuel plastic waste pollution. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who spoke at an event, guess what? Climate Week in New York City, said that the state sued Exxon after concluding a nearly two year long investigation where he says that Exxon has been deliberately misleading the public about the limitations of recycling. This all specifically centers around Exxon’s promotion of what they were calling, quote unquote, advanced recycling, which is a process called Pro Lois’s. I don’t know, guys. I’m not an English major here. All I know is that this process turns hard to recycle plastics into fuel. He said that this technology, slow progress, is a sign of Exxon’s ongoing deception. Unbelievable. The technology, slow progress is a sign of Exxon’s ongoing deception. Well, maybe it’s a hard problem to solve. Has this dude ever gotten out of his little comfy ag office to figure that out, or is he too busy hobnobbing on his private jet that he flew over to New York City to talk it, quote unquote, Climate Week, where they have the A.C. cranked up and are probably using Russian gas to do that. I mean, it’s just dripping in irony. All of this. Here’s the quote from our good friend Bonta AG over there. Today’s lawsuit shows the fullest picture to date of ExxonMobil’s decades long deception. Well, I thought it was just a two year long deception over this advanced fuels thing. But we’ll get to that. And we are asking the court to uphold Exxon’s fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastic pollution crisis to its campaign of deception. Here’s here’s Exxon’s response. It’s a good one, actually. Suing people makes headlines, but solving the plastic waste problem won’t advance. Recycling is a real solution. Has an addict adding that California has done nothing to advance cause like which is true. They’ve done nothing to do that. So this again, is political retribution because this is not like ExxonMobil. And I mean, this does Exxon even have facilities in California? I know Chevron does. It just it just boggles my mind that with all the craziness going on in California, everything that’s going on, the craziness that’s going on in California, this dude assigned his staff to try to sue ExxonMobil. And guess what? Newsflash, you ain’t going to win because Exxon is going to have just a few more resources than you have to fight this. And again, you’re you can’t win here. You can’t win here. Exxon, if they don’t care about recycling and just continue to produce oil, well, they’re going to you know, they’ll hit them on the climate change front. But if they actually try to do something, this advanced plastics problem, which I it’s hard. I mean, recycling stuff because newsflash and I’m pointing at the camera, you guys don’t separate your recycling properly enough if you the listener, actually separated your recycling better, Maybe this stuff works, but you don’t. Okay, so what? So they’re trying. Well, maybe there’s some hard to recycle stuff. Or maybe there’s a mixture. Let’s figure out a way to actually recycle it. Then they get burned for that because it’s a quote unquote, deceptive process. It’s unbelievable. It’s why you should in my opinion, if I was running it, I wouldn’t even worry about. Sure, let them sue us. It’s a write off that we get. Well, we’ll hire some lawyers there. I mean, there’s other stuff going on. I mean, we know the stuff that’s going on in West Texas in there fundamentally, and their fundamental disregard for the ability to plug old wells. I mean, they should be focused on that stuff, which is actually harming the environment versus this, we’re actually trying to do that. I mean, it’s unbelievable. This stuff gets me worked up, you know, I guess environment. You know, you’re going to read this article. Environmental groups Praise the lawsuit. Oceans plastic campaign directors in California’s lawsuit will hold the industry accountable and debunk the plastic recycling narrative that holds us back from real solutions. You know what? I want to debunk your Oceana stuff. That’s Kristy. That’s what I want to do. So just just unbelievable. [00:10:29][242.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:10:29] I’m going to move on before I get to worked up. Let’s move into finance, guys. Before we do that, as always, we got to pay the bills. Thank you for checking us out on the world’s greatest website. www.energynewsbeat.com. The best place for all your energy, oil and gas news. Stu and 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. Go ahead and hit the description below for all the links, the types of links to the articles, and check us out on substack The energy news be a substack.com and you can also check us out and invest in oil dot energy news beat if you are interested in on our exclusive direct working interest project that we are really excited to be partnering with the team over at Pecos Country operating again that’s invest in oil dot energy news be.com. [00:11:12][42.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:13] Pretty wild day for the oil markets and it will start overall the S&P 500 up about 2/10 of a percentage point. Nasdaq up about three quarters of a percentage point excuse me, 3/10 of a percentage point. Man, really off there. A two year yields down a half a percentage point. Ten year yields Absolutely. Flat dollar index basically flat, maybe up a 10th of a percentage point. Bitcoin was down about a quarter of a percentage point, but still $62,145. Crude oil after a wild swing was up on the overnight trading session to about 7165 spiked briefly up to about 170 or about 7171. It then took an absolute tumble all the way down to 69, 65. But as we record this here at about 230 here on the 23rd, it stands at about 7045, such down about three quarters of a percentage point. Brant Oil is actually up three, a quarter of a percentage point day over day. Natural gas up eight percentage points after. Again, we’ll get to kind of why natural gas is up for that reason. And then we did see the actual PE contract, which is our EMP stocks, our basket of EMP stocks. It was basically flat up about 0.05 percentage points. I mean, oil and gas prices really swinging mainly due to the fact that there’s a new hurricane that looks horrible, that sweeping through the Gulf. Most of the production will end up being shut down. So I think some of that price action, what you’re seeing specifically on the natural gas is due to that, but $2.60 gas. I mean, if that if there’s something more to this, which again, it’s a lot of the storm worries. So I don’t want to say, this is a movement to the upside. We are hopefully moving into the winter season where maybe we see a little bit shift in gas prices. So but we will see what happens after this hurricane. We hope everybody and our and our oilfield workers out there in the Gulf of Mexico stay safe. We really we really hope that it was interesting to see we did see euro business activity, quote unquote, contract sharply and unexpectedly this month in which was kind of not picked up on by the street. We did see. Here’s Dennis Keisler, senior vice president of Trading Bulk Financial. Disappointing economic numbers blowing from China along with a surprise slowdown in European manufacturing is placing crude demand at its lowest levels so far this year. Not not good supply. Concerns also stemming from the ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah has also helped support oil prices. I mean, it could be continuing to go crazy here in terms of what could happen. We also did hear on on on Monday from Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee or Goolsbee, whatever his name is, quote unquote. He said many more rate cuts over the next year as banks central bank seek a soft landing for the economy. So and you can see it up on my backside there on CNBC. So it looks like there are things happening there. So who knows? Folks, I don’t want to come out and say, look, it’s ready. It’s not ready. But right there, you know, we could see a lot more rate cuts, which could be interesting. [00:14:02][168.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:03] That’s really all I’ve got, though. Everything else on on on oil was was pretty flat. Pretty, pretty chill. There were some interesting Twitter stuff going on. You know, it looks like there’s rumors of a gearing up for a specific some M&A action. So we will be covering all that and a bag of chips as it comes through, guys. But with that, I’m going to let you get out of here, get back to work. Start your day. Sure. Will be rocking a solo show tomorrow. I will be back in the chair for the Thursday show to help wrap this whole thing up, guys. So I will see you Thursday. Say, say hi to you tomorrow. We’ll see you then. [00:14:03][0.0][828.5]

– Get in Contact With The Show –

The post Austria Loves Russia Gas appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat
The Biden administration’s pause on new LNG export permits has created a market opportunity for Canada, Mexico, and Argentina to increase their LNG exports to Asia.
These countries are investing billions of dollars in LNG export infrastructure, particularly on their Pacific coasts, to gain a logistical advantage over U.S. exporters.
The increased LNG exports from these countries could help Asian buyers reduce their reliance on coal and achieve their climate goals, but the U.S. may lose market share in the long term.

