Energy News Beat

ENB Pub Note: This will be a story to watch. When you ask Grok on X who will be affected, the response is; “The 25% electricity tariff from Ontario hits 1.5 million homes in Michigan, New York, and Minnesota. It’s a retaliation move against U.S. tariffs, and despite Trump’s suspension of some trade levies, Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford is pushing ahead starting Monday. Grid reliability and costs could take a hit.” – But in the overall view of the broken finances of the country, this is part of the proper sizing of global trade. Canada has had unfair tariffs on US products for years. This will be one to watch to see who blinks first. So,, is this a “Snow Mexican Standoff?”

A Snow Mexican Standoff — Created by Grok on X

Canada will enact a 25 percent tariff on energy flowing into parts of the U.S. on Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, as U.S. President Donald Trump plows on with his trade war with America’s top trading partners.

Why It Matters

Trump said on Thursday he would grant Canada and Mexico a one-month reprieve on U.S. tariffs slapped on many of the two countries’ exports, exempting products that fall under a trade agreement inked during the Republican’s first term in office.

On March 4, Trump had imposed 25 percent tariffs on goods produced by Canada and Mexico, sparking turmoil in the global financial markets. In separate remarks on Friday, Trump alluded to possible fresh tariffs on Canadian lumber and dairy products.

Under Trump’s flip-flopping raft of tariffs, Washington placed a 10 percent tariff on Canadian energy, the major supplier to U.S. states hugging the northern border. Ford has pledged retaliatory 25 percent tariffs on Canadian electricity sent to the U.S. states of New York, Minnesota and Michigan from Ontario, to take effect on Monday.

The post Canada’s Final US Energy Tariff Warning to Donald Trump – “A Snow Mexican Standoff” appeared first on Energy News Beat.

Energy News Beat

According to our Natural Gas Annual Respondent Query System, 1,653 natural gas delivery companies delivered natural gas to end-use customers in 2023 in the United States. A delivery company is defined as any entity that delivers natural gas directly to end users. Natural gas deliveries by pipeline companies to the electric power sector made up the largest share of deliveries to end-use consumers, accounting for 33% of all natural gas delivered to end-use consumers in 2023.

Pipeline companies generally deliver large volumes of natural gas to high-volume end users, accounting for most of the deliveries to industrial facilities and electric power plants. The electric power sector and industrial sector are the largest and second-largest consuming sectors, respectively. Pipeline companies delivered 75%, or 27.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), of the natural gas used to generate electric power in the United States, and 51%, or 11.9 Bcf/d, of the natural gas used in the industrial sector in 2023.

Conversely, local distribution companies (LDCs) are the primary providers of natural gas to homes and businesses, delivering 94% (20.3 Bcf/d) of end-use natural gas to the residential and commercial sectors. LDCs often operate networks of small pipelines that connect to homes and businesses; however, they are distinct from pipeline companies, which operate wide-diameter, high-pressure pipelines that transport large volumes of natural gas to predominantly industrial and electric facilities. Natural gas distributors operated by municipalities, referred to here as municipals, are the most common type of natural gas distributor in the United States, but they deliver relatively small volumes of end-use natural gas, accounting for only 4% of all end use.

Natural gas consumption to generate U.S. electric power has increased significantly in recent years. Warmer weather has increased the demand for electricity for space cooling in the summer, increasing natural gas use by electricity providers. Low natural gas prices and improving efficiency from combined-cycle plants have also contributed to increased natural gas-fired power generation. As natural gas consumption in the electric power sector has increased, natural gas deliveries via pipeline companies to electric power plants have also increased, rising by 17% (3.9 Bcf/d) since 2018 and accounting for 75% of the total increase in deliveries to the electric power sector between 2018 and 2023. Pipeline companies do not typically sell natural gas to end users, but instead they deliver the natural gas on behalf of the end user in exchange for a transportation fee.

