Germany’s new coalition government is shifting energy policy, potentially rolling back ambitious climate targets.
The government plans a €500 billion infrastructure fund to upgrade the nation’s aging power grids.
Concerns over high energy costs and energy security are driving the new policy direction, impacting both domestic and European energy markets.
Germany is undergoing a major political shift that will have sweeping implications for the nation’s energy sector. As Europe’s biggest economy, Germany’s energy policy does not just bear impact on a national level, but will reverberate throughout the European Union and then the world.
In last month’s election, German politics took a swing to the right, and the country’s new coalition government will be dominated by the Conservative and Social Democrat parties. Climate activists are waiting with baited breath to see what energy policy comes out of the new coalition. “A country once seen as a beacon of progressive climate policy is poised for a significant reset, with the conservatives – having in part blamed Germany’s ambitious green goals for chronic economic weakness – keen to roll back targets and policies amid rising voter apathy on climate,” Reuters reported on Friday.
Germany massively ramped up its clean energy spending under the previous coalition government, largely as part of a pivot away from reliance on Russian energy imports. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Germany was dependent on the Kremlin for more than half of its natural gas and a third of its oil. Now, Germany is set to derive 20% of its energy from solar power in 2025. Walking back this commitment to solar and wind buildout would have major implications for the German economy as well as the climate.
There are other key developments taking shape for Germany’s energy security under the new government. Germany will be ramping up investments in its ageing and insufficient power grids with a €500 billion ($534 billion) infrastructure fund. The move comes as part of a broader and prolonged effort to redefine national spending and public finances for a new German era, after Angela Merkel finally stepped down after 16 years as the Chancellor of Germany, the country’s highest office, in 2021.
“It has been clear for long that more investment in the future is needed, including in energy transition infrastructure and digitalization,” Simone Peter, President of the German Renewable Energy Federation said in a social media post after the new German government announced that it will loosen Germany’s constitutional borrowing restrictions.
Concerns over high energy costs were a key theme in last month’s elections, and Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz has pledged that he will bring them back down to a comfortable level for German consumers. Revamping the nation’s energy grids will be a key part of this challenge, and will help to spread the use of renewable energy in a win-win for energy security and climate.
“Energy companies have long argued that an expansion of networks is desperately needed as the country’s electricity needs are set to grow, and as it tries to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2045,” Bloomberg reports. “More than half of Germany’s power comes from renewables, but it struggles to send wind output from the north to demand hotspots in the south.”
Indeed, issues with energy flow in Germany have had far-reaching fallout in its neighboring countries, fomenting resentments. When renewable energy cannot be dispatched to meet demand in population centers like Berlin, these cities rely on energy imports from neighboring countries to fill the gap.
This has wreaked havoc on neighboring Norway’s energy markets. Norway is not a part of the European Union, but its trade policies and energy grids are intimately intertwined with Germany’s. As more and more of Norway’s clean energy flows to German grids, Norwegian energy prices are climbing ever higher domestically. “Norway has cheap and abundant energy thanks to prodigious hydropower resources, and locals are none too happy about sacrificing their cheap energy prices to keep German lights on,” Oilprice reported last month.
Ramping up investments in the energy grids could therefore be a win-win-win for energy security, climate, and diplomacy.
We are seeing startling trends worldwide, and our special guest today is an author and energy speaker, Robert Bryce. We have so much to cover, and he is an incredible Substack with information. Join Tammy Nemeth, Irina Sav, David Blackmon, and Stu Turley as we cover some of the most critical issues facing the energy market this year. We are live on X, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:12 – Introduction
00:49 – Is the Green Revolution Collapsing?
01:54 – Local Opposition to Wind & Solar
03:11 – Texas and Green Hydrogen Collapse
05:15 – BP’s Shift Away from Green Energy
08:20 – Future Waste Crisis from Renewables
11:23 – Osage Wind Farm Dismantlement
18:11 – Financial Incentives Driving Renewables
22:00 – Infrastructure Delays & Grid Risks
28:13 – UK’s Energy Crisis & LNG Dependence
34:54 – The UK’s Net Zero economy isn’t booming
33:14 – Lawmakers Announces Plan To Build Next-Generation Coal-Fired Plant in Wyoming.
36:42 – BP cancels HyGreen Teesside hydrogen project amid green energy scale back
37:36 – Energy Again Atop Trump’s Mind in Speech to Congress
39:19 – UK government looks at allowing oil and gas production via adjacent fields as it bans new licenses.
42:08 – Europe Falters on Exiting Russian Gas, Sending Prices Plunging
44:25 – PBS Pushes Climate Doom, Ignores Real Data Debunking Global Warming Hysteria
45:38 – Canada’s Final US Energy Tariff Warning to Donald Trump – “A Snow Mexican Stanoff”
50:01 – Canada’s Energy Policies & Political Shifts
Irina SlavInternational Author writing about energy, mining, and geopolitical issues. BulgariaDavid BlackmonPrincipal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Tammy NemethEnergy Consulting SpecialistStuart TurleyPresident, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host
The Collapse of the Green Revolution
Irina Slav [00:00:12] Well. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Energy Realities Show with Stu Turley, David Blackmon, me, Irina Slav. We don’t know where Tammy Nemeth, but we hope she’ll come at some point. And we have a special guest here today is Robert Bryce, energy analyst, critic of the Energy transition and bird watcher. How are you today, Robert?
Robert Bryce [00:00:38] Excellent, thanks. Glad to be with you all.
Irina Slav [00:00:41] So topic today is the collapse of the green revolution. Is the green revolution collapsing? Robert, what do you think?
Robert Bryce [00:00:49] Yeah, absolutely. There’s just there’s no doubt about it. You look at the backpedaling that’s happening all over the world on the energy policies of all kinds. And it’s very clear that’s what’s way. Now, I’m not going to say this is all due to Donald Trump. But, you know, Trump’s election has clearly had an effect in Europe. Look at the collapse of the coalition government in Germany just two days after he was elected. The Norwegian coalition has collapsed. The Canadian coalition has collapsed. A lot of this has to do with energy. And further, you see all the major energy companies around the world, effectively, all of them backing away. You know, just in the last few weeks, BP, shell, Chevron, RW, E all are either slashing or killing their their all to energy program. So yes, there’s definitely this is a sea change.
Irina Slav [00:01:41] But there’s something else that you’ve been covering in great detail. Opposition of local communities to more wind and solar installations. Why is that? Why is this happening?
Robert Bryce [00:01:54] Well, you know, the the fundamental problem. Well, there are many fundamental problems with wind and solar, but the including the intermittency issue, including all the, the, the mineral metal and the land intensity. But it’s the land intensity really that is the problem. And so I have just in the last few weeks published what, what I’m calling the Global Renewable Rejection Database. I’ve been collecting data for the on the U.S. now for 50 for more than ten years. But then I working with my son Jacob, we’ve collected the and started the Global Renewable Rejection Database. In 2025 alone there have been 14 rejections. Six of them have been in the UK. There was one in Auckland and Kilkenny just last week, and in which the local planning authority said no to a project that would have seven turbines, 185m high. What did they say? The ruling listed significant burden of stress and anxiety that weighed on residents. Local people don’t want these projects And they’re fighting back all over the world.
Irina Slav [00:03:00] And that’s a good thing. It’s probably why the UK government is trying to, you know, strip them of the right to protest such installations. David, how is it in Texas?
David Blackmon [00:03:11] Oh, it’s just lovely. In Texas, we’re overwhelmed with wind and solar power. Now, we used to just be wind, but now we have solar all over the place. A lot of battery stuff coming in. Robert, it’s not just wind and solar though, is it? Well, we also have green hydrogen now beginning to collapse.
Robert Bryce [00:03:29] Oh, yes. Well, you know, as I’ve, I’ve written before, there’s Tammy Nemeth.
Tammy Nemeth [00:03:35] Hi. Sorry.
Robert Bryce [00:03:36] The hydrogen bubble is definitely burst. You know, I’ve always said that the H and hydrogen stands for hype. And we’ve heard this hype now for 25 years. You know, we I can point you to a National Academy of Sciences or National Academy of Engineering report came out during the George W Bush administration. The problems with hydrogen have always been the same. Whether it’s green, blue, tutti frutti, multicolored, paisley colored. You know, it takes too much energy to produce. And then when you have when you do produce it, you have a molecule that’s very small, very hard to handle, very hard to tank. Oh, and you’re just going to put it through your fuel cell. Well, I’m an old man. I’m not as old as Stuart Turley, but I’m, you know, I’m old and I’ve seen three fuel cells in my entire lifetime. So, I mean, the whole thing has been, you know, about hype and spin and incentives and subsidies and, you know, so companies again, all around the world are saying, no, this isn’t going to work. Finally, it’s taken a while, but yes, it’s happened. The hydrogen bubble has burst.
David Blackmon [00:04:35] But you’re at Ceraweek this week in Houston, and I’m sure BP’s CEO, Murray in class will be a featured speaker or some senior executive. BP just canceled its biggest green hydrogen project, the planned green hydrogen project there in the UK. And isn’t it kind of remarkable? What do you think about BP’s change in direction? Is it just because it’s just happening because of this aggressive investor just took a big position in the company, stock market, singer in his company? Or is it a real true change of heart at BP under the new management?
Robert Bryce [00:05:15] Well, look, this has been pending for some time. Remember, they killed their offshore wind and sector last summer when they, you know, they first they said we’re not going to invest more then the head of their offshore wind business left the company and I. And you’re right, it was a couple of weeks ago that they announced these cut backs on all the energy, that all the energy said segment in general. But I loved how Reuters reported it that, oh, these pesky shareholders, they’re demanding return on their money, you know.