Canada and Mexico are rushing to fill the natural gas vacuum left by the United States’ ongoing moratorium on new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export permits introduced by the Biden Administration in January of this year. The country’s neighbors to the north and south are speeding up their own export capacities to the tune of tens of billions of dollars to capitalize on the newfound market opportunity to provide natural gas to Asian buyers as the world’s biggest LNG exporter takes a break.

On January 26th, President Biden announced that it would pause approvals of new licenses to export LNG so that the U.S. Department of Energy could take time to review and assess whether the nation’s considerable LNG exports are “undermining domestic energy security, raising consumer costs and damaging the environment.”

Canada, for its part, wasted no time at all rushing to fill the sizeable gap left by the United States. According to figures from Rystad Energy AS, Mexico and Canada have around  US$63 billion of capital investment lined up to supercharge their respective LNG export capacities. “(Customers) want alternative suppliers,” Kenny Stein, vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research, recently told the Financial Times. “They are happy to have more supply on the market from non-U.S. suppliers.”

From a climate perspective, increasing LNG exports from Canada and Mexico are an extremely welcome addition to global markets, particularly for Asian buyers – although they alone will not be able to provide the volumes of LNG needed to wean Asia off of coal. “Massive volumes of coal must be displaced through the 2030s and beyond across emerging Asia to achieve the region’s net-zero aspirations. This inevitably will mean substantial gas imports,” Nikkei Asia reported earlier this year. “As the sole realistic coal alternative in terms of affordability and energy density, LNG from the U.S. offers a much cleaner option for always-available power generation that, in partnership with renewables, can meet growing energy demand while facilitating climate progress,” the report continues.

Despite their relatively smaller export capacities, Canada and Mexico could have critical strategic advantages over U.S. suppliers that allow them to export LNG to Asian markets more efficiently. The two countries are planning to significantly build out their LNG export infrastructure on their Pacific coasts, allowing them to avoid transporting LNG through the Panama Canal. This could give Canada and Mexico a key edge in LNG markets, as the Canal has become a global choke point for LNG trade in recent years. Exporting directly from the West Coast “would give [Canada and Mexico] easier and potentially cheaper access to the Asian markets that are forecast by the industry to drive growth,” according to reporting from the Financial Times.

And Canada and Mexico are not alone in the rush to capitalize on Asian buyer’s demand for new sources of LNG. A floating natural gas project off the coast of Argentina could soon emerge as a new supplier for Eastern markets as BP’s Pan American Energy seeks to negotiate contracts with Asian consumers. Pan American is just one of a number of companies aiming to turn Argentina into a major player in global oil and gas markets. Notably, YPF, Petronas, and Tecpetrol are all working on major projects in South America, which sits atop the world’s second-largest shale gas reserves. At present, Argentina is one of just four countries producing shale gas at a commercial scale, alongside the U.S., Canada, and China.

This means that when the United States ends its permitting freeze, the marketplace will be significantly changed. LNG exporters should brace for a much higher level of competition from LNG exporters across the Americas who may have key logistical advantages over U.S.-based enterprises.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com 

Take the Survey at https://survey.energynewsbeat.com/

1031 Exchange E-Book

Crude Oil, LNG, Jet Fuel price quote

ENB Top News 
ENB
Energy Dashboard
ENB Podcast
ENB Substack

The post U.S. LNG Permit Freeze Sparks Export Boom in Canada and Mexico appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

Shell, Chevron, and Norway’s Equinor have all begun evacuating staff from offshore facilities as the threat of a potential Tropical Cyclone System 9 intensifies as it moves toward the Gulf coast, where the brewing storm could turn into a hurricane by Wednesday.

Earlier on Monday, Chevron completed the evacuation of nonessential personnel from the Gulf of Mexico facilities, including Anchor, Big Foot, Blind Faith, Jack, Petronius, and Tahiti platforms.

Shell said on Sunday that it was monitoring the storm track for potential impact on its assets and operations in the Gulf of Mexico, and was preparing to shut in production at two platforms–Stones and Appomattox. Shell has also evacuated non-essential personnel from its Mars Corridor assets as a precautionary measure.

Equinor has evacuated non-essential staff from its Titan platform.

Tropical Storm and Hurricane Watches have been issued for Cuba and parts of Mexico, with the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warning that the tropical cyclone system, which was near western Cuba on Monday, is expected to intensify over the next 72 hours.

As of noon on Wednesday (ET), the NHC said there was a 90% chance this storm would develop over the next two days, with a Harris County meteorologist stating that it will likely escalate into a Category 4 hurricane as it moves across the GoM’s warmer waters.

Oil prices on Monday were responding more to European economic data than to the potential disruption of oil supply from the Gulf of Mexico or intensifying conflict developments in the Middle East.

At 4:13 p.m. ET on Monday, Brent crude was trading down 0.59% at $74.05, while the U.S. crude benchmark, WTI, was trading down 0.47% at $70.53.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

Take the Survey at https://survey.energynewsbeat.com/

1031 Exchange E-Book

Crude Oil, LNG, Jet Fuel price quote

ENB Top News 
ENB
Energy Dashboard
ENB Podcast
ENB Substack

The post Oil Price Slide Eases as Tropical Cyclone Looms over Gulf of Mexico appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat
Mario Draghi’s report highlights Europe’s declining competitiveness, attributing it to lagging productivity, energy dependency, and an investment gap.
Draghi proposes a three-pronged solution: a more assertive industrial policy, increased public and private investment, and regulatory reforms for greater flexibility and efficiency.
The report emphasizes the need to address Europe’s energy challenges through renewable energy, infrastructure investment, and market reform, while also acknowledging unanswered questions about the cost of social welfare and talent attraction.

Mario Draghi’s much-anticipated report on European competitiveness, released on September 9th, provides a comprehensive assessment of Europe’s economic challenges and proposes solutions.

The report has garnered mixed reactions, with some praising its thoroughness and others criticizing its recommendations.

Draghi’s Assessment of the European Economy

Draghi highlights the decline of the European economy, evidenced by a falling share of global GDP and trade.

He attributes this primarily to lagging productivity, particularly in digitalization. This has led to a significant gap in disposable income growth compared to the U.S.

The report points out the disappearance of the foundations on which European prosperity was built, including energy security and sources of growth.

The continent faces challenges such as a protectionist global environment, Chinese subsidized manufacturing, and tech domination.

Draghi also criticizes Europe’s fragmented response to these challenges, particularly in climate policy.

He argues that the Green Deal’s focus on energy transition without job and industry creation has led to deindustrialization.

The report identifies energy dependency, an investment gap, and excessive regulation as further obstacles to European competitiveness.

Draghi’s Three Main Solutions

Industrial policy: The report advocates for a more assertive industrial policy, taking inspiration from China. Draghi proposes categorizing industries and sectors based on strategic importance and implementing corresponding courses of action, including accepting imports for lost industries, promoting domestic production for strategic industries, developing joint ventures, and protecting infant industries. 
Tackling the investment and innovation gap: Draghi calls for a massive increase in public and private investment, estimated at €750 to €800 billion annually. He recommends completing the Capital Markets Union and Banking Union and advocates for direct public investment through common debt for EU projects. 
Reforming the EU for flexibility and efficiency: Draghi suggests removing excessive bureaucracy and damaging legislation, particularly those based on the precautionary principle. He proposes impact assessments for law packages and evaluating policies after implementation. The report also calls for increased EU efficiency through political centralization, including extending qualified majority voting.

Energy Challenges and Solutions

A key focus of the report is Europe’s energy dependency, which Draghi sees as undermining its economic model.

The reliance on imported natural gas, particularly from Russia, has resulted in high electricity prices, putting pressure on businesses, especially energy-intensive industries like chemicals and metallurgy. This has created a significant competitive disadvantage for European companies compared to their US counterparts.

The report also criticizes Europe’s fragmented response to the energy crisis and the challenges of climate policy.