LDCs deliver most of the natural gas consumed in the U.S. residential and commercial sectors. However, nearly half of their deliveries (47%, or 15.2 Bcf/d) go to the industrial and electric power sectors. LDCs are typically regulated by state public utility commissions, which ensure that the LDCs maintain reliability of service and stable prices for customers. LDCs receive natural gas from a pipeline near their service area and then transport it through their own network to end users.

LDCs with interstate pipelines, the least common type of distributor, deliver the most natural gas to end users per facility, at an average of 0.5 Bcf/d per facility. An LDC with interstate pipelines can have a large distribution area that sometimes spans several states and may serve millions of customers in a region.

Municipals typically serve one specific city or town and, as a result, deliver comparatively small volumes of natural gas to end users, averaging less than 3 Bcf/d of deliveries in 2023. Despite delivering relatively small volumes of natural gas, municipals accounted for more than half of all delivery companies, numbering 886 in 2023.

More information on company-level data on natural gas distributors is available in EIA’s Natural Gas Annual Respondent Query System.

Principal contributors: Mike Kopalek, Grace Wheaton

The post Pipeline companies deliver most of the U.S. electric power sector’s natural gas appeared first on Energy News Beat.

Energy News Beat

In this episode of Energy News Beat – Conversation in Energy, host Stuart Turley sits down with Courtney Moeller at NAPE to to discuss advancements in the energy sector, including the role of technology, AI, and modular nuclear reactors in meeting energy demands. They highlight the continued need for oil, gas, and natural gas infrastructure despite investments in renewables and address misconceptions about energy production and environmental impact. Courtney emphasizes the importance of education on nuclear energy, while Stuart shares insights on industry trends, regulatory challenges, and the future of energy in 2025.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Intro

00:16 – First Impressions of NAPE

00:45 – Networking & Industry Connections

01:14 – Oil & Gas Production Update

01:55 – Technology & Efficiency in Energy

02:27 – Topics Covered in Energy News 8 Podcast

02:52 – Future of Energy in 2025

04:21 – Nuclear Energy & Policy Challenges

05:43 – Modular Nuclear Reactors & Innovation

07:35 – Renewable Energy vs. Fossil Fuels

08:24 – The Hidden Costs of Solar & Wind Energy

09:26 – Closing Remarks & Contact Info

Stuart Turley [00:00:00] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News 8 podcast. My name is Stu Turley, President CEO of the Sandstone Group. I’ve got Courtney sitting here with you today.

Courtney Moeller [00:00:16] I mean, I’ve got to meet you. So my day, I mean, like that was like the cherry on top of my whole day.

Stuart Turley [00:00:21] Oh, I doubt that. But I’ll tell you what you’ve been having. Tell us about Nape.

Courtney Moeller [00:00:24] What’s going on there? Okay, this has been amazing. This is my first time here. And when you see this floor and all of the exhibits, it’s overwhelming. But I’ve had so many conversations, met amazing people. You know, we’re here. No, it’s so fun. And it’s it’s great to see that, you know, the technology and the way things are traversing and moving throughout this space and just meeting great people.

Stuart Turley [00:00:46] I’ll tell you, what was really cool is I’m sitting here and she knows Doug Sandridge and Doug just finished an interview here. And it is so cool. There’s only three people in the whole oil and gas industry out of the thousands that are here.

Courtney Moeller [00:01:00] Which is amazing. I mean, incredible. And it’s funny because we just finished a project with Doug’s group about a month ago. So to turn up and walk around the corner and have you sitting here with him was amazing. And so we got to meet in person.

Stuart Turley [00:01:14] And I love the fact that you’re sitting there and those three wells that you just drilled are pumping out some serious oil. President Trump would be thrilled.

Courtney Moeller [00:01:22] He would be thrilled because, I mean, we’re going to drill baby drill, right?

Stuart Turley [00:01:25] Oh, absolutely. And as an investor, you always want to know that those EMP operators are going to give back the money. You just met Rachel, the CEO of W Energy. Yes. She was over there. So you got to know how the molecules are counting.