David Blackmon [00:05:44] Please imagine that.
Robert Bryce [00:05:46] How dare them.
Irina Slav [00:05:48] Well tell me. Yeah, yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:05:50] Yeah. When it was okay. When they were pushing all the climate stuff, then, you know, shareholders matter. But now that they want a return on investment, suddenly the shareholders don’t count.
David Blackmon [00:06:00] Yeah. You know, and even if it’s on mobile, we had engine number one get those three board members elected a few years ago. And now, engine number one, the company, the the big investment house itself is out investing in traditional energy projects now. Right now quite a bit. Yeah. They’re Exxon Mobil activity. So even that effort within ExxonMobil has basically collapsed, which is, you know, I mean, from my way of thinking, I think that’s that’s a great thing. It’s a very positive development. But man, the climate alarmism narrative is just falling apart.
Irina Slav [00:06:45] Yeah.
Robert Bryce [00:06:47] Okay. Go ahead. Irina. Sorry.
Irina Slav [00:06:48] No, the truth is coming to the surface. I’m sure you’ve seen the news about Vietnam, where $13 billion in investments in wind and solar is under threat because the government can no longer afford to subsidize all this.
Robert Bryce [00:07:06] Well, and that’s just it. I think that got the companies, the governments, they’re all understanding the same thing, which is that they can’t afford this and that the returns, particularly for the, you know, the hard nosed capitalists, God bless them, saying, hey, the returns on this stuff isn’t is as good as it is in our traditional oil and gas industries. And further, I think it’s, you know, that the return on capital invested is part of it, but it’s also the higher interest rates. These so many of these, you even read what a lot of the ultra energy companies say. And they say, well, you know, we were counting on low interest rates, particularly true for offshore wind. So you add in higher interest rates and the changes in commodity prices for, you know, base materials or base metals and also supply chain constraints. And I’ve written about this a lot. Transformers, switchgear, high voltage switch high. Any kind of high voltage equipment. Switchgear. Breakers. Transformers, labor. Labor costs are going up. All these things are combining. In the market that are to show investors and the companies that are leading the leaders of these companies saying are saying, well, this is not giving us the return on investment that we require.
Stuart Turley [00:08:20] Robert, when we sit back and take a look, I think that with this energy transition failure, it’s it’s multifaceted in the fact list. Net zero is failing. It is absolutely a money scheme. And then you take a look at I think we are within five years of having a major global epidemic waste problems with Decrepit wind farm and solar farm failure. Who’s going to do the land reclamation? Because land reclamation has not been included on any of the front end projects, because they all say, well, we’re not going to do it if we have to pay for it. They’re all going to go bankrupt. We’re going to have all this crap land around the world. Resisting. And who’s going to pay for it? This is going to be a gigantic. But, Robert, since you’re here in your Substack, it’s such a great Substack for everything. I do have an image of the firmament. David, who was this? This was somebody, I think
David Blackmon [00:09:27] Yeah. He’s.
Stuart Turley [00:09:31] He’s working on. On solving the UK’s problems here it is. ,So I thought. I thought this was appropriate, sir.
Robert Bryce [00:09:49] that is funny. You know, on the waste issue or on the dismantlement, dismantling of these projects, you’re not going to have to wait five years. Now, I’ve written about this a lot. I’m one of the few journalists, and I say that with. No, I’m not being egotistical here. Just follow this story. The Osage County, the Osage Wind project in Osage County, Oklahoma. I have deep roots in Oklahoma. It has been ruled by a federal court judge that that wind project, 84 wind turbines, 150MW, has to be dismantled. And the original deadline was December 1st of this year. This is the the result of the longest running legal battle over wind energy in American history. It’s never been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NPR, Bloomberg. Not a word, but it’s the biggest black eye in the history of the wind business, the biggest win for the Osage tribe, biggest win, and for Native American sovereignty in modern history that the Osage tribe fought this wind project for 11. Well, since 2011, they finally prevailed in federal court. So. And now the Italian company that built this project without getting the tribe’s permission, in fact, that violated the tribe’s sovereignty by mining rock in the subsurface in Osage County. They will have to start taking this project down at a cost of something like $300 million. Now, the judge has stayed the the ruling on removing the wind turbines temporarily, but this is coming very quickly. So we’re not going to have to wait a long time to see, you know, the dismantlement of a way, a very large wind project and all the wind turbine blades and all the rest of it. This this tsunami of energy trash, as I call it, is not far away.
David Blackmon [00:11:23] Robert, does that ruling include the subsurface foundations that people never see or think about?
Robert Bryce [00:11:31] You know, that’s the key question here, David. And the way I read the the court’s ruling on this Friday was from December of 2024, where the judge who’s, by the way, an Obama appointee, Jennifer Cho Graves. She says restore to pre to the condition that was existed before the wind project was put up. So that may well be the case. And just an interesting side note. One of the big beneficiaries of this project is sitting member, in fact, the Supreme Court justice in the state of Oklahoma. M John Kane.
David Blackmon [00:12:09] Well, I you know, if if they’re not going to remove the foundations, it will definitely not restore the restore the land to previous condition because, you know, they’re only required to cite those things three feet below the surface, which, you know, if any of that was farmland. And I mean, three feet is not enough depth to prevent plows from colliding with, with the, you know, I mean, these foundations are enormous, huge concrete and rebar. And so, I mean, you know, if it doesn’t include removing the foundations, then the Osage tribe is still got a big problem on its hands.
Stuart Turley [00:12:50] I think the offshore is going to be extremely huge as well too, because that is a, a, a traffic hazard, a national security hazard because the U.S. military’s radar doesn’t work nearly as well. I mean, this is a gigantic issue. The NIMBYs are actually what soothsayers were leading the curve. Not in my backyard. You’re pretty smart when you don’t have it. And Tammy, you sent out a note this morning with the UK wanting to give a couple hundred bucks as a oh, we want them to have the right amount of money to live next to these monstrosities.
Tammy Nemeth [00:13:36] Yeah. I mean, so the infrastructure bill is being tabled tomorrow and so they’ve been leaking little details from it, so I’ll know more after tomorrow. But from what the newspaper reports said, is that there they’re going to offer 250 pounds a year per household. That’s underneath the massive pylons that will be put across the countryside. And then they said it will be extended to people who live near wind projects and solar projects to try and bribe them. I suppose to have to agree to have them to live underneath. Can you imagine living underneath a wind turbine and you get 250 bucks for it? How great.
David Blackmon [00:14:17] I mean, it’s like living underneath the Empire State Building.
Irina Slav [00:14:20] I’m speechless.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:22] Right. Well, even worse than that.
Irina Slav [00:14:24] They’re literally trying to buy people’s agreement to keep building these monstrosities.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:32] Right. So they’re going to. Offer this
Irina Slav [00:14:33] a lot of money.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:35] Right. So 250 bucks, and then they have how many billions this is going to cost. At the same time they said they’re short of cash. There is a black hole in the finances of 25 billion, and that’s why they have to have an inheritance tax on farmland. So they they’re going after the farmers so that they have to sell their land because they won’t pick the the young farmers won’t be able to afford the inheritance tax. At the same time, they’re bribing people to take, you know, wind and solar and pylons in their backyard, but they have no money.
Irina Slav [00:15:09] Yes. And that wind and solar is not making money, as we as we said at the start of the episode. So how do these people think it’s going to work? Robert, why why are the transition pushes so horribly bad at planning? I mean, we mentioned some issues that should have been foreseeable and should have been planned for, such as the shortage of, you know, transmission line equipment. Why why is this? Why are they not anticipating this sort of thing.
Robert Bryce [00:15:40] Well, Irina, I’m tempted to say, oh, aren’t you, darling? He’s great. Yeah. You know, you’re so sweet. But you
Irina Slav [00:15:50] just call me naive and haven’t. You should plan for things, shouldn’t you?
Robert Bryce [00:15:58] It’s. It’s. Follow the money. Why are any of these projects going forward? Because the developers are getting massive subsidies driving all of this. And so it’s it’s it’s as I see this, the whole energy transition, so-called energy transition, which I think is clearly peaked. And in fact, I’ve used this chart, but I haven’t published it yet on my Substack. But the mentions, the number of mentions per year of energy transition in The New York Times peaked in 2023. It went down in 2024, so that’s a good sign. But back to your you know, your point Irina is what’s driving all this. It’s money. This has nothing to do with climate change. It’s never been about climate change. It’s all about the cash. Follow the money. Who benefits? Big corporations, big law firms, big NGOs and and and and big business. You know so this is not a it’s has nothing to do with climate change. It’s never been about climate change.
Irina Slav [00:16:52] I know, I know this, I know this, but I was wondering why are they not anticipating the problems that will arise with their transition?
Robert Bryce [00:17:00] I think they just figured and that my view of it and what I’ve seen with companies like NextEra, within energy, with others that have been working this in the US, they just their plan is run over local communities. They don’t give a fig about these local folks. Oh, we’re we want to work with them. They don’t want to work with them. They want to run over them and cram them down their throats. I’ve seen it over and over.
Irina Slav [00:17:21] Yeah, but these shortages of equipment, you know, making their work harder and slower so that they’re potentially losing money and they didn’t think about that.
Robert Bryce [00:17:35] Well, right? But remember, this is all about leverage because these companies that come in, they don’t have to spend very much money in the development of these projects. They don’t have to buy the land. They can just get an option for the lease. They can then, you know, get a few parcels that they can option. They don’t have a lot of capital outlay. And so then if they can get approval, they can get a power purchase agreement. So they can get all these, these legal documents in line without spending a lot of money. And so the potential leverage on the actual capital outlay is enormous. So again this is financial engineering. These are climate change Carpetbaggers.