He argues that the Green Deal’s focus on energy transition without sufficient consideration for job and industry creation has led to deindustrialization.

To address the energy challenges, Draghi proposes a multifaceted approach:

Promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency: The report emphasizes the need to accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources and improve energy efficiency across all sectors.
Investing in energy infrastructure: Draghi calls for significant investments in upgrading energy infrastructure, including modernizing electricity grids and developing interconnections to facilitate the integration of renewable energy.
Reforming the EU energy market: The report advocates for a more integrated and efficient European energy market, reducing fragmentation and promoting competition.

Unanswered Questions and Contradictions

While the Draghi report offers valuable insights and solutions, it leaves some important questions unanswered.

The feasibility of debt-driven EU funding and the accountability for productive investments remain concerns.

The report also avoids addressing the cost of Europe’s social model and its impact on investment and competitiveness.

It’s also missing some clear answers on how to attract and retain top talent while maintaining Europe’s egalitarian values.

What’s Next? 

Mario Draghi’s report serves as a wake-up call for Europe, highlighting the urgent need for reform and investment.

It proposes a more assertive industrial policy, increased public investment, and regulatory reforms to address the challenges facing the European economy.

But the report’s silence on the cost of the European social model and the complexities of attracting top talent leaves some crucial questions unanswered.

The future of European competitiveness hinges on addressing these challenges and striking a balance between social welfare and economic dynamism.

By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com

Take the Survey at https://survey.energynewsbeat.com/

1031 Exchange E-Book

Crude Oil, LNG, Jet Fuel price quote

ENB Top News 
ENB
Energy Dashboard
ENB Podcast
ENB Substack

The post Energy Dependency: Europe’s Achilles Heel? appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuters) – California and several environmental groups sued Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), on Monday and accused the oil giant of engaging in a decades-long campaign that helped fuel global plastic waste pollution.

Speaking at an event during Climate Week in New York City, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state sued Exxon, 

 after concluding a nearly two-year investigation that he said showed Exxon was deliberately misleading the public about the limitations of recycling.

“Today’s lawsuit shows the fullest picture to date of ExxonMobil’s decades-long deception, and we are asking the court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastics pollution crisis through its campaign of deception,” Bonta said in a statement.

The investigation mirrors California’s previous probes into the oil industry’s alleged efforts to mislead the public about climate change, which the state is also suing over, and continues a long-standing adversarial relationship between the state and Big Oil.

Once a major crude supplier, California’s oil production has been on a steady decline for almost four decades, with companies saying the regulatory environment there makes it a difficult place to invest.

Exxon rival Chevron Corp (CVX.N), meanwhile, a strong critic of California’s policies, said this year it plans to move its headquarters from the state where it was born to oil friendly Texas.

A coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Club appeared to join California’s legal battle, filing a related lawsuit in the same state court in San Francisco, raising similar allegations against Exxon.

Bonta, a Democrat, said his office specifically had sought information on Exxon’s promotion of its “advanced recycling” technology, which uses a process called pyrolysis to turn hard-to-recycle plastic into fuel.

He had said the technology’s slow progress was a sign of Exxon’s ongoing deception. He said he wants to secure an abatement fund and civil penalties for the harm inflicted by plastics pollution on California.

Exxon pushed back at the attorney general, arguing that solutions like advanced recycling work.

“Suing people makes headlines but doesn’t solve the plastic waste problem. Advanced recycling is a real solution,” said a spokesperson for ExxonMobil, adding that California has done “nothing to ‘advance’ recycling.”

‘UPHILL BATTLE’

Notre Dame Law School Professor Bruce Huber, who specializes in environmental law, said California may face an “uphill battle” with its lawsuit.

“The state’s primary claim relies on public nuisance, a notoriously murky area of law. It could be difficult for a court to grant California relief here without opening a Pandora’s box of other, similar claims,” he said.

Exxon is the world’s largest producer of resins used for single-use plastics, according to a report published last year by the Minderoo Foundation, with consultancies Wood Mackenzie and the Carbon Trust.

Reuters has reported on the enormous obstacles facing advanced recycling that the plastics industry touts as an environmental savior.

California’s lawsuit comes ahead of a final round of global plastic treaty negotiations set to take place in Busan, South Korea, at the end of the year.

In those talks, countries are split over whether the treaty should call for caps on plastic production, a position opposed by Exxon and the global petrochemical industry.

The United States last month said it supports a treaty designed around global plastic production cuts.

Environmental groups praised the lawsuit. Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, said California’s lawsuit will “hold industry accountable and debunk the plastics recycling narrative that holds us back from real solutions.”

Source: Reuters.com

Take the Survey at https://survey.energynewsbeat.com/

1031 Exchange E-Book

Crude Oil, LNG, Jet Fuel price quote

ENB Top News 
ENB
Energy Dashboard
ENB Podcast
ENB Substack

The post California sues Exxon over global plastic pollution appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

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

UK Energy-Climate Policies

David Blackmon [00:00:00] Well, looky here where we’re live. Hello, everyone. I hope. I hope we have an audience out there. I’m not sure Stu Turley. Can’t be here today due to some other obligations he’s having to take care of. So I’m David Blackmon, here with Dr. Tammy Nemeth of the Nemeth Report. Tammy, how are you today?

Tammny Nemeth [00:00:21] I’m good, thank you. How is everyone today?

David Blackmon [00:00:24] I’m just wonderful. It’s a beautiful rainy day in Texas. We haven’t had any rain in two months, so I’m really happy about it. Irina Slav in Bulgaria. How are you today?

Irina Slav [00:00:35] I’m great, thank you, David. No rain today.

David Blackmon [00:00:38] Is growing and I.

Irina Slav [00:00:40] Yeah

David Blackmon [00:00:42] Awesome also be a bumper tomato crop coming is what I understand.

Irina Slav [00:00:46] And I have a second crop coming.

David Blackmon [00:00:50] For second.

Irina Slav [00:00:51] Harvest. And the first one was abundance. Well, the buttons and now I’m doing winter tomatoes for pickling.

David Blackmon [00:00:59] You know, one of the things and I’m sorry, this is just an aside. We’ll get into the topic here in a minute, But you know, my recent trip over to Europe, one of the things that that we’re always amazed by when we go to Europe is, is that tomatoes and cantaloupes and other vegetables taste like tomatoes. Cantaloupes, you know, the vegetables tasted when we were children in the United States. But our big corporate food companies have basically bred all the real taste out of most of our fruits and vegetables here in the United States. And so it’s always wonderful to go to countries that haven’t quite gotten to that point yet. The cantaloupe was really amazing anyway. Anyway, I’m a I’m a cantaloupe junkie and it’s hard to find a good cantaloupe in in Texas anymore. So here we are. We’re going to today. Boy, we got a special treat for everyone today. We’re going to talk about energy and climate policies in the brave new world of Keir Starmer’s Labor Party governing the UK. And I hope we don’t get anyone in too much trouble today, especially Tammy. I hope you’re safe in Canada today. Tammy No, you’re in, you’re at home in the UK, aren’t you? So we’ll have to be very careful. Yeah.

Tammny Nemeth [00:02:21] Tiptoe around, I guess,

David Blackmon [00:02:23] Right, I guess so. But you know, I mean the Labor government came in very predictably, has gone on a a real aggressive attempt to radically change policies, I think. And the way the country’s governed these days is, is was, you know, I think a lot of people predicted they would, including us. And so things are changing in the UK. They were already bad enough. Energy was already more expensive under the Tories than it ever had been. And I guess to me it’s getting more even more expensive now under the Keir Starmer government. What am I wrong about that?