Courtney Moeller [00:01:41] You do. Well, and which is a perfect example of some of the technology and things that are being integrated into this space. I feel like there’s a lot of room for improvement and way to streamline things and make them a lot more efficient.

Stuart Turley [00:01:54] Well, how do people find you?

Courtney Moeller [00:01:55] Oh, well, that’s such a great question. I am I have a website. It’s CourtneyMoller .com. I’m not great with social media. I have it, but I have my family is for that is that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. So, yeah, CourtneyMoller .com.

Stuart Turley [00:02:10] Nice. And you can find me on EnergyNewsMeet .co. And when you go there, you can see all the great interviews. This interview will be there.

Courtney Moeller [00:02:18] I love that. I love that. Well, what do you typically talk about? You know, this is a little bit new to me. We’re going to add some additional stuff. What can I look forward to seeing on your station?

Stuart Turley [00:02:28] I’ll tell you, on the podcast we’ve talked about today, we’ve talked everything from PG and Yen with Diablo Canyon Nuclear. We’ve talked about W Energy and being able to have the whole new way of accounting to make sure that investors get their money back to make sure that we know what costs are going into it. We’ve got about 16 different other people lined up to talk about.

Courtney Moeller [00:02:52] I love that. Well, let me ask you, what are you excited about in this space for 2025?

Stuart Turley [00:02:58] That is a fantastic question. What am I excited about? I’m excited about oil and gas. We have the tipping of the barrel is right over there. They’re just walking by. They’re a great podcast team that they’re not missing now. But when you sit back and take oil and gas is going to be, we’re going to need so much natural gas. It’s going to be beautiful natural gas in the words of President Trump because we will not have enough power. Let’s take Texas as an example. Texas has $4 .5 billion worth of new power plants in budget or under construction. In order to even get AI, AI Stargate in Abilene has got its own dedicated natural gas power plant that it will support if it was on its own 80 ,000 homes. So we are not going to be able to hit the data centers without natural gas. What do we need with natural gas? We need bed stream. We need pipelines. We need EMV operators. We need the economy. We need high paying jobs. So I’m excited.

Courtney Moeller [00:04:02] You are. And I love that you brought up AI because that was something I was going to point out. I don’t think people realize the amount of energy that is required to power AI and what it is doing. I mean, it’s doing really great things in so many spaces, but we need a lot of natural gas. And so I think this is going to be a really great year for that.

Stuart Turley [00:04:21] Nuclear would be really cool.

Courtney Moeller [00:04:23] It agreed. I 100 % agree.

Stuart Turley [00:04:26] Well, as Nixon brought in the nuclear agency, what he did is what he didn’t realize is he stopped nuclear because of the regulatory process. Now that we have Lee Zeldin and President Trump said, for every new regulation you put out, you got to kill 10, we might be able to see some nuclear in about five years.

Courtney Moeller [00:04:47] Yes. And I think there also needs to be a little bit of education that’s brought about in the space too, because I think there’s a lack of education in the general public on what having nuclear means and what that could actually do in a research country.

Stuart Turley [00:05:01] Nuclear carrier.

Courtney Moeller [00:05:02] Oh, yes. You are right about that. I do. I do. I think that it has the potential to create so much energy very quickly and very cheaply.

Stuart Turley [00:05:13] Oh, Randy has done so great with our fleet. We have nuclear reactors. We teach young kids nuclear. Why are we doing that everywhere?

Courtney Moeller [00:05:21] Well, we’ve got these little floating cities that are powering all kinds of things. We should be able to tap into that and bring it on shore.

Stuart Turley [00:05:30] Absolutely. Modular reactors. I interviewed the CEO of Copenhagen Electronics and he was building, they were rolling out and targeting for this year to build modular reactors one a day.

Courtney Moeller [00:05:43] Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:05:44] That’s a lot of modular reactors. They’re not there yet, but that’s their target. Then you take a look at Jay Yu. He is with Nano Energy. Nano Energy is also looking at building modular reactors.