Tammy Nemeth [00:18:11] I would add in there the role of China, because China is the beneficiary of all of this. And at the same time, especially in the United States, in Europe, in the UK, they’re pressing ahead by decommissioning reliable energy. So the coal plants are being shut down. Natural gas is like slow walking approvals and so on. And at the same time they’re saying, well, that’s all right, because we’re going to build all this wind and solar. But as Arianna points out, the planning, it’s it’s not rolling out in the in what’s required. And there’s shortages and all these things. And yet the main beneficiary, besides all of these people in between ultimately, is China. China benefits on all the different aspects of it, whether it’s economically from people having to purchase all these things from them. And then politically, because it allows them to have more leverage in weakening their, their opponents. So I think China’s in there as well, not just I agree with everything else you said. I just think China is part of that too.
Stuart Turley [00:19:14] Well, Robert, I have a question about the Democrat run states, because if we’re seeing Germany, the industrialized because the left wing policies of one, you take a look at UK having some serious problems and you take a look at Delaware, new Jersey, New York, California. The energy policies have really run a course. And so not only are we going to have financial issues out of this. I’ve done a review on the grid and Texas. The the Ercot system is actually got billions set aside for natural gas plants. You can go look and see what’s going on. Natural gas is going to be able to save it. We can’t get nuclear in time for all of this kind of stuff. What are your thoughts on the grid and net in renewables?
Robert Bryce [00:20:08] Well, one thing is clear, and I’ve been I was lecturing on this last week in Florida, and I wrote about it a little bit on my Substack just recently. But I’m absolutely pro natural gas. But what I see in happening in the US is that the grid is becoming too dependent on a single fuel. We’re now at a record high 43.3% of all the generation in the US is now coming from that gas fired power plants. That’s great when the weather is mild and we don’t have any upheavals or any pipeline outages. But as we saw during Winter Storm Uri and then in winter Storm Elliot, there often is not enough gas to go around to provide all the power generation and the heating. And so this is especially true in New England. And one of the things that they’re very they’re way short natural gas. So we’re going to have to see increased build out of gas pipeline infrastructure in the US. One second. I’m in favor of building more coal plants in the US. Now, this is heresy in terms of a lot of, you know, this climate change discussion, but the US has more coal than any other country in the world. We should be burning it. China and India are. And let me just make one other quick point about gas. I was in the UK. It was in London. We spent ten days in London last month. They are committing economic suicide. I don’t, you know, the Brits are following the Germans into the ditch. Although Germany now has a new, new government and they’re talking sensibly about restarting their nuclear plants. The not so in the UK, the Tories in the and labor. As one cabbie told me, it’s the unit party and they’re refusing to drill and refusing to frack. And so, you know, they’re just they’re driving their economy straight into the ditch at full speed.
Tammy Nemeth [00:21:42] Can I ask you maybe I’m going to put this out there to everybody. I was listening to someone else talking, and they were saying that there’s at least a minimum 18 month backlog for gas turbines for natural gas power plants. Is that true?
Robert Bryce [00:22:00] Longer than that. It’s in many cases it’s not. It’s not just the turbines. The gas turbines. From what I hear in the industry, people in the EPC business, 4 to 5 years, all of the all of the high voltage equipment, transformers, switchgear, breakers. The higher the voltage, the longer the lead time. So you’re talking multiple year waits for any of that equipment.
Tammy Nemeth [00:22:23] Okay. So I don’t know that much about about coal power. Would that be impacting if they wish to build coal plants, like all the different components that are required when it would have the same kind of time considerations of four years out or so?
Robert Bryce [00:22:42] Well, the permitting, let me be clear of any kind of new coal plant will be difficult. Permitting any kind of power plant is difficult. But, you know, the Sierra Club in that crowd is going to fight any kind of project, like a new coal plant and tie it up in the permitting process. But as far as the individual components on the coal plant, I think, you know, yeah, they’re going to be certain things that are components like, you know, turbine, switch gear, etcetera, that are going to be constrained. But yeah, any a building, a building, gas plants could be done in a year or two. You know probably to coal plant will take significantly longer regardless of of the availability of the of the the the specific kit.
Tammy Nemeth [00:23:20] Okay.
Stuart Turley [00:23:21] You you bring up a fantastic point about the infrastructure and the delay in the supply line for transformers and everything else. That is a huge issue. President Biden allowed back in what President Trump took out, and that was 32 major grid interconnects that were made in China and that can be remotely controlled now. Now they’re up to 492 of those major grid interconnects in our grid in the United States. How are we going to get that crap out of our grid?
Robert Bryce [00:24:00] Well, these high power transformers are key. And you make a great point, Stuart, because this the issue of providing and building these things, most of these high power transformers are bespoke. They’re made to order. The U.S. only has a very small manufacturing capacity for these. Most of them are made in South Korea, Germany and some in Mexico. So this is one part of the on shoring efforts that I think is going to be absolutely essential. But yes, transformers are our key bottleneck. And some of the the the pole mounted transformers, pad mounted transformers is a lot of the bottlenecks on that have been reduced. But I’ll just add one other key point. It’s that even if you had all the turbines, the transformers, switch, switchgear, breakers, wire, etcetera, you don’t necessarily have the rights of way and you and the key issue is going to be skilled labor. What I hear over and over in my travels across the country and I travel a lot. We need more welders, we need more electricians, pipefitters, you know, and these kind of especially at the journeyman level, they are they are in short supply.
Stuart Turley [00:25:07] Wow.
David Blackmon [00:25:08] Robert, I know you’re having to leave here in a few minutes. Studio. We want to tee up Robert’s articles so he can just go over those real quick.
Stuart Turley [00:25:20] I’ve just included his Substack here. Robert Bryce At Robert Bryce dot substack.com, and I highly recommend subscribing and supporting Robert [email protected]. Also juice.com I believe is also. What was your other movie?
Robert Bryce [00:25:39] Well, I’ve done two documentaries, juice the series.com and juice the movie.com. But but yes, I’m I’m, I’m, I’m thank you for for pointing these out I, I write on substack exclusively now Robert bryce.substack.com and I just published this piece. That’s one of the reasons why I’m at ceraweek Chris Wright, our new energy secretary, speaking this morning. And he was in Plaquemines Parish on Thursday at the new venture global LNG export facility. One quick number for y’all. So and within three years, the U.S. could have as much as 24,000,000,000 cubic feet per day of LNG export capacity, 24 BCF a day. That’s equal to or greater than the total gas output of Iran and China, both of which have about 2224 BCF a day of total production. So the US is in fact a natural gas superpower.
Stuart Turley [00:26:29] When you see Chris, give him a hug for us and I’ll tell you what, the US LNG is absolutely critical for the trade balances, because when you take a look at the discussions with Japan, they’re willing to buy all the LNG that Alaska can make in order to get that trade tariff off their back. So it’s huge for Trump.
Robert Bryce [00:26:56] It is. And one of the things that I pointed out in this piece, and it shocked me even, you know, and I was and I told you I was in London and talking to the Brits. One quick anecdote. I, you know, I, you know, I was there for ten days and, you know, I’m not shy. So I ask a lot of people, tell me about your energy bills. Everyone that I asked said their energy bills have doubled in the last four years. Last night we were there. I asked a barkeep at the at the pub around the corner from the hotel. Tell me about what’s happening with you. And she said, well, I live with my parents. We no longer shower at home. I said, what do you mean? She says, we shower at the gym because it cost too much to heat the water at our house.
Irina Slav [00:27:31] Oh.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:34] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:27:35] Wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:27:35] Oh, yeah. It it is very expensive. And it’s funny because Germany used to be crazy expensive. And when we lived there and then we moved to the UK and we thought, wow, this is great, it’s half the cost and now it’s more than Germany. It’s insane.
Robert Bryce [00:27:49] A fifth of all the gas now used in the UK comes from the US as imported LNG. I mean that’s it’s incredible. And they have gas in Lincoln. There’s a big new find in the Gainsborough trough. They have 16,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas in place. It’s under their feet. They can drill for it. They could frack for it, but they refuse to do it. So you can’t solve stupid. I mean, I just I don’t get it.
David Blackmon [00:28:13] You really Get.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:14] Yeah. And so I think it was the Financial Times or another publication was complaining that the reason why the UK doesn’t have natural gas is because they didn’t nationalize things the way Norway did, and if only they’d had kept their state oil company and evil, Thatcher privatized BP and let private companies do it. That’s why they don’t have any oil and gas now.
Irina Slav [00:28:37] Yeah, it’s not the climate activists and the courts that have been siding with them and trying to stop Rosebank, and.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:44] Now it’s all private companies.
David Blackmon [00:28:46] What’s happened to the financial products wholly?
Stuart Turley [00:28:49] Robert, thank you for your time and your energy leadership.
Robert Bryce [00:28:52] Well thanks y’all. Always and always. Happy to be with you. My favorite gang of four that aren’t Chinese. It’s fantastic. But yeah, I’m excited. It’s a week. I haven’t been here in a decade or so, and so I decided to come down. And there’s a lot of energy in the buildings here. People are excited and there’s a there’s a vibe here that’s really interesting. So yeah, I’ll, I’ll be publishing full report. But thanks again y’all a real pleasure.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:18] Thank you Robert. Thank you so much.
Irina Slav [00:29:20] Have a great time.