Tammny Nemeth [00:03:09] Well, I think it’s coming. I think it’s a little too it’s a bit early, but they’re already setting up GB energy, great British energy, which is, you know, this state company that’s supposed to be investing in renewables, renewables, meaning wind and solar and and wanting to bypass how. Planning permission is done in the countryside in order to stick up windmills onshore is the big thing in the UK was always will put up the windmills in Scotland or offshore and that will be not in people’s backyard and people will be happy. But it’s not enough, right? It’s not enough and

David Blackmon [00:03:50] clear enough. Yeah.

Tammny Nemeth [00:03:51] And honestly, the the kind of middle part of England is traditional conservative territory. So it’s also a bit of a punishment, I think, from the Labor Party to want to put the windmills and solar panels across the beautiful British countryside. So what that will mean coming forward is unclear. I think they’re supposed to have a big policy statement in the next month or two, so that’ll be interesting to see. And then. There’s a few days ago, the UK government decided to nationalize the the electricity system operator. Now, what’s interesting is that the Conservative government had a consultation to do the same thing over the past three years. And so actually Labor is implementing what the Conservative government before it had recommended. So to me it’s it’s just another example of the unit party. It really doesn’t matter if it was conservative or if it was Labor, you were going to get the same thing anyway. I think Labor is going a little bit farther with respect to creating a state company in order to do a lot of this stuff. I think the Conservatives would have paid lip service to say, well, this is private and but we’re going to work in partnership with the private companies, whereas the Labor government is just like, Nope, we’re going to make this government controlled. And you know, it’ll it’ll it remains to be seen what that will actually mean for rate payers for taxpayers because they’re in nationalizing the system. They they’ve paid, like I mentioned last week, 600 and some billion or sorry, 600 and some million pounds of taxpayer money which they’re going to recoup from the rate payers, which are the tax payers. So we get to pay twice. Great.

David Blackmon [00:05:42] Well, Irina from Bulgaria, what what is your view on what’s happening in in jolly old England?

Irina Slav [00:05:50] Well, as I said before, we went live. We were supposed to catch up with you guys. The East was supposed to catch up with the West, have a better live, you know, we were all going to be wealthier, more democratic, less corrupt. What I’ve been seeing is the opposite. You are catching up with us. Energy is becoming more unreliable. Governments are becoming more openly corrupt because governments have always been corrupt. It was just legitimized in one way or another by a lobbying or something. But now they’re just openly being corrupt. I mean, one of the stories that I’ve put in for for today’s edition of Headlines is that investors are returning to UK renewables. Yes. Why? Because of this great British energy and all the money that the government is going to pour into wind and solar. But for the life of me, I do not understand. Okay. Wind. There is wind. Over the British Isles. But solar. How does solar make any economic sense in England? All Scotland’s oil wells?

David Blackmon [00:07:09] Yeah, particularly Scotland

Irina Slav [00:07:13] Ridiculous It is a non returnable investment and it will never become returnable. So I think what’s going on in the UK right now is completely insane. And unlike Romney, who is delicate, I’m not going to be delicate. People are going to pay through the nose. Great.

Tammny Nemeth [00:07:31] Yeah. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:07:34] Yes. And that well, I mean, we’re already seeing that. Obviously. It all seem so consistent to me with, you know, what we’ve talked about many times here over the last couple of years on this podcast with every solution that is being pursued as a as a part of this transition. Of necessity requires governments, democratic governments to transition into more authoritarian forms of government. And that certainly is happening in the UK. We see it happening in the United States and Canada all over the Western world. And this just over the weekend, Antonio Guterres, I’m sure you both saw it in preparation for the General Assembly of the U.N. that’s beginning today, gave a talk in which he used all this code language about our institutions not being modern enough. They’re not dealing with the problems of the current world. And we have to completely dismantle our old institutions and build entirely new institutions in order to deal appropriately with the issues the world is facing now. And of course, all based in climate alarmism and using this climate alarm narrative as a means to essentially do away with democratic institutions that the Western world has had in place for hundreds of years and replace them with authoritarian, even totalitarian institutions. And I you know, I just think when I look at what’s happening in the U.K. and I don’t live there and, you know, I’m not experiencing any of it firsthand, but it all it all just seems to be, as Tammy pointed out, this unit party effort to transition a Democratic governor government into a socialist authoritarian form of government. And the establishment of this national energy company is the prime manifestation of that now. I mean, they’re just not even really trying to hide it anymore. And, you know, they just feel so emboldened and certain of their consolidation of power that there’s no real reason to pretend otherwise anymore.

Irina Slav [00:09:52] Yeah, they’re going to thrive on totalitarianism. I mean, the foreign secretary, it’s not yours. And secondly, I apologize. Said that climate change would be at the heart of British foreign policy.

David Blackmon [00:10:11] Yes.

Irina Slav [00:10:12] I mean, he was saying he’s stupid or something. I have no personal impressions of the gentleman, but putting climate change at the center of your foreign policy is.

Tammny Nemeth [00:10:25] That it’s a bigger threat than than war with Russia.

David Blackmon [00:10:29] Yeah. Yeah. And of course, we our government in the US have been saying the same thing,

Tammny Nemeth [00:10:34] saying. The same thing. Right.

Irina Slav [00:10:36] Why are they still poking Russia? It’s like they’re eager to go towards Russia. Yeah. Yeah. What about all the omissions? This would lead to their selves?

Tammny Nemeth [00:10:47] Exactly. But they say then they can sue Russia for climate crime.

David Blackmon [00:10:54] That maybe.

Irina Slav [00:10:55] They.

Tammny Nemeth [00:10:55] Started the war. They started it. And so therefore, Russia would have to pay theirs. They’ve already already been floating that idea. It was a few months ago.

Irina Slav [00:11:04] Are they seriously believe this is going?

Tammny Nemeth [00:11:07] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, why not? I mean, they can say all kinds of stuff. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:11:13] And then you have the leave them. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:11:17] Yeah. And you have the World Court or whatever it’s called that he has has some authority apparently to do that sort of thing. So I’m sure that that’s what the, the plan would be if they ever get a resolution to the war. I wonder, you know, Boris Johnson when he was still prime minister the the, you know, party leader or quote of the Tories, you know, announced before he was kind of forced out of power a plan to for a rapid increase in nuclear generation in the UK. Is that all just been tossed aside. I haven’t heard any news about that any time in the last year. I don’t think.

Tammny Nemeth [00:12:00] That’s a really great question. I think there’s a lot that are still in the pipeline like they’ve because they had been talking about the Rolls Royce smaller and they were shortlisting different things and and all that kind of stuff. So I don’t know. I mean, the process here is so long for anything to happen. It’s like in the in Canada and the United States, these things take forever. So I’m not sure. I mean, you would think that GB Energy would be talking about nuclear. And if you’re going to be redoing the electricity system operator, you’d be talking about bringing reliable nuclear into the mix. But yeah, they haven’t really that’s been really quiet. And and the Labor Party I think over the past few days has had their annual meeting or whatever, and they weren’t really talking about that at all. So I don’t know, maybe in the budget that’s coming up in October, they’ll say something. But at Lake we’re just waiting for all these things to drop, right? So what’s the actual net zero policy going to be? What is the electricity system operator going to be? What’s the natural gas thing going to be? It’s they’ve made lots of announcements and it’s but it’s unclear precisely how this is all going to work together. So

Irina Slav [00:13:21] will there be enough money for everything? Because nuclear, it costs a penny to build?

Tammny Nemeth [00:13:26] It does.

Irina Slav [00:13:27] Is that the long term? But it is expensive to build. And they have all this money, I imagine, allocated for wind and solar.