Courtney Moeller [00:05:57] Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:05:58] That is the only way we’re going to make it is if we can mass produce modular reactors in a controlled environment.

Courtney Moeller [00:06:05] Let me ask you, I don’t know the answer to this. Do you know how many reactors we have here in the United States?

Stuart Turley [00:06:11] About four, I believe.

Courtney Moeller [00:06:12] Okay. Down from, I mean, where were we? Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:06:17] I believe. I’ve got to do wall burn numbers. I have to fact check myself frequently. But when you take a look at the base load for Texas, it’s about 10%. If you look at California, it’s 9 .8. And the rest of the country, it’s about that seven to 8%. Coal is a big chunk of that. Then you have natural gas and you take a look at the EPA curve. The EPA curve is here’s trillions of dollars spent on wind and solar. And it’s growing like this. But there’s a spike for electrical demand.

Courtney Moeller [00:06:51] Well, what is interesting, and I actually have a great chart that I shared, gosh, about a year ago. And it showed our sources of energy and it broke it down from coal to natural gas, oil, all of these different solar and renewable energy sources. And obviously everybody wants a cleaner environment and things like that. The amount of this renewable energy sources and what it’s powering is this teeny tiny little blip compared to what we’re getting from all of these other resources that we’ve been using for a very long time. And I think what’s a little bit wild is a lot of people don’t realize how much oil and gas is actually needed to create these renewable resources.

Stuart Turley [00:07:36] You know what’s even frightening? There’s a couple of things that are frightening. And that is I’ve got a theory.

Courtney Moeller [00:07:41] Okay, I love theories.

Stuart Turley [00:07:42] The theory is the more money we spend on renewable energy, wind, solar, and hydrogen, the more fossil fuels will be used.

Courtney Moeller [00:07:51] Absolutely.

Stuart Turley [00:07:52] And that is holding true until technology changes.

Courtney Moeller [00:07:56] Well, I think it’s what one windmill uses, I think it’s 500 ,000 barrels of oil over the course of its life to keep running. And that’s not even what you need to actually build the unit itself.

Stuart Turley [00:08:07] About 500 ,000 tons of ore, material, steel, and then you have the land reclamation. In Oklahoma, they had 80 windmills out of an Indian farm that the judge ordered them to remove them.

Courtney Moeller [00:08:24] Okay.

Stuart Turley [00:08:24] It’s gonna cost about a million bucks per windmill to get the land reclamated. Now, here’s another problem. There is a $5 .5 billion solar farm that just got decommissioned and is going out of business. There’s no money in there for land reclamation. The solar panels and wind turbines are more hazardous to the United States environment than the nuclear fleet of 94 nuclear reactors. That’s really terrible.

Courtney Moeller [00:09:00] It’s terrible. And people don’t understand that. They’re not digging into what’s beneath the surface.

Stuart Turley [00:09:06] See, I went to Oklahoma State, and I can understand that. That’s pretty sad.

Courtney Moeller [00:09:09] I can understand it, too. I can understand it, too. And one of the other things I’d like to say is there’s so much that’s destroyed through the solar farms and everything else. And really, oil and gas does a pretty good job of preserving the areas where they’re drilling and doing things.

Stuart Turley [00:09:26] So give a shout out to all of your fans, all of your social media. StuChurley, energynewsbeat .co. I love you. If you are in the energy space, I want to talk to you. And if you’re out there for our fans, get a hold of Eric, Courtney there. And thank you very much for coming.

Courtney Moeller [00:09:45] Oh, my gosh. Yes, thanks for having me. This is awesome. I love talking to you. Well, thank you.

Stuart Turley [00:09:50] We’ll see you soon.

Courtney Moeller [00:09:50] Okay.

The post Why AI and Renewables Still Depend on Oil & Gas appeared first on Energy News Beat.