Robert Bryce [00:29:21] Bye.
Irina Slav [00:29:22] Bye bye.
Stuart Turley [00:29:26] That was fun.
Irina Slav [00:29:27] Now they can’t afford to shower at home. I’m trying to process that.
David Blackmon [00:29:32] I just so sad.
Irina Slav [00:29:34] They need to to warm a water heater.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:40] It depends on if it’s gas or electricity. If it’s electricity, that would be very expensive to do. And if they’re in London, it would probably be electricity. So yeah.
David Blackmon [00:29:51] But isn’t that the goal right. I mean that’s the goal. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:55] That’s the goal.
David Blackmon [00:29:55] Right. Of the people pushing all this.
Stuart Turley [00:29:57] In, it’s tied to the agriculture for control. It’s why Biden’s administration killed all the birds so they can control the food. So it’s absolutely despicable. And I don’t understand why they’re trying to turn the North Sea. One of the toughest drilling spots in the world into a renewable haven. I don’t get that.
Tammy Nemeth [00:30:25] There will. They’re going to do floating. Apparently, this is the thing they’re going to do floating platforms for the wind turbines instead of drilling down.
Irina Slav [00:30:34] In one of the world’s worst environments. Yeah, in the world. Ocean.
Tammy Nemeth [00:30:39] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:30:40] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:30:40] That’s a.
Tammy Nemeth [00:30:42] Yeah. So I you know, it’s in that argument I mentioned to Robert at the end there about, you know, complaining that if only they had a state company it would have been different. And I’m thinking, well, maybe that’s true because the government when they own stuff, they just run roughshod over whatever.
David Blackmon [00:31:01] yeah, that’s true.
Tammy Nemeth [00:31:02] And when it’s a cash cow the way it is in Norway, there’s a vested interest in keeping those operations going. So but that’s sad. It’s sad that that’s the only way that that it can work is if it’s owned by the government. That’s wrong.
Irina Slav [00:31:18] That’s not going to work the way it worked in Norway, because some governments are more corrupt than others, and they might decide to side with big business rather than the interests of the citizens, as Norway has. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:31:37] But can I go back a little bit to David? At the outset, you had talked about engine number one. And, you know, I hate to be cynical, but Engine Number one’s actions have come after the two House judiciary reports calling them out for acting like a climate cartel and for introducing all of these different things to force Exxon, not necessarily to pull out from projects, but to commit to doing things that the shareholders can then come after and say, you didn’t follow this like you said you would, and then punish Exxon for doing so. So all these new engine number one things have into traditional energy or whatever have come about after the threat that they were going to be attacked for antitrust and perhaps even Reco sort of thing.
David Blackmon [00:32:32] it’s amazing how much good a little congressional oversight can do in.
Tammy Nemeth [00:32:37] Yeah. Yeah, I it’s just interesting.
Stuart Turley [00:32:41] It’s assuming there’s no Grafton Larkin congressional oversight. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:32:47] I wouldn’t make that assumption hold assumption. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:32:51] And we go to the news stories.
Stuart Turley [00:32:56] First out of the block.
Tammy Nemeth [00:32:58] Out of the block. Okay. So this is about cool. I know what Robert said about it’ll be very difficult to get coal plants approved, but so I’m interested to see what this legislation’s going to look like that Wyoming. So this is the second story there. I’ll just read the headline. Lawmakers announce plan to build next generation coal fired plant in Wyoming. And what’s interesting with this one is that they’re going to pass legislation to enable the building of this coal fired plant, and then they’ll use the the emissions from it for enhanced oil recovery. So it’ll it’ll be reducing the the amount of emissions from the plant into the atmosphere. And they’ll be funneling it back into enhanced oil recovery, which is what they’ve been doing in other jurisdictions and in Saskatchewan and Alberta for a long time. So, I mean, this is great, but, you know, the fact that they’re going to be passing legislation and then there’s going to be the environmental review, maybe there’s a limit in the legislature. I don’t know. It’ll be interesting to see that legislation when they put it forward in April. But this is this is good news because as Robert said, you know, there’s some concern about the grid being over reliant on one source of energy. And that is you don’t want all your eggs in one basket. So why not use what you have a lot of and do it right? Because the next generation coal power is actually really, really good. And you can limit the amount of particulates and, and the emissions and whatnot. So yeah, that.
Irina Slav [00:34:36] I agree I think a good development.
Stuart Turley [00:34:38] Yeah. Secretary Wright basically said he is going to be authorizing new coal plants.
Tammy Nemeth [00:34:43] yeah, that’s that’s great. And then the other article here is a really great piece by unheard called the UK’s net zero economy isn’t booming. And they go through the data because you know, there’s always these statements made, oh it’s cheaper than ever. And we’re booming and all we have all of this new economy developing and so on. And they actually went through the data and showed actually that’s not true. And and they lay it out. So for people who are interested in what’s happening in the UK, that’s a really good piece to look at.
Irina Slav [00:35:23] I like
David Blackmon [00:35:24] Nobody could have seen that.
Irina Slav [00:35:25] He’s been booming. Yeah. Because the nation’s been booming. Economy
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:32] Booming. And this is my Substack. So my last piece last week was called emissions on the menu. And it was about they’re putting in some places voluntarily CO2 emission ratings on every item on the menu. And of course, anything made with B for dairy or chicken gets a really bad score. But if you eat puy lentils and stuff, then it’s you get a good A rating. But I thought it was okay. The garlic butter gets an A failing grade. I mean really?
David Blackmon [00:36:08] Yeah. Just eat the stuff that doesn’t taste good.
Irina Slav [00:36:10] Which is butter. And dairy product probably isn’t eating it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:14] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I bet if they had margarine, if they had garlic margarine, would that be okay? Which would be gross. So anyway that that’s those are my Substack things and yeah. That’s it.
David Blackmon [00:36:30] Wonderful Substack everyone should visit.
Irina Slav [00:36:32] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:36:33] Well. here we go. Well, I’ve already talked about the first one, which is BP canceling their Hygreen Teesside green hydrogen boondoggle, which is good for BP. Congratulations. Well, this one comes from my political Substack. And that’s about, oh, my God, France wanting to use its nuclear weapons now to provide an umbrella for all of Europe in. In a response to the United States attempting to negotiate a peace agreement in Ukraine. Okay. We can’t have peace. We got to have that world war. Keep the military industrial complex, right? Anyway, I’m very cynical about all that. But everyone should go study the history of 1910 through 1914 and 1932 through 1939. To understand just how awful an idea all of that is. Yeah. Energy again atop Trump’s mind and speech to Congress that he gave the big speech last Tuesday to the joint session of Congress. And it was a long speech, folks, is 90 minutes long. But he talked about energy and energy related topics for about 20 minutes of the 90 minute speech. He’s he’s the only president in my lifetime who has ever had such a hyper focus on energy and its importance to our economy and national security, And thank goodness, because, I mean, it’s exactly the kind of hyper focus we need, and it’s why we have someone who’s actually qualified to be the energy secretary, now serving as energy secretary and good people at EPA and the Interior Department. And for to get our energy economy going again in the United States. And I’m joyous about all of that is y’all can imagine. So anyway, those are my two for this week. I just thought it was was a really great interesting week for energy last week.
Stuart Turley [00:38:42] Sorry. In your Substack.
David Blackmon [00:38:46] Yes, you are the carbon they want to reduce. That’s not the title of my Substack. It’s energy transition absurdities. Please come visit me. I tried to create new content, original content, every day, seven days a week, although I failed on Sunday. So anyway.
Irina Slav [00:39:10] Okay, these are mine. And one is about the UK’s net-zero common economy, which is not booming. And it’s really funny because the UK government looks at allowing oil and gas production via adjacent fields as it bans new licenses. So as far as I understood it, they will not issue new licenses for new fields, but they will allow companies with already producing fields to do tie ins to the new deposits, because that makes so much sense, and it’s so much net zero way to extract the oil and gas from an adjacent field, rather than from the new field itself. I personally see no difference, but they’re sure no better. Seriously, what? What I have is so
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:06] They Don’t have to go through the regulatory system. And Canada did something similar on their offshore. So before it’s like you would have to follow all of these environmental assessments, all these different kinds of things. But if you’re doing adjacent you don’t have to run through all that.
Irina Slav [00:40:21] So they’re making it easier in a way, for companies in the North North Sea to boost production without admitting it, without admitting that you want to do this right.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:33] Because if you went through the whole process, then the environmental groups would say, well, you’re not following your net zero pledge and your your whatever pledges. But this is doesn’t have to go through that process. So yeah, I know it was crazy.
Irina Slav [00:40:47] And the environmental groups are so stupid, which they are that they wouldn’t notice. I don’t think they are that stupid.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:55] I think they’ll they’ll be, you know, encouraged to keep quiet because they’re going to be building all of this other wind and solar everywhere. And, you know, that’s the appeasement on that side. While they still may be and, you know, I would wait and see if that actually happens because the companies currently operating there will have to still pay the windfall tax until 2030 or 2031. It’s ridiculous. And the one company said they’re losing money because of all these taxes. So why would a company want to continue? So it remains to be seen if anyone takes them up.
Irina Slav [00:41:31] On that question. So right now it seems like they’re trying to throw a bone to these companies just to keep that windfall profits tax money coming in. By the way, they said, I read somewhere that they’re not going to extend the windfall profits tax.
Tammy Nemeth [00:41:47] To when, I mean, it already doesn’t expire till 2030. Yeah. What does it mean? We’re not going to extend it?