Tammny Nemeth [00:13:39] Right. So, I mean, the subsidies can only go so far when you don’t have enough money. They keep saying there’s a 20 billion hole in the UK finances or something like that and which is a big crock. Everybody knows it’s a crock, but they say it anyway. And what what does that mean exactly for all these other things they want to do? You know, they’re throwing half a billion here, a couple billion there. And you know, what does that mean in the end?

David Blackmon [00:14:08] So, yeah.

Tammny Nemeth [00:14:10] It will just money for that stuff.

David Blackmon [00:14:12] We had this announcement this morning. I’m sure you both saw it, of these big banks, 14 major banks, including, you know, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citibank. Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas and others announcing doing this joint announcement with John Podesta at the White House today, old boy John Podesta. Speaking of climate authoritarians, is that they’re going to somehow dedicate increased capital allocation to to promote rapid buildout expansion of nuclear now recognizing it’s a zero emission source. And then we had the the deal last Friday, maybe the biggest piece of irony I’ve ever seen in the nuclear space. Constellation Energy, getting this 20 year supply deal with Microsoft to provide power generation for by restarting Three Mile Island. Yeah. You know which the unit two of Three Mile Island Unit. Unit one. I’m sorry. They’re going to restart unit one. Unit two was the one that had the incident 45 long years ago that has basically held the nuclear power expansion in the United States hostage for the last 45 years. But they’re going to restart Unit one, which was not impacted by that incident. And it had been voluntarily retired in 2019. And supposedly, they’re going to have that up and running by 2028. But then you have this announcement by the banks of of increased capital allocation. So the question becomes, though, is anything going to change in the permitting space, which takes 15 to 20 years to obtain permits for a new nuclear power plant in the United States? It’s just a crazy long time frame that in order to make any difference before 2050 is going to have to be sped up. And, you know, I mean, we’ve had a couple of legislative efforts over the past few years that have, you know, had bipartisan opposition and killed them. So I you know, I doubt anything’s different in Europe, you know, anywhere in Europe as it’s the same kind of thing, isn’t it?

Irina Slav [00:16:28] Probably.

Tammny Nemeth [00:16:30] I don’t know. I think France is able to kind of expedite.

David Blackmon [00:16:32] Well, yes. France

Tammny Nemeth [00:16:33]  perhaps a little bit quicker than other countries. Germany. It depends. It depends on the will, you know, And it’s like what’s the the the trendy thing these days that that will accelerate things. Because if you think about it, what are they what are they restarting Three Mile Island for? Is it to actually help people have access to reliable energy for their own for your own household or anything like that? No, it’s for the air servers,

David Blackmon [00:17:01] right? Yeah. So robots can take over your jobs in your life,

Tammny Nemeth [00:17:05] Right. So I follow this blog from statue and called Small Dead Animals. And so they have a little screenshot. It’s go for

David Blackmon [00:17:16] small deadt animals. Okay.

Tammny Nemeth [00:17:17] It’s a really great blog. And they had a screen capture of it of, of a tweet from Christopher Laycock. And I just want to read it out because it’s so funny. Please turn down your thermostat so we can power the data centers we’re building to enslave you. And yeah, that.

Irina Slav [00:17:35]  bullseye.

Tammny Nemeth [00:17:37] Bullseye.

David Blackmon [00:17:39] Boy,

Tammny Nemeth [00:17:40] Want you to have reliable energy for your household use, but we need to have reliable energy and we’ll build it out specifically for the server farms and for the servers so that it can control what you’re doing. Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s where we’re at.

Irina Slav [00:17:56] And it’s worth noting that even the International Energy Agency has been talking about nuclear for for a couple of years. The IEA has been pro-nuclear, although not so loudly as it talks about wind and solar. But it has said repeatedly that the energy transition would be impossible without nuclear. I mean, net zero. Yeah, that’s you know, that vision of net zero is impossible without nuclear. And nobody was paying any attention until the data center operators, as you said, somebody said they need to do energy well.

Tammny Nemeth [00:18:32] So the the other interesting element with the data centers and the data processing or whatever is that they’re being permitted to build their own power generation. Yes. So if a if a state or a province wants to do its own electricity generation, it has to meet all these different climate targets. But there doesn’t seem to be the same set of restrictions about meeting climate targets or the data centers because they can build natural gas or they can build whatever they need in order to ensure they have stable and reliable electricity. I’d like to know how that how that factors into the different climate policies that they’re that governments are putting forward. Do these companies have to you mean how does that comply with. They’re their ESG and net zero targets. Now, do the data center say, well, we actually are net negative because the stuff that we’re doing is helping people reduce their overall energy usage and therefore, we’re actually making the. Emissions negative.

Irina Slav [00:19:40] Right.

David Blackmon [00:19:41] And they could claim that theoretically, of course, the data centers are allowed to do that because they’re not building utility scale power generation. And the regulations that are in place currently in most areas, at least in the United States, only apply to utility scale generation. So they haven’t gotten around to it. For example, I have a natural gas generator to back up my home, so they haven’t got around to regulating those things yet. And essentially a power supply for an air data center is the same sort of concept. It’s it’s an isolated use for a specific facility. And I think what you’re going to see, of course, is the authoritarians are going to go about regulating those home generators and anything similar to that in the coming years and probably already do it in California. I haven’t actually research that, but in Texas they don’t yet. So, you know, I mean, and the response to the by the central planners, you know, who are pushing all this stuff is always to crack down even harder. Right. Whenever anything like that pops up. And so you have this new burgeoning part of the economy that is going to be building a lot of site specific generation that they’re going to see as a problem that needs to be cracked down on. And and so they will. And this is only going to continue, isn’t it, until the people in these countries force them to stop. Right. And push these people out of power because this is their mindset. They don’t know anything else. The solution is always going to be more government, more sticks and fewer carrots as we go through time.

Irina Slav [00:21:32] But yeah.

David Blackmon [00:21:33] Yeah, yeah.

Tammny Nemeth [00:21:34] But it’s it’s kind of the bait and switch, though. And and this is this article that Iryna shared around this morning from The Wall Street Journal where they were talking about all the different nerds, the green nerds in in Holland and how they’re using dynamic pricing or real time pricing and all this different kinds of things in order to basically get their electricity for free because the wind and solar need to dump their electricity when there’s too much when demand isn’t so high. And they’re trying to create all this behavior shift. But that’s what they tried with the EVs. And if people I wonder if they’re realizing that this is a bait and switch so they get you in what they did with the EVs, you know, like, it’s free charging. It’s so great they don’t have to worry. We’ll have all these chargers everywhere. It’ll be for free or really low costs. And now there was an article that circulated on the weekend that actually the costs of an EV are like way more than a typical internal combustion engine vehicle because of the high price of recharging, you know, when you plug it in. So now they want to do this with your electricity consumption. They want you to be following real time pay for the real time on the I forget, what’s the what’s the price of wholesale pricing, the wholesale, the wholesale dynamic pricing. So it can vary any hour. So before it used to be you’d want to have stability in your pricing so you could budget. You knew exactly this is how much I’m getting charged per kilowatt hour. I know this is what it’s going to be per month or whatever. No, no, no, no. It’s every fricking minute. You got to know what you’re getting charged. And and when it’s peak time, well, then you’re paying like ten times what you normally would have. So they suck people into this. You get these green nerds going on about how great this will be. And wouldn’t it be awesome if America brought it in? And it’s like, No, don’t think this way. It’s it’s a trick. It’s it’s a bait and switch.

Irina Slav [00:23:36] It is a trick. And they’re so happy to partake in the trick. Remember that story? One of the green nerds who has two electric vehicles. So clearly he’s not exactly a middle class. Yeah. And they also happy that he actually earns about €30 by getting paid to charge his electric cars during peak output and travel demand. It’s amazing who’s happy about it. So how much did you pay to charge those EVs when you weren’t charging them at peak demand?