Energy News Beat

The minutes mentioned it. New York Fed’s Perli added some background. The Fed will likely provide details at its March meeting.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

No one has ever drained $2.2 trillion in liquidity through QT from the financial markets, as the Fed has done since July 2022, and there is no playbook to go by. Withdrawing liquidity too fast can cause some places to run dry while others are still awash in it. Normally higher yields cause liquidity to move where it’s needed, but if it drains too fast, there may not be enough time for yields to do their job distributing liquidity, and then something blows out, like the repo market did in 2019. An accident like that would cause QT to stop. And the Fed has consistently said it wants to avoid another accident, which is why it slowed QT in June 2024 so that QT can keep going further.

And now there’s a new potential issue for the Fed – for its balance sheet and liquidity in the financial system: the debt-ceiling fight and the $800-billion checking account of the federal government. When $800 billion in liquidity suddenly pours into financial markets and then vanishes from the financial markets even faster, it moves the needle.

The first official mention came in the minutes of the January 28-29 FOMC meeting: that the FOMC is considering “pausing or slowing balance sheet runoff until the resolution of this event.”

So, not stopping QT entirely, but pausing or slowing it temporarily until the issues of the debt ceiling are resolved.

Then on March 5, the New York Fed’s Roberto Perli, Manager of the System Open Market Account (SOMA), which handles the Fed’s securities transactions, gave a speech about the more distant future of the Fed’s balance sheet, which paralleled what Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan had said a month earlier [Future of the Fed’s Balance Sheet: How Assets Might Shift from Longer-Term Securities to Short-Term T-Bills, Repos, and Loans after QT Ends. MBS Entirely Off the List]. But Perli included a detailed discussion about the near-term issue related to the debt ceiling.

While the debt ceiling is in place, the government cannot raise more cash by issuing new Treasury securities and instead will run down its checking account at the Fed, the Treasury General Account (a liability on the Fed’s balance sheet).

Before the debt ceiling was reached, the TGA had a balance of over $800 billion, which is what the Treasury Department normally wants to keep in it. While the debt ceiling persists, that balance will be drawn down. It has already been drawn down to $530 billion. In past Debt-Ceiling fights, it was drawn down to near zero.

Drawing down the TGA effectively injects liquidity into the financial system, potentially close to $800 billion. But that’s not the problem.

The problem occurs when the Debt Ceiling gets lifted, and the government refills the TGA rapidly by issuing lots of T-bills, which sucks that liquidity back out of the financial system, and very quickly.

Last time, $500 billion got sucked out of the financial system in eight weeks in June and July 2023, and another $300 billion got sucked out over the next 12 weeks, to refill the TGA back to $800 billion by mid-October 2023. That was a lot of liquidity to vanish from the financial system in a short time.

Last time, the overnight reverse repo (ON RRP) facility at the Fed, by which money markets deposit unneeded cash at the Fed to earn some interest, still had $2.1 trillion in balances, and that’s where the $500 billion came out of in June and July 2023, and the $300 billion in August to mid-October 2023.

It was smooth: Money market funds bought the massive amounts of T-bills the government issued during the TGA refilling process and paid for them with cash they got from exiting their ON RRP positions at the Fed. The cash went from the Fed’s ON RRPs via the money markets to the TGA. Both the ON RRPs and the TGA are liabilities on the Fed’s books. It didn’t impact the Fed’s assets. And it didn’t impact banking liquidity. It was unused cash from money market funds that funded those T-bill sales.

But this time around, QT largely drained ON RRPs and is starting to drain liquidity from the banking system.

The banks keep large amounts of cash on deposit at the Fed in their “reserve accounts,” as the Fed calls them. With these reserve accounts, the Fed acts like a central clearing place for bank transactions. Banks pay each other on a daily basis through their reserve accounts at the Fed. Huge amounts of cash flow through these reserve accounts every day. In addition, banks keep substantial amounts of cash in their reserve accounts for financial stability purposes, because it is the most liquid cash.

These reserve balances are what the Fed is trying to reduce with its QT. And they haven’t come down yet at all because all of the QT came out of the ON RRPs, and now, during the Debt Ceiling, liquidity is moving from the TGA to reserves.