Irina Slav [00:41:54] No idea. Honestly, I no longer have any idea what these people are thinking because they keep contradicting themselves with moves like this.
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:04] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:42:05] Oh,.
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:05] Yeah. For Sure.
Irina Slav [00:42:06] And another shocker Europe Falters on exiting Russian gas sending prices plunging. So frankly, Europe is rearming because its leaders bloody warmongers who want to stay in power for as long as possible so they can create as much damage as they can so inflict, not create on the continent. Yeah. And they want to go to war with Russia while buying Russian gas. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:42] Another contradiction. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:42:45] It’s like pig hypocrisy and being seriously
Stuart Turley [00:42:53] And
David Blackmon [00:42:54] every time We think we reach peak hypocrisy that.
Irina Slav [00:42:57] It’s really Exhausting.
Stuart Turley [00:43:00] And I think it’s pretty funny that Ukraine had to import an LNG shipment. So I think it was through Lithuania yesterday. So, you know, they’ve got one of the biggest dang pipelines in the in the country to cheap gas. And they had to import LNG.
Irina Slav [00:43:17] And they made money from that pipeline.
Stuart Turley [00:43:20] Exactly.
Irina Slav [00:43:21] Money from gas transit. When you know Europe is throwing new billions at you.
Tammy Nemeth [00:43:27] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:43:28] You can’t buy this kind of entertainment.
David Blackmon [00:43:30] You really can’t.
Irina Slav [00:43:32] it’s not very entertaining for us. We’re going to, you know, foot the bill.
Stuart Turley [00:43:38] Speaking of entertainment, I love listening your stories.
Irina Slav [00:43:43] Really should start adding images. These gray squares. I don’t like them. Yeah, that’s my Substack Irina Slav on Energy. I try to post regularly. I try to post more frequently because so much is happening, but I don’t want to overwhelm the subscribers who get the posts, the long posts in the inboxes. So I’m just publishing some stuff on substack. So to read that, you have to go to the Substack.
Stuart Turley [00:44:10] It’s worth the money. Believe me. I don’t know why my mouse is just having a really hard time today.
David Blackmon [00:44:19] I had that problem this week and I had to get a new mouse here.
Stuart Turley [00:44:22] Yeah. This first one with with PBS is just. Absolutely. I want to know, as we go through the corruption in the United States and come out with USAID. How much of it went actually back back out to the news agencies and everything else, how much this is going to change? But PBS fails to acknowledge that the climate has always change, and there’s little evidence to support the notion that human activities have altered climate in a way that’s leading us towards disaster. That here’s the most leading claim in that was PBS’s article climate change is acidifying the ocean. I swear wind turbines do more harm than this. PBS is a story. Both people watching that episode probably were pretty amazed.
Tammy Nemeth [00:45:19] When are they going to defund PBS?
David Blackmon [00:45:22] I today remember. Ronald Reagan was president.
Stuart Turley [00:45:31] Yes, it needs to go away. I love the one I added. The snow Mexican standoff, the Canadians final U.S. energy tariff warnings to. Donald Trump standoff. I think that we are seeing a right sizing in the United States, in the world, because the tariffs have always been against the United States. And we’ve kind of just put away and said, okay, so it’s going to be a bumpy global market while President Trump sets the stage. But the amount of people in here that can be affected are the 25% electricity tariff from Ontario hits 1.5 million homes in Michigan, New York and Minnesota, all Democrat run states any way that they should. In my opinion. If you want to live in a state, you need to live in a state that can manage your own energy rather than rely on interconnects. Can I say that?
Tammy Nemeth [00:46:40] Well, look, to be fair, I mean, one of the complaints that Trump is making, which is why he puts the tariffs on, is that they have these trade deficits with these other countries. The problem is without some tariffs between cat that Canada deploys on the United States. That Canada would have nothing. We wouldn’t have our own factories or anything because we would have a massive trade deficit with the United States, which which if you take oil out of the equation, we do. So it’s like I understand Trump’s frustration is particularly with all the offshoring of manufacturing to China and everything. But you have to understand from the Canadian perspective, we’ve basically offshored our manufacturing to the United States. So, you know, if we don’t have some tariffs, then that puts Canadian industries in jeopardy, just the same way that American industries have been gutted because of the offshoring to these cheaper jurisdictions. And if I can add to what’s happening with the tariffs, is that Canada put this list of items that they’re charging a 25% tariff on, and they’re doing so now, even though Trump has said they’re there, They’re going to wait until April to figure out what to do. And one of those items, interestingly, is the fracking sand. So we can only get the fracking sand from Wisconsin special sand. And they put a 25% tariff on that. They put tariffs on any tires that are used for mining equipment, like in the oil sands or in any heavy hauler kind of stuff, but tires that go into making automotives, they’re exempt. No, no tariffs on that. Anything related to manufacturing in Quebec in Ontario exempt from the tariffs, but things that penalize the oil and gas industry in in Alberta and Saskatchewan. 25% tariffs.
Stuart Turley [00:48:39] Wow.
Irina Slav [00:48:40] That’s strange.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:42] Not strange. If you understand it’s the liberals.
David Blackmon [00:48:44] In keeping with climate madness. Yeah. It’s. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:48] Make it more expensive to produce.
Stuart Turley [00:48:50] Is there any way we can have Alberta be our 51st state? Because I love everybody up in Calgary in that area. Just a two way cool place.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:01] Can’t they just be independent?
Stuart Turley [00:49:06] I mean like Greenland. Anyway, you can find me on energy news beat dot co and com and then also the Energy News Beat on the Substack. I had a great interview with Wassif Latif and he is really a very good financial wiz. And but we talked about the amount of investment in critical minerals as well as it’s being underrated as well as investments into oil and gas, because like Robert was saying, we were talking about earlier, we are not going to make it without oil and gas and coal, and there’s a lot of money to be made.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:50] Okay. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:49:53] So. So, Tammy, tell us about yesterday’s elections in Canada.
Tammy Nemeth [00:50:01] The leadership election, which was a coronation of Mark Carney. So he’s now the leader of the Liberal Party and effectively the prime minister and Parliament isn’t it’s prorogued until the end of March. March 24th, I think. So who knows what’s going to happen. He talked about what.
David Blackmon [00:50:24] You have already. Elections. Don’t you have parliamentary elections scheduled soon?
Tammy Nemeth [00:50:30] No. So
David Blackmon [00:50:32] National Elections.
Tammy Nemeth [00:50:33] Technically the law. There’s a there’s legislation that was passed that the the election has to be called by October. However, there is a provision in our Constitution that says that the maximum is five years from the previous election. So technically an election doesn’t have to be called until next October 2026. Okay, but it’s up to the to whatever the Prime Minister wants to do. So. So let’s say it doesn’t sound good, right? So he could potentially figure he’s got a bump. People don’t really know him very much. He’s got this bump from the leadership or whatever. Trump is making everybody insane. You know pro Canada coming from people who said Canada as opposed nation state, whatever that means. But now they’re wrapping themselves in the flag and oh, Trump’s bad. Whatever. So he takes it. They might think they could win an election if they call it with and happens in the next month. So that’s possible. But it’s also possible that they wait until this October or next October.
David Blackmon [00:51:44] Okay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:51:46] It’s unclear, but I think he’s dangerous. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:51:51] He’s dangerous.
David Blackmon [00:51:52] Watch Canada, especially the upcoming federal election. The Liberty Liberal Party and the new leader, Mark Carney, are supporting a new sort of industry focused carbon tax, which Tammy, I think was about to talk about before I so rudely interrupted her and it seems, will be used at least partly for redistribution, redistribution to justify the tax. Sorry I interrupted you there.
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:14] Yeah, yeah. That’s okay. So basically, Carney said he’ll remove the visible personal carbon tax, whatever that everybody saw, right? It was, you know, it was really clear on your bills and everything that this is what you were getting charged. But now he’s going to instead levy it higher on the companies. So then it’ll be hidden and you won’t see how much you’re getting getting charged. So I just hope that the the power companies or whatever still continue to list how much they’re paying in carbon tax because they have to pass it on.
David Blackmon [00:52:47] Yes, of course they do.
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:49] You know, so it’s such.
David Blackmon [00:52:50] Such a classic liberal politician thing to do, right. Levy it all Corporation. So the people who actually. Yeah. Don’t see it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:00] Yeah for sure. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how how this all plays out. Because then he has this other thing about if you install, if you’re good and you install a new heat pump and all this kind of thing, you’re going to get credit, which will be put on a, a credit trading scheme or something. I don’t know, it sounds wonky, but that was in his climate plan.
Stuart Turley [00:53:26] If you add a heat pump and a car charger to your house, your car go, your electricity bills go up by 38%.
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:42] Yeah. But technically in their thinking is that you won’t have natural gas for your heating anymore, so you’re not paying that and you’re not paying for petrol at the station.
Stuart Turley [00:53:54] Yeah. Yeah, but you’re miles per gallon when you actually calculate it. And you’re paying a lot more for sure.
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:03] Especially if if so, the power prices are dependent on whether or not you get charged a carbon tax. So in Western Canada, which is primarily natural gas and coal, they would get charged the carbon tax. But if you live in Ontario where it’s nuclear and hydro, you won’t get charged. And in Quebec you won’t get charged because it’s mostly hydro.
Stuart Turley [00:54:24] Racket.
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:25] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:54:27] Wow. You know, that is just. But the EVs actually have more wear and tear on the road, which causes more oil and gas. And if you’re using cement, the amount of coal that is used for cement is unbelievable. So that goes back to Charlie’s law, which is the more we invest in renewable energy, the more fossil fuels we will use.