David Blackmon [00:24:13] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:24:15] that’s a big output.

Tammny Nemeth [00:24:17] And that’s what it.

David Blackmon [00:24:18] Emphasizes.

Irina Slav [00:24:20] Just to to output they are just dead man’s job. I don’t think I’ll be able to survive this. Dynamic pricing, honestly.

Tammny Nemeth [00:24:32] Well, they were trying to do that dynamic pricing at fast food restaurants in America. So if you showed up at noon when everybody else is showing up, you pay twice as much as if you were, you know, instead of showing up at 11 or at 230, you be paying twice as much at 12:00 because that’s when it’s busy. All right. That’s insane.

Irina Slav [00:24:53] Yeah. Did it work or does it drop it?

Tammny Nemeth [00:24:56] I don’t know.

Irina Slav [00:24:59] Yeah.

Tammny Nemeth [00:24:59] People just not going to much money.

David Blackmon [00:25:01] Yeah. People stopped going during the peak times, and so 11:00 became the peak times that at 12. Right. Which nobody could have seen coming, of course.

Irina Slav [00:25:10] Yeah, that’s true.

David Blackmon [00:25:13] So on leaves, though, we had a great report. Actually, I think this was in The Wall Street Journal, too, about the collapse of of TV sales in August. 74% year over year drop in Germany and 33% year over year drop in France in total units sold electric vehicle units. And so I mean, and the same thing is happening in United States. Demand is flatlined. Demand growth is flatlined in the United States for EVs this year. And do you think this is a permanent phenomenon or is it just temporary due to, you know, the evolution happening in that?

Tammny Nemeth [00:25:58] I think you get worse.

David Blackmon [00:26:00] You think, is it going to get worse?

Irina Slav [00:26:01] Yeah. And that’s not me hoping it will get worse. I think it’s going to get worse because I did not expect this sharp drop in European EV sales.

David Blackmon [00:26:09] I didn’t either.

Irina Slav [00:26:10] I expected it to be much, much more gradual, much slower. But if this is what is happening, just. Now so soon, I think it’s going to get worse. But unlike me, Bloombergnef, I have the story open. It says that oil prices, a demand issue, biggest user segment to peak in 2027. And guess what? The biggest user segment is its car transports. And it tells us that. Sorry for taking the discussion in a different direction, but they’re telling us that EVs are already displacing nearly 1.8 million barrels of oil every day. And this is going to grow because this is now a temporary blip. Sales will pick up and start growing fast again to such an extent that by 2027. Oil demand growth will be all but flat lining. And these people are being serious about this. So let’s ignore this. It’s 44% drop for Europe in Ibiza, 44. That’s a lot.

David Blackmon [00:27:19] For the whole EU as a whole.

Irina Slav [00:27:22] I think is Europe including the UK? I’m not sure. And Norway and I’m not sure the. Okay. I have to check that.

David Blackmon [00:27:32] Yeah, I am. So. I mean, I don’t know what. Right. And I don’t know what’s happening in the U.K., whether it’s different or not in terms of EV sales.

Tammny Nemeth [00:27:42] Well, in the UK, they they mandated that the dealerships had to sell a certain percentage of new EVs and that to be of all their vehicles sold, a certain percentage had to be EVs and they weren’t meeting those targets. We had a story a few weeks ago where the dealers were like, you know, we’re putting people on a wait list. We’re rationing vehicles because nobody wants them, but we have to meet these percent targets. And so, yeah, what happens then is the price of used vehicles go up and so on. And if people still are driving used vehicles, then you’re still going to need petrol or diesel. If you’re keeping your internal combustion engine unit and not buying an EV, then you’re still going to need fuel. So for them to say that there’s going to be this decrease and so on. And Canada also has a mandate where by a certain year they have to start selling certain percentages of of EVs as new vehicles. But I think in the Canadian one, they’ve also included hybrids in that percentage. So if you if it’s a hybrid or a certain kind of hybrid, we often do that, right? So Germany’s also pressing for hybrids rather than periods as part of the whatever mandates is my understanding. So if it’s a hybrid, you’re still going to need fuel?

David Blackmon [00:29:03] Yes. But isn’t is it the authoritarian response to that to start outlawing the building of new gas stations?

Tammny Nemeth [00:29:11] That’s what I think.

David Blackmon [00:29:14] I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s coming soon to to all these countries.

Tammny Nemeth [00:29:20] Wasn’t it California that was not allowing new service stations to be built in some of the counties?

David Blackmon [00:29:26] Yes. Yeah, they’re already doing it there. Yeah. Any smart idea on energy you can think of as already being done in California?

Irina Slav [00:29:35] There is a pretty good network of petrol stations in Europe and they can patching the U.S. already. I mean, that won’t be tragic. But they’re trying to build more charging stations and they’re failing in that as well.

Tammny Nemeth [00:29:49] Yes.

Irina Slav [00:29:50] I just checked the numbers. UK EV sales were up 10% for the year in August. That mandate probably has something to do with because you remove the choice for people.

Tammny Nemeth [00:30:01] Yeah. They have no choice. So that looks like that. The numbers are different. I would like to know what the if that if that’s a percentage number or if that’s the actual number. You know what I mean?

Irina Slav [00:30:15] I says 10% up.

Tammny Nemeth [00:30:19] Of new car sales or EVs over all.

Irina Slav [00:30:22] Latest car registrations. Aids to sales of new electric cars grew by 10% last month as battery electric cars made up 23.2% of UK car registrations in August.

Tammny Nemeth [00:30:36] Of new car registrations because I was not allowed to buy

David Blackmon [00:30:41] The gas.

Tammny Nemeth [00:30:41] Connection engine. So then the numbers look better.

David Blackmon [00:30:45] Yeah, I was right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We ready to go to our articles here?

Tammny Nemeth [00:30:51] Yes, sir.

David Blackmon [00:30:52] All right, let’s see if I can. Figure out how to do this. That didn’t work. Where are we? Here we go. Okay, next slide. There you go. Tammy, you’re first.

Tammny Nemeth [00:31:05] Okay, so this article just came out, I think, yesterday in the Telegraph. And the title is Lack of Net zero Clarity Puts Future of British Manufacturing at Risk. And the article talks to a UK packing packaging giant which does paper processing, cardboard and paper and so on. And in the article the the person was complaining about that. They’re not sure, are we going to still keep gas, natural gas? Are they going to be penalized for using natural gas to produce their paper? How are they how can they be competitive with their European and American counterparts that have significantly lower energy costs? And so one of the the arguments was that the in the UK they’re paying something like £0.30 per kilowatt hour. And in France it’s 16 and in Germany it’s 17 equivalent pence per kilowatt hour. And in the United States, it’s a fraction of that. And he’s like, so how can we keep going if we have these massive electricity costs and energy costs? And so one activist group, which is the manufacturing group that was cited by this author, is blaming natural gas for the increase of energy costs of 230% since 2008. But if you go to carbon brief and I really don’t like them, but they have this really great interactive map of the UK and it shows the change in the grid in the UK from 2008 to 2018. And I mean in 2008 the UK produced 337 terawatt hours. In 2018, that dropped to 330, and over that period of time, Hall fell off a cliff. So they shut down coal. They built up a load of wind and solar. Solar went from 0 to 12 terawatt hours. Wind went from 7 to 57. So you have all of these subsidized generate electrical generation, which drove up the cost and then they shut down the reliable, cheap coal. Then they built a lit actually the amount of natural gas power has dropped. So how can it be the fault of natural gas when the whole grid has been reoriented? All the new transmission lines, all the stuff to wind and solar? So the argument that this is all the fault of the high cost of natural gas over the past two years is just it’s just garbage. So are we in for more of this? Probably. And the manufacturer was like, we need some consistency and clarity on where the grid is going, what we’re allowed to use and how much this is all going to cost because we can compete.

