Energy News Beat
Is the war on coal over?
You do not want to miss this episode of the LIVE Energy Realities Podcast on LinkedIn, X, and YouTube. David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, Irina Slav, and Stu Turley host a wild topic that we secretly had on our Bingo Cards: “Is the War on Coal Dead?” With the world needing more power, we are seeing a shift toward more coal use worldwide. What kind of realignment is happening? – Make sure you stop by and ask the team questions as they are from the U.S., Bulgaria, Canada, or the UK.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:11 – Introduction
02:26 – Coal’s Resilience Amid Energy Transition
05:20 – Coal’s Role in Global Energy Supply
10:00 – Germany’s Energy Crisis & Global Coal Plant Expansion
13:40 – U.S. Power Grid & ERCOT’s Energy Shortfall
18:00 – China’s Record Coal Expansion in 2024
23:00 – Energy Transition: Myth vs. Reality
30:10 – U.S. LNG Exports & Trade Strategy
35:30 – DOGE: Reuters Paid Millions by DoD for ‘Large Scale Social Deception’
37:18 – Diamondback in Talks to Buy Permian Producer Double Eagle
38:02 – Exclusive: India’s NTPC plans to spend $62 billion on 30 GW of nuclear power, sources say
38:33 – Trump, Zeldin, Looking to Challenge the EPA’s Ability to Regulate