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:57] Yep.
David Blackmon [00:54:58] I like Turley’s law.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:02] Well, you know, if I could go to Karlos.
Irina Slav [00:55:07] said Michael.
David Blackmon [00:55:09] Oh, okay. Okay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:11] Where he’s talking about the oil prices have fallen below $70 a barrel. Well, that’s good if you’re a refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Stuart Turley [00:55:20] I think it’s temporary. And I think that there is going to be a major financial and global economic shift in the next four months, and I think it is going to be very entertaining to watch. Buckle up. And I. Really. Yeah. Any time that I can get a king, the king of England on the deck of a ship in a Canadian military outfit. I don’t get it. There are things going on around the world that you just have to make your head scratch.
David Blackmon [00:56:05] To find entertaining as you used it in that context.
Stuart Turley [00:56:10] That’s exactly what Spock said right before the enterprise blew up.
David Blackmon [00:56:14] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:17] I mean, I’m not surprised the King did that because he is the the the figurehead for Canada. I mean, it is a constitutional monarchy.
David Blackmon [00:56:26] Yep.
Stuart Turley [00:56:27] Yep. Constitutional monarchy. Monarchy. Well, go figure that one out.
Irina Slav [00:56:35] Yeah. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:37] Hi. Climate bell.
David Blackmon [00:56:39] Climate bell.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:42] All right. Coming in to say hi to Tammy and others from Canada will catch the recorded video later. Got a bunch of stuff to do. Can’t watch it live. Great.
Stuart Turley [00:56:50] All right. This was a fun show, and I’d like to give Robert Bryce a shout out. And David, thank you for coordinating it. He is just a cool cat.
David Blackmon [00:56:59] He’s a bundle of energy. Real energy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:01] Yeah. For sure.
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:05] So he’s brilliant. I love all the work that he that he’s been doing and. Yeah. It’s great.
Irina Slav [00:57:14] Are we done? We’re done. We’re done.
David Blackmon [00:57:16] And everybody has.
Irina Slav [00:57:17] A great show.
Stuart Turley [00:57:19] Yeah. With two minutes to spare. We covered a lot of material today.
Irina Slav [00:57:24] We’re all good.
David Blackmon [00:57:25] Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:57:27] All right. With that.
Irina Slav [00:57:28] Everyone and have a great week,
Tammy Nemeth [00:57:32] Bye everyone, Bye. See you next week. Thank you everyone.
Irina Slav [00:57:33] Bye
Stuart Turley [00:57:34] I need a new mouse.
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Technology can’t provide the economic miracle Starmer wants.
By David Gerard, the author of the book Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and the cryptocurrency and blockchain news blog of the same name.
A government bureaucracy generates paperwork—and even more paperwork when it’s computerized. But human judgement is expensive. What if a computer could go through the paperwork instead?
The United Kingdom’s Labour government believes that this is not merely possible, but vital. The AI Opportunities Action Plan intends to spend billions of British pounds putting artificial intelligence into every corner of the public sector in the hope for unparalleled efficiency and to save a fortune in staffing costs. Tedious administrative paperwork will be passed to machines. Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised the plan will bring “a decade of national renewal.”
A government bureaucracy generates paperwork—and even more paperwork when it’s computerized. But human judgement is expensive. What if a computer could go through the paperwork instead?
The United Kingdom’s Labour government believes that this is not merely possible, but vital. The AI Opportunities Action Plan intends to spend billions of British pounds putting artificial intelligence into every corner of the public sector in the hope for unparalleled efficiency and to save a fortune in staffing costs. Tedious administrative paperwork will be passed to machines. Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised the plan will bring “a decade of national renewal.”
The Labour government is suffering from dismal polling a mere seven months after its landslide election victory. It seems utterly out of ideas and is now going all-in on a Hail Mary pass that promises miracles. But the miracles will not work because the technology does not work when the details matter.
The catch is that “AI” is a buzzword. The term has rarely denoted any specific technology. Instead, it’s marketing for the promise that science fiction dreams of robot servants will become real any day now. The pitch has always been to replace human employees with machines.
The AI plan originates from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), which has been called “one of the architects of Starmerite thought.” The TBI’s May 2024 paper, “Governing in the Age of AI: A New Model to Transform the State,” and its July 2024 follow-up, “The Potential Impact of AI on the Public-Sector Workforce,” outline a plan to revolutionize U.K. bureaucracy by handing mundane tasks to AI—saving more than $200 billion over five years and shedding 1 million civil servants. Much of the wording in the AI plan was taken directly from TBI papers.
The U.K. plan to put AI into everything includes machine learning—statistical models that learn to analyze patterns in data. Machine learning is the source of the AI plan’s touted successes in the National Health Service on tasks such as reviewing radiology scans. But the plan’s substance is to replace human administrators across the public sector with large language models—chatbots, like ChatGPT. AI promotion tends to use machine learning, which can work well, to market large language models (LLMs)—which do not work well.
An LLM generates text. It is statistically trained on a large amount of text—up to the entire public internet—and ascertains which words follow other words. You give the LLM a prompt, which may be a sentence or an entire document, and it generates a statistically likely answer. An LLM is purely statistical and only works at the level of word fragments. An LLM does not “know” facts, only which words follow other words. It’s a super-autocomplete.
Very few people who have tried to use an LLM-based chatbot for hands-on administrative work would trust their jobs to one unless the details didn’t matter. LLMs are, by their nature, notoriously prone to confabulation and hallucinations. The systems just make things up—because facts are not a data type in LLMs, only word frequencies.
So LLMs can give extremely impressive demonstrations—they’re very good autocompletes—but tend to fail in actively dangerous ways when the details do matter. One of the cornerstones of Labour’s AI project is the government’s new consultation processing bot called Humphrey, which will read submissions and supply a summary. But the Australian Securities and Investments Commission did blind testing of LLMs for summarizing consultations and found them inferior to humans on all criteria. The bots missed key points, added analysis not found in the source text, and reversed meanings.
But the core belief at the heart of Labour’s push for AI seems to be a belief that LLMs are effectively magical—that you can run arbitrary documents through an LLM and get back human-quality analysis with only a few errors. The reports and the government’s embrace of them are predicated on this assumption.
This belief in the infallibility of LLMs is so strong that the TBI wrote at least two of its reports by asking a Microsoft version of OpenAI’s GPT-4 for answers, choosing the chatbot over going out and researching the state of things on the ground—they believed that a chatbot would be so effective it would give them answers good enough for a serious report.
The researchers told the press in July 2024 that “making a prediction based on interviews with experts would be too hard.” The TBI’s November 2024 TBI report, “The Impact of AI on the Labour Market,” contains multiple pages of charts and graphs of numbers that it proudly proclaims were synthesized by a chatbot. In science, this would be regarded as simple data fraud.
Even when the various documents cite previous findings, they don’t check out. The November report claims that “AI is already driving double-digit productivity gains for early adopters on individual tasks,” citing a Walmart press release about collecting data on what items are on its shelves. A claim that “AI is already being used to improve labour-market efficiency by better matching workers with employers” cites a report from the National Bureau of Economic Research about internet job searches that doesn’t mention AI at all.
Starmer’s press release claimed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that AI will improve productivity by 1.5 percent per year—but this turned out to be from an IMF report that was skeptical of a Goldman Sachs report making this claim. The original Goldman Sachs report says that electricity and personal computers raised GDP by about this much, so the authors just postulated that LLMs would do about the same—though they admit it is “highly uncertain.”
The TBI and the Labour Party have both received considerable donations from tech companies who have AI offerings to sell. The government’s plan is to give these vendors money to build LLMs and access to any public data they might want to train them on.
Given LLMs’ inherent susceptibility to confabulation, broad deployment is likely to end in a series of disasters. None of this stuff works well or reliably.
In education, curriculum planning and homework grading will be done with chatbots. An unnamed AI vendor will process existing materials to train an LLM to do these jobs. The government cites a “survey” in support of this, which was, in fact, an AI promotional focus group run by a vendor.
At its press launch, the LLM-based chatbot on the U.K. government’s official website sometimes answered English-language questions in Welsh. It wouldn’t answer “what is the corporation tax regime?” because it didn’t like the word “regime.” This was nevertheless an improvement on the previous version of the chatbot, which occasionally behaved seductively.
Starmer’s press release suggested AI-powered cameras spotting potholes in need of repair. But what blocks pothole repair is not finding them, but that local council funding is down 40 percent% since 2010.
The government’s AI recommendations will likely be forced through. AI “growth zones” will bypass planning restrictions for data center vendors Vantage, Nscale, and Kyndryl. In an echo of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, a Regulatory Innovation Office in the U.K. will force “behavioral changes within regulators.”
A proposed copyright exemption to hand British creative works to the AI companies for training is supposedly still in consultation until Feb. 25—but the government now states that this plan will go forward regardless.
LLMs are not economically sustainable—OpenAI spends $2.35 for each $1 of revenue. The AI bubble is propped up by billions in venture capital with nowhere else to go, trying to hype a market into existence, and corporations desperate to increase enterprise spend.
The purpose of the U.K. government’s plan is to pump the AI bubble with public money. When the bubble bursts, the treasury will have been drained and public services will be running on AI slop generators. The potholes will remain unfilled.
David Gerard is the author of the book Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and the cryptocurrency and blockchain news blog of the same name. He also co-writes Pivot-to-AI.com.
The notoriously volatile price of US natural gas futures has been zigzagging higher since mid-2024 and overnight spiked to over $4.80 per million Btu, and currently trades at $4.52 per million Btu, up by 140% from a year ago.