David Blackmon [00:34:08] All right. And otherwise, they’re going to have to move overseas, right, To have to move the plant to China or wherever.

Tammny Nemeth [00:34:14] Right. Or if they’re friend or friend shoring or whatever will go back into the EU or whatever, and it’ll go over to France as France will have cheaper electricity.

David Blackmon [00:34:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s the the negative impact of all these policies potentially to two national economies is the loss of industry, de-industrialization of the country, which really is at the heart of the goal of all of this. Frankly.

Tammny Nemeth [00:34:40] Right. And and the most hilarious thing in this article is they were talking to the minister for, I don’t know, net zero. Not net zero is something else industry or whatever. We have to be really careful that we that this doesn’t turn into deindustrialization. It’s too. Late.

Irina Slav [00:34:58] And you’re not going to do the name.

Tammny Nemeth [00:35:01] Right. And I’ll put some other name to it. Who, who knows, right? I mean, just.

David Blackmon [00:35:05] My gosh. That’s like raising the alarm after the fire has already consumed half your home, right?

Tammny Nemeth [00:35:10] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. That was. That was my story.

David Blackmon [00:35:15] Irina.

Irina Slav [00:35:17] You mentioned Podesta. Yes or no is sitting right here that he actually has a good word to say about the growth in US oil and gas production and the fact that this growth continues under the Biden administration. Why might that be? You said it’s a it’s an economic success. It’s an energy security success. You’re saying this. But now remember that the election in less than two months.

Tammny Nemeth [00:35:48] I know. That was so funny. I couldn’t believe that headline.

Irina Slav [00:35:52] And so pathetic and so obvious. And apparently he didn’t care about it being pathetic or obvious.

Tammny Nemeth [00:36:00] No, he’s shameless.

Irina Slav [00:36:02] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:36:02] He had polling data that showed it might be positive for the Harris campaign to say that

Irina Slav [00:36:09] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They needed polling data for that.

Tammny Nemeth [00:36:14] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:36:16] Okay. And the other stories. This is just ridiculously funny. And the other story that I mentioned, Is it time to invest in the UK’s green transition? Again.

Tammny Nemeth [00:36:28] Like they all.

Irina Slav [00:36:29] Know, it was an outflow of investments from the UK’s green transition. So apparently after the same government came into power and all these GB energy and all these other ambitious plans. Are making investors optimistic about the UK’s transition once again. Translation. To my mind, they’re giving out money. Let’s get in line for some because that’s exactly what it sounds like. Yeah. Left to two market forces, the transition is uncertain at best. So apparently investors were getting more reluctant. But now that, you know, Labor has this manifesto of doubling onshore wind, tripling solar, quadrupling offshore wind and then giving money to this. So obviously, investors will be very interested in that. Which is stupid. You know, if I invested, I would’ve thought, this is stupid, because you cannot secure long term returns on subsidies. I thought this has become clear and evident about it. Hasn’t. Are they still calling for this?

David Blackmon [00:37:42] But not to the Financial Times. I can’t help noticing the source of that story.

Tammny Nemeth [00:37:47] Yeah. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:37:48] Which is a real newspaper that contained real news about business and the economy and now is nothing but a reciter of the prevailing.

Irina Slav [00:37:59] There is it’s become almost the same as the Guardian. It still reports news and reports facts begrudgingly and never fails to give it a little bit of a spin. Make it sound better in line with the narrative. It’s way tragic, but the investors are once again interesting, but in this case, transition. Let’s see how it goes.

David Blackmon [00:38:23] Yes.

Tammny Nemeth [00:38:23] Yeah. Subsidies, handouts, all that kind of great stuff that apparently had lost the money even though we’re in debt, you know?

David Blackmon [00:38:31] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:38:31] What about the.

David Blackmon [00:38:33] Hole in the budget.

Irina Slav [00:38:34] When you make people pay twice for the same thing? I mean, you get money until people run out of money.

Tammny Nemeth [00:38:42] Yup.

David Blackmon [00:38:43] And then you print more money.

Irina Slav [00:38:44] Tireless efforts.

David Blackmon [00:38:46] Yes.

Tammny Nemeth [00:38:46] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:38:47] Well, you know, a $20 billion budget hole is nothing here in the U.S.. We are going to pay $1.2 trillion.

Irina Slav [00:38:55] And actually, you guys know it.

Tammny Nemeth [00:38:56] Yeah, I know. That’s crazy.

David Blackmon [00:38:59] But that’s. That’s child’s play to us.

Tammny Nemeth [00:39:00] How many zeros is that? What’s a trillion?

David Blackmon [00:39:06] So I’ve got I’ve got a couple here. I’m going to do the second one first. The Pete Buttigieg defend the Biden/Harris EV Charger Boondoggle.. Now, this is one I posted on LinkedIn. I got a copy of the video of of our glorious transit transportation secretary who has zero qualifications for the job. He’s a former mayor of a small town in Indiana. But he’s, you know, well, few years ago, he was like the rising star in the Democratic Party. So they gave him this cabinet position, thinking it’s an easy gig. You know, for four years, the raises profile. And he appeared on CNBC and tried to explain why it is that the Biden administration has wasted $8 billion on a program that’s supposed to be building out thousands, tens of thousands of new EV charging stations all over the country. And they’ve only managed to build eight of them.

Tammny Nemeth [00:40:07] My gosh.

David Blackmon [00:40:08] And amazingly, you know, LinkedIn suspended me for simply publishing a video of of of a driver. And I think it was in Germany getting out of his car and pulling just stop or protesters off the road so he could drive on down the road. And I have you know, I posted that video on LinkedIn and last Sunday they suspended me for three days until they determined, well, that doesn’t really violate our community rules. I, I thought when I posted this video op ed judge stammering around about wasting $8 billion on eight charging stations, that they’d probably suspend me for that, too. But no, they let that thing go viral and it was no problem. So I, I really don’t understand what the censors are thinking at LinkedIn anymore. So I’ll just keep on posting the videos that I find interesting. Anyway, you know, there’s no way to justify wasting $8 billion on eight charging stations. And then that’s what poor Pete had to try to do. The other stories.

Tammny Nemeth [00:41:14] Maybe it was for, you know, it is an election year.

David Blackmon [00:41:18] It is an election year. Yes, it is. And Kamala Harris, you know, has to justify. Well, no, she really doesn’t, because nobody asked Kamala Harris any questions.

Tammny Nemeth [00:41:27] Anything. Yeah,

David Blackmon [00:41:27]  totally in the tank for her. So she never gets a real question posed to her. So she’s she doesn’t have to explain any of this. But the guy on CNBC who I’m going to forget the host name, he’s really good. Really smart guy and a great host. And CNBC, actually, unlike the Financial Times, still focuses on economic and financial news, which is. So it’s it’s what I watch most of the time during the day. Then the other story, Beirut blasts Lebanon rocked by a wave of handheld radio blasts as solar energy systems explode. Right. This headline just cracks me up, you know, So the Hezbollah terrorists are based in Lebanon and their first their analog pagers all blew up and killed and maimed a bunch of them. And then the next day, their walkie talkies blew up and killed or maimed a bunch more because the Mossad. It intercepted the the shipments of those. Walkie talkies and pagers, you know, devices, whatever you want to call them, that have been ordered by Hezbollah and implanted explosives in them that they were able to detonate simultaneously. But then at the same time, that was happening with the walkie talkies, on the second day, a bunch of home solar panels blew up that were on top of people’s houses in Lebanon. And I haven’t seen any follow up stories yet to to explain whether or not that was connected to the walkie talkies, you know? Yeah. And you got to kind of wonder now, you know, sometimes I’m almost afraid to turn my television on at my home. I don’t think the Mossad has a grudge against me, but it’s all it’s all a pretty stark lesson. Lesson that you don’t want to become a target of the Mossad, which I thought it was just, you.