So now, that liquidity needed to buy the $800 billion in T-bills that the government will issue to replenish the TGA will largely come out of the banking system – including reserve balances.

But the TGA is also now draining due to the debt ceiling, and part of that liquidity is going into the reserves, thereby temporarily covering up the drain on reserves from QT.

And this liquidity from the TGA now pouring into reserves is obscuring the effects of QT on reserves – that’s what the Fed is fretting about.

After the debt ceiling is resolved, the government will refill the TGA quickly, and this sucks liquidity back out of reserves, very fast, much faster than QT, potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in weeks.

The Fed is worried about the speed with which this happens after the debt ceiling, and that its signaling system – such as surging yields and spreads related to repo markets – will warn of reserves being low enough (near “ample”) in real time, rather than in advance.

By which time it may be too late, and liquidity demand could cause some major gyrations in the money markets, similar to the repo-market blowout that occurred in the fall of 2019.

In his speech, Perli noted that reserves are still “abundant,” and not yet near “ample,” but noted that “there is evidence that pressures in the repo market have been gradually increasing.” And he added, “For now, these signals from the repo market suggest no cause for concern.”

And he said with regards to the rates and spreads they’re following:

“With the partial exception of the repo indicator, these measures are currently all toward the top of the chart, and about in line with their benign levels of a year ago.”

“On the other hand, you can see that during periods when reserves were becoming less ample, as was the case in 2018 and 2019, these indicators tended to show movement and were further toward the bottom of the chart.”

This is the chart he referenced. I added the red box to show the period when trouble in the repo market arose after QT drew down reserves (click on chart to enlarge).

“Pausing or slowing balance sheet runoff until the resolution of the debt ceiling situation.”

To forestall a blowout in the repo market or other segments of the money markets, the Fed said in the minutes that it is considering “pausing or slowing balance sheet runoff until the resolution of this event.”

Perli provided some details in his speech and repeated the language from the minutes:

“Sharp and sudden changes in the supply or demand for reserves [through the TGA getting drained and then refilled] could in principle prompt reserve conditions to shift rapidly, depriving our indicators of much of their early warning potential. One factor that could lead to large and relatively fast swings in reserves is dynamics related to the federal debt limit.”

“Put simply, the longer balance sheet runoff continues while the debt ceiling situation persists, the higher the risk that, upon the resolution of the debt ceiling, reserves could rapidly decline to levels that could result in considerable volatility in money markets. “

As noted in the minutes of the January 2025 FOMC meeting, various participants thought it may be appropriate to consider pausing or slowing balance sheet runoff until the resolution of the debt ceiling situation.”

The back-to-back announcements about “pausing or slowing balance sheet runoff until the resolution of the debt ceiling situation” indicate that the Fed will provide further details fairly soon, likely on March 19, after the FOMC meeting.

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The post Why the Fed Considers “Pausing or Slowing” QT “Until the Resolution of the Debt Ceiling Situation” appeared first on Energy News Beat.

Energy News Beat

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

Energy News Beat

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

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

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

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

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Intro

01:20 – The Trump Effect & Energy Investment Landscape

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

03:42 – What Makes Sarmaya Partners Different?

07:35 – The Case for Commodities & Energy Investing

08:49 – Global Energy Consumption is Still Rising

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

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

14:50 – The Future of Energy Markets & Infrastructure

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

20:07 – Sarmaya’s Thematic ETF (LENS)

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

23:36 – The Energy-Driven Commodity Supercycle

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

27:44 – Closing Thoughts & How to Connect

Full Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Energy News Beat

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

​Analysis

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

Energy News Beat

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

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

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

​Analysis

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

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

Energy News Beat

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

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

​The United Nations is at a crossroads.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Among the whoppers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Predetermined narrative

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

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

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

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

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

The UN has no place suppressing that discussion.

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

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

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

Read more at NY Post

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