Nearly 43% of electricity in the US was generated by natural-gas-fired power plants in 2024. Natural gas is widely used for heating by residential, commercial, and industrial customers. Fertilizer makers use natural gas as feedstock. Natural gas is used as fuel for city buses, drayage trucks, garbage trucks, etc. And the US has been investing in a massive export boom of natural gas, with exporters taking up 19% of US production last year.
For the past 20 years, it has been drill-baby-drill, and US natural gas production has more than doubled, turning the US into the largest natural gas producer in the world. Overproduction has caused the price of natural gas to collapse repeatedly.
Over the past three decades, natural gas prices spiked to $10 per million Btu and higher, including to over $15 in 2005. Natural gas prices can go wild. And in 1997, natural gas had already been at $4.50.
Power generators, utilities, and fertilizer makers purchase much of their projected needs with long-term contracts, so price changes in the futures market leave their near-term costs largely unaffected. But they might raise their prices anyway, and many have already done so, blaming the higher costs. Regulated utilities will do what regulators let them do.
The CPI for natural gas piped to the homes across the US has risen by 6.4% since August (through January, February CPI will be released on Wednesday) and is up 4.9% year-over-year.
Electricity prices have risen because regulators allow utilities to hike their prices. In California, for example, PG&E’s electricity prices have spiked with multiple price hikes and fee changes, as it passes on the costs of the settlements related to wildfire destruction, the costs of their wildfire mitigation efforts, other costs, and whatever, while its net income surged to $2.5 billion in 2024.
National storage levels are running near the bottom of the five-year range for this time of the year, at 1.76 trillion cubic feet, down from 2.34 trillion cubic feet a year ago, when they were forming the new top of the five-year range.
Forecasts for milder weather indicate that there will be less heating-related demand.
But export demand, both via LNG to the rest of the world and via pipeline to Mexico, is a booming business and rose to 7.7 trillion cubic feet in 2024, using about 19% of US production in 2024.
In January, Trump had lifted the freeze on LNG export permit applications for new LNG export terminal. Biden had paused approvals of permits for new export terminals in order to curtail future growth in demand from LNG exporters that could drive up wholesale prices of natural gas in the US.
In February, the Trump administration granted an LNG export license to the Commonwealth LNG project in Louisiana. And in March it approved an LNG export extension for the Golden Pass LNG terminal in Texas. And LNG exports will ramp up further and create more demand for of US natural gas.
It has become a huge business. And this demand from exporters comes on top of the growth in demand from power generators scrambling to provide electricity to new data centers (for AI and the cloud), which are enormous power hogs, and which are spouting like mushrooms.
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Hapag-Lloyd’s terminal and infrastructure division Hanseatic Global Terminals (HGT) has acquired a 60% stake in CNMP (Compagnie Nouvelle de Manutentions Portuaires), operator of Atlantique container terminal in Le Havre, France.
The remaining 40% of the shares in CNMP will continue to be held by temperature-controlled food logistics specialist Seafrigo Group.
Le Havre numbers among the 10 largest ports in Europe with an annual container throughput of 3m teu.
The throughput is expected to grow in the coming years, including in the reefer container business.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“By acquiring a majority stake in the CNMP terminal in Le Havre, we are strengthening our position in one of our core European markets. At the same time, we are continuing to expand our global terminal portfolio while paving the way for targeted investments to enhance efficiency. The transaction will therefore directly contribute to the vigorous realisation of our Strategy 2030,” said Dheeraj Bhatia, chief executive officer of Hanseatic Global Terminals.
Hanseatic Global Terminals manages 20 terminals in 11 countries and aims to increase this number to more than 30 by the end of this decade.
A major rescue operation is underway in the North Sea after a product tanker and a containership crashed and caught fire off the coast of Hull in east Yorkshire, UK.
A US-flagged MR tanker Stena Immaculate was struck by the Portugal-flagged containership Solong while at anchor off the Humber Estuary.
Multiple nearby vessels are on the scene as well as lifeboats, firefighting teams, helicopters, a fixed-wing aircraft, and the coastguard which is coordinating the rescue operation.
A number of people have reportedly abandoned the ships and were brought ashore following the incident that took place at about 09:48 hrs local time.
The BBC cited the chief executive of Stena Bulk, Erik Hanell, as confirming that all the crew on the tanker had been rescued.
The 183-m-long Stena Immaculate, owned by Stena Bulk and managed by Crowley in the US, arrived from the Greek port of Agioi Theodoroi with jet fuel onboard.
Crowley said in a statement on X the vessel sustained a ruptured cargo tank containing Jet-A1 fuel and that it is pouring into the sea, adding also that “all mariners are safe and accounted for”.
The 140-m-long 800 teu Solong, owned by Germany’s Ernst Russ, had been on its way from the Scottish port of Grangemouth to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.
Details about how the allision happened are still unclear. “The incident remains ongoing,” the UK coastguard said.
Whitecap Resources and Veren have agreed to a $10.4 billion all-share merger, creating a major Canadian oil and condensate producer.
The combined company will have an enterprise value of $10.4 billion and produce 370,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
The merger will create the largest Canadian light oil-focused producer and a significant player in the Kaybob Duvernay and Alberta Montney regions.
Whitecap Resources and Veren have agreed to merge in a US$10.4 billion (C$15 billion) deal that will create a leading Canadian light oil and condensate producer, the companies said on Monday.
The firms announced that they had entered into a definitive business combination agreement to combine in an all-share transaction valued at approximately US$10.4 billion (C$15 billion), inclusive of net debt.
The combined company will have an enterprise value of US$10.4 billion (C$15 billion), and 370,000 barrels of oil per day (boe/d) of production, 63% of which is liquids, with significant overlap across both unconventional and conventional assets, Whitecap and Veren said.
The company that will result from the merger will be the largest Canadian light oil-focused producer and the seventh largest producer in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, with significant natural gas growth potential.
The combined company will become the largest producer in the high margin Kaybob Duvernay and Alberta Montney with about 220,000 boe/d of unconventional production. It will also be the largest landholder in the Alberta Montney and the second largest landholder across unconventional Montney and Duvernay fairways with 1.5 million acres in Alberta.
“We are excited to bring together two exceptionally strong asset bases to create one world-class energy producer with one of the deepest inventory growth sets of both liquids-rich Montney and Duvernay opportunities, along with conventional light oil opportunities in some of the most profitable plays in the Western Canadian basin,” said Grant Fagerheim, Whitecap’s president and CEO.
The deal between Whitecap and Veren entails Veren shareholders receiving 1.05 common shares of Whitecap for each Veren common share held. The combined company will be led by Whitecap’s existing management team under the Whitecap name with four Veren directors to join the Whitecap Board of Directors, including the current President and CEO of Veren, Craig Bryksa.
The transaction is expected to close before May 30, 2025.
The M&A wave in Canada consists of opportunistic – rather than necessary – deals, analysts say. And many of these would likely be focused on non-oil sands assets such as the Duvernay Shale or Williston Basin.
The Labour government under Keir Starmer has upheld its promise to halt new oil and gas exploration but is now allowing tiebacks—connecting new reserves to existing fields.
The government has decided not to renew the windfall tax on oil and gas companies beyond 2030.
Facing declining domestic production, energy security concerns, and industry pushback, the UK government is adjusting its stance.
When the Labour Party of Keir Starmer won the latest UK elections, it vowed to stop new oil and gas exploration. The Starmer cabinet has stayed true to its word on that—but it is looking for ways to boost production through other means.
In early February, a Scottish court ruled the previous government’s approval of two new oil and gas projects in the North Sea unlawful. The ruling was the result of climate activism that challenged the approval of the Jackdow and Rosebank projects. The court sided with the activists. Only the Starmer government did something that activists might not have expected. It said it had only promised to ban new developments, not ones already approved by previous cabinets.
That should have been evidence enough that the transition agenda of the Labour government is not as immutable as it might look. Yet, now we have further evidence that the agenda is not set in stone and wind and solar cannot replace oil and gas in any meaningful way anytime soon. In its latest discussions on energy policy, the Starmer government appears to have found a way to continue stimulating more oil and gas production without compromising its green agenda—via tiebacks.
The Financial Times reported the news, citing documents from a cabinet consultation about “how we might ensure that our regulatory regime can support activity where it is needed to deliver the government’s broader strategic priorities”. This support, apparently, can be ensured by tapping new resources in deposits adjacent to already producing fields. The approach is bound to raise the hackles of climate activists. And indeed, it should, because whether it’s a whole new field or a new field next to a mature one, it is still oil and gas that will be coming out of it. But it looks like for the Starmer government, this is a solution that should satisfy all sides.
More importantly, however, the tieback will secure continued energy production in one of the most ambitious transition projects in the world. “We are pleased to see that the government has appreciated that their campaign message was simple, but the reality is more complex, and the industry will be pleased to give its input on how this can be translated into a pragmatic and workable new regime for the future of the North Sea,” said the chief financial officer of Serica Energy, a major producer in the North Sea, in comments on the news.
That’s not all, either. In addition to devising a way to continue oil and gas production, the UK government will also not renew windfall taxes instituted for the oil and gas industry by the previous government in a bid to take advantage of massive supply crunch-related profits that the industry booked in 2022. The windfall tax regime ends in 2030, and the Starmer cabinet has no plans to renew it unless wholesale energy prices rise to an unusual level, per the Financial Times.