Irina Slav [00:43:26] Know, so that if one intelligence service can weaponize devices, then so can others.

David Blackmon [00:43:31] Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Irina Slav [00:43:33] One that I haven’t read the story, but I did remember reading a couple of years ago, I think it was a study of the most frequent problems with rooftop solar installations. And by far, the biggest problem was that bad work, but bad installation work. Yeah. Yeah. Was a fire. So, you know, in Lebanon, they had a really big problem with energy supply. I think they still do.

Tammny Nemeth [00:44:01] They still do. Didn’t Robert Bryce focus on that in his one of his documentaries?

Irina Slav [00:44:07] I can’t remember.

Tammny Nemeth [00:44:08] Yeah. Where they they had these little generators. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:44:13] So if they were hastily assembled, you know, hastily installed and improperly installed, that that could be. It’s. Yeah, I mean, I do hope Mossad wouldn’t be that wouldn’t waste time to, you know, get some changes in people’s rooftop solar installations. That would be a step too far. But yeah, this, this is a problem. And with this shortage, remember there were complaints about the shortage of qualified technicians to put a rooftop solar. So probably there’s a lot of shoddy work in rooftop solar. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:44:48] Yeah, there probably is. And you know, there probably is in the United States, too. Although I think, you know, rooftop solar does make sense if you can afford it. Right.

Irina Slav [00:44:57] It doesn’t make. Sense. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:44:58] You know.

Irina Slav [00:45:00]  selection right now.

David Blackmon [00:45:02] Yeah. And so, you know, I mean, it does make sense. We priced it out in the wake of the winter storm a few years ago for our home. And it was going to cost four times the cost of a natural gas generator. So we went with the generator instead. Yeah, I mean, it was just crazy the way it’s marketed in the United States. Home solar is basically this Ponzi scheme.

Irina Slav [00:45:25] How is it so expensive? So subsidized.

David Blackmon [00:45:28] So so what happens is they advertise you get a 0% interest loan, right? To finance your home solar system for our house. If we paid cash for for home solar for our whole house and two big Tesla batteries in our garage for backup. It would have cost us about $40,000 in cash. Okay. But if you do the. Quote zero interest loan over which has a 25 year term so it makes your payments pretty low. But when you calculate it out, the number of payments times the monthly payment you’re paying, it came to about four times that $40,000. So $160,000. So is that really a 0% interest loan? And the little kids, you know, they send a kid out who doesn’t know anything about it to go through a PowerPoint with you. And when I asked him a question, I said, well, you know, if it’s a 0% interest loan, I’d only be paying $40,000 over that span. So. So how can you say it’s a 0% interest loan? He said, well, you know, the finance company just marks up the principal to that amount.

Tammny Nemeth [00:46:35] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:46:36] To calculate your payment as well, then it’s not a 0% interest loan. That’s about a 12% interest loan. In reality, that’s the reality of this. Yes. And people falling for it is mostly people. Yeah, and mostly the people. And it’s a 25 year loan, so it’s effectively a second mortgage on your house. Yeah. And most of the people who fall for it are elderly people and people who really can’t afford a second mortgage. Yeah. And so it’s this whole scheme is going to fall apart in the United States the way it’s being marketed. And they’re going to have to ultimately, you know, I mean, you’re already getting a lot of blowback, pushback from people in California and Texas about it. And I think in the coming five years or so, it’s all going to kind of fall apart and they’re going to have to come up with a different, more honest model to to market those systems to homeowners. Otherwise, the politicians who who have supported it all are going to win reelection.

Irina Slav [00:47:34] So it’s horrible.

David Blackmon [00:47:36] So we’re 50 minutes in. I think we’ve gone through our agenda. We have an amazingly quiet audience today, although there are plenty of people watching, no one wants to ask questions.

Irina Slav [00:47:49] That’s probably because Stu isn’t here.

David Blackmon [00:47:51] I guess so, yes. Stu must be the question generator. Anyway, do you guys have anything else you want to raise for this episode of the Energy Realities podcast?

Irina Slav [00:48:01] I think we covered everything runs and all.

David Blackmon [00:48:05] I think we have I think we have. Next week we’ll be talking about something else and hopefully Stu will be back. We’ll have our full retinue here. Yeah. And you can find Tammy at the Naismith report.com. Where else can people find you, Tammy?

Tammny Nemeth [00:48:22] I’m on LinkedIn and I’m thinking about doing a substack, so that’ll be.

David Blackmon [00:48:27] Where we need you on Substack. Absolutely.

Irina Slav [00:48:31] You come on. Substack still getting attacked.

David Blackmon [00:48:34] Yay. All right, good deal.

Irina Slav [00:48:36] I don’t know how it is, but he  said he was.

David Blackmon [00:48:39] using the word. Okay, Rita, where can people find you?

Irina Slav [00:48:43] On Substack, Irina Slav in energy. And I’m on X mostly reposting 14 other people’s posts.

Tammny Nemeth [00:48:53] Which is fun.

Irina Slav [00:48:54] It’s fun. Yeah, it.

David Blackmon [00:48:55] Is. It is fun Stu You can find stuff on Substack as well. It’s I’m sorry. Energy News Beat substack. You can find me on Substack We’re all on Substack or we’re going to be when times get.

Irina Slav [00:49:09] A great place.

David Blackmon [00:49:10] Exactly. I know we all got substack and. And I have a lot of fun there. Everything I do you can find linked there. And if you are watching on YouTube, please please subscribe and hit the like button. That will really help us our metrics. And for the rest of you, I’m sorry you didn’t have any questions or comments. I guess we bored you to tears or more Surely .

Irina Slav [00:49:33] you have something?

David Blackmon [00:49:34] Yes, we had fun anyway. And the whole way I.

Tammny Nemeth [00:49:38] Have one thing is is it the Climate Week in New York this week or something?

David Blackmon [00:49:43] It’s UN General Assembly Week. I don’t know. Maybe it is Climate Week.

Tammny Nemeth [00:49:47] Okay.

Irina Slav [00:49:48] I haven’t done that week.

Tammny Nemeth [00:49:50] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And they’re supposed to be climate in front of everything, right? So every day is climate. Climate, right?

David Blackmon [00:49:59] Yes. Well, I can’t wait to hear what fry language Mr. Guterres rolls out when he makes his opening remarks. I think that’s the day today.

Tammny Nemeth [00:50:10] Okay. I’m excited to talk about next week.

David Blackmon [00:50:14] Absolutely. Maybe. Maybe we should make that our topic anyway. Folks, thank you for joining us. We’re out of here about ten minutes early, but that’s okay, too. And appreciate your watch in. And we’ll be back in a week. You’ll have a great week have a  great one.

Tammny Nemeth [00:50:30] Have a great one bye.

David Blackmon [00:50:35] And we will end the stream. There we go.

 

Sponsorships are available or get your own corporate brand produced by Sandstone Media.

David Blackmon LinkedIn

DB Energy Questions 

The Crude Truth with Rey Trevino

Rey Trevino LinkedIn

Energy Transition Weekly Conversation

David Blackmon LinkedIn

Irina Slav LinkedIn

Armando Cavanha LinkedIn

 

ENB Top News

ENB

Energy Dashboard

ENB Podcast

ENB Substack

 

Our Podcast Sponsor

The Sandstone Group.

The post UK Energy-Climate Policies appeared first on Energy News Beat.