This is a significant departure from earlier signals given by the government about its stance on the oil and gas industry. When they came into power last year, Labour actually raised the windfall profit tax even further, sparking outrage from the industry that essentially said they would eventually up and leave if this continued. Production has already declined by 10% since the introduction of the windfall profit tax, and that has led to the loss of $6.5 billion in cash flow, per Wood Mackenzie. It seems that the Starmer cabinet finally saw sense, and from 2030, oil and gas operators will return to a tax rate of 40%, down from the current 78%.
“The government acknowledges that changes to the oil and gas fiscal regime in recent years have led to a period of uncertainty for the sector and its investors,” the Treasury said in a statement that was part of the consultation papers in yet another good sign for the UK’s energy industry.
Essentially, it seems that one of the most pro-transition governments in the world is waking up to the fact that hydrocarbons are still the dominant source of energy and that local production—or homegrown as they like to call wind and solar—is better than imports.
“For as long as we need oil and gas, banning new licences never made any sense. In the new geopolitical reality it is madness,” GMB, one of the largest trade unions in the country, said. It was likely this new geopolitical reality that motivated the decision on the tiebacks, and it may yet again lead to a more comprehensive reconsideration of energy policies. At some point, the government may even drop its decision to ban new licenses. It just needs a little more time to fully realize that using your own hydrocarbon resources really is better than importing them.
ENB Pub Note: This is an excellent article from Bloomberg on LNG diplomacy and the expansion in President Trump’s second term. We are going to see some critical changes in the geopolitical world and new alliances that will not be directed by the globalists. Energy and Finance will be at the core of the realignment coming around the corner. A Key export for President Trump’s rebalancing of trade. Just look at Japan and its willingness to jump on long-term contracts for LNG.
Ripping up old alliances and turning the post-World War II axis on its head would have been impossible for any previous American president because of the insatiable US thirst for imported energy. But the Trump White House is able to lean on an increasingly critical made-in-America commodity to exert new levels of geopolitical leverage: liquefied natural gas.
The US, which in the span of about seven years transformed itself from an irrelevant supplier of LNG into the world’s largest, is set to expand its production capacity by 60% in the first half of Donald Trump’s second presidency, according to an estimate from BloombergNEF. By the end of the decade, almost 1 in every 3 tankers carrying the superchilled fuel will originate in the US, giving Trump his best chance to attain the energy dominance his campaign promised.
No matter what Trump does to alienate the US from its allies, his unorthodox moves aren’t hurting demand for American-made natural gas. In the first weeks of his second presidency, he sought to broker a peace deal for Ukraine without key allies (or Ukraine), slapped tariffs on trade partners and pitched a bombastic idea to remake the Middle East. Leaders from Europe, India and Japan have responded with pledges to buy more American gas. “It’s mind-blowing to think that the president of the United States doesn’t have to worry about imported energy when negotiating for peace in the Middle East or on the European continent,” says Amy Myers Jaffe, a professor at New York University who teaches about energy and climate finance. “You can lead those discussions from a position of power.”
Trump frequently talks of his plans to ramp up America’s production of “liquid gold,” the fracked oil he accused President Joe Biden of holding back out of concern about climate change. But US crude production will grow by only about 2.9% this year as the shale industry waits to tap future drilling locations. The Permian, the country’s biggest oil basin, could reach peak production as soon as 2028, the last full year of Trump’s presidency, before plateauing, according to S&P Global. Likewise, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent’s pledge to increase oil production by 3 million barrels a day as part of his “3-3-3” plan to boost the economy—which also includes getting the fiscal deficit down to 3% of gross domestic product and sustaining growth at 3%—is only likely to be achieved if measured in barrels of so-called oil equivalent, which includes gas, says Raoul LeBlanc, an analyst at S&P Global.
A large LNG transport ship docking in Yantai, China, last month.Photo: Cfoto/DDP/Zuma Press
Oil “is probably not going to grow meaningfully in the short run,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in February. US gas production, on the other hand, is going to grow “dramatically” in the next two or three years, he said. Or, as Vice President JD Vance put it while on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania: “We’re sitting on the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. We’ve just got to unleash that.” It’s an exciting prospect for the world’s top oil and gas executives and government officials, who’ll gather for the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston starting March 10.
Twenty years ago, the idea that natural gas would play an even more important role than crude oil in US diplomatic calculations would have been preposterous. At the turn of the millennium, the US was short of gas. It generated less than 15% of the country’s power, outflanked by nuclear and coal, and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan called for a major expansion of imports to address the shortfall in domestic supply. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which picked up in the early aughts, changed all that. The two techniques unlocked previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves from North Dakota to New Mexico. The US more than doubled its natural gas production, to more than 100 billion cubic feet per day, and it now fuels 41% of the country’s electricity.
In fact, shale gas supplies rose so quickly during the past 20 years that it far outpaced domestic demand, prompting a decade-long malaise in prices that hurt producer profits. The industry looked for more ways to deploy its gas, including by building plastics-making petrochemical plants along the Gulf Coast. But the Holy Grail is to export it, especially because international customers are willing to pay higher prices. Europe needs a long-term replacement for Russian supplies, Asia needs fuel for its fast-growing economies, and the developed world needs more energy to satisfy the demand from data centers powering artificial intelligence.
An expanding number of companies, including Cheniere Energy Inc. and Venture Global Inc., have raced to build multibillion-dollar liquefaction facilities to help them serve the overseas market. The complex plants can chill natural gas to -256F (-160C), transforming it into a liquid state that specialized ships then transport overseas, where it’s regasified. Eight of these sites are already operating in the US, with three more under construction and several others close to deciding whether to move forward with final investment. Trump is also trying to breathe life into a long-stalled LNG project in Alaska.
A Venture Global LNG export facility in Port Sulphur, Louisiana.Photographer: Julie Dermansky
Although no friend of the oil and gas industry, Biden advanced the LNG agenda set in Trump’s first term after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. US supplies to Europe could replace the gas the continent piped in from Russia, helping to deprive President Vladimir Putin’s “war machine,” he said. The Netherlands, France and the UK quickly became the biggest buyers of American LNG. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised Biden for being a “reliable” partner and said the trans-Atlantic relationship was “stronger and more united than ever.”
Once seen as a transition fuel to help wean the world off coal as it moves toward clean renewables, natural gas has surprisingly endured. That could have dire consequences for combating climate change, which requires reductions in all fossil fuels, including natural gas, if the world is to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. “All the talk was that natural gas was a bridge fuel,” says Mike Sommers, chief executive officer of the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil and gas industry. “It’s clear now that natural gas is the future fuel.”
US natural gas prices have averaged $3.55 per million British thermal units over the past five years, about 70% lower than the European average, providing the economy with a major competitive advantage and helping to underpin both Biden and Trump’s policies to bring US manufacturing back from overseas. “Energy is the foundation for every economy, so the fact that US can supply itself cheaply and increasingly export to the rest of the world is a huge advantage,” says Arjun Murti, a partner at Veriten, a Houston-based energy research and advisory firm. Europe by contrast has seen “a big deindustrialization trend,” particularly in Germany.
The US gas industry’s meteoric growth hit a roadblock in the final year of Biden’s presidency, when his administration put a moratorium on new LNG export licenses while it scrutinized the effect on climate change. Trump lifted the pause on his first day in office, with no mention of the climate concerns that prompted Biden to halt approvals. (Also unmentioned was a phrase Trump’s previous Energy Department unsuccessfully tried to coin in 2019 to promote American LNG over supplies from Russia or the Middle East: “freedom gas.”)
An expanding number of companies have raced to build multibillion-dollar liquefaction facilities to help serve the overseas market.Photographer: Bryan Tarnowski/Bloomberg
The country’s expansion in gas production and exports stands in stark contrast to the state of the US oil industry. Although it’s the world’s largest, it doesn’t provide Trump with the geopolitical heft enjoyed by OPEC and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. While America currently pumps about 13.5 million barrels a day, about 50% more than Saudi Arabia, growth prospects are limited: Low oil prices force producers to reduce costs and preserve what’s left of their runway of future drilling locations. But if America’s natural gas industry continues to grow as expected, this slow growth may not matter.
Europe, for now dependent on the US for gas, has little room to maneuver. Even as Ukraine fumes over Trump’s apparent sympathy for Putin, its largest private energy company is in talks with US sellers over a two-year LNG supply contract. Under threat from major US tariff hikes, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to facilitate imports. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are considering purchasing more American LNG to head off Trump’s tariffs and reduce their trade surplus with the world’s biggest economy.
Trump’s strategy also carries the danger of pushing some key buyers away. China, last year’s biggest LNG importer, in February slapped retaliatory tariffs on American gas in response to additional US tariffs. And that’s not the only risk. With so many new US plants coming online, analysts expect the market to be oversupplied by the end of the decade, which could cause prices to drop. Even so, LNG is typically more expensive than coal and not as clean as renewables. And, as China has shown, both of these other fuel sources can often be produced domestically without having to rely on imports.
“No government wants to be dependent on import markets unless they have no choice,” says Myers Jaffe, the NYU professor. For the next two years or so, countries may have no choice, she says. “But we’re at such a transformative period for energy, 10 years from now there will be a choice. The window for US natural gas is not infinite.” —With Stephen Stapczynski
Norwegian OSV owner Havila Shipping has secured a contract extension for its platform supply vessel Havila Borg.
The Fosnavåg-based company has fixed the 2009-built unit to energy industry logistics provider Peterson Den Helder for a period of around 215 days in direct continuation of its existing contract with Peterson Offshore affiliate.
The deal covers three firm wells with options for five additional wells, each estimated at 65 days.
The Oslo-listed company, which operates 14 vessels including six for external owners, said the dayrates are fixed according to the current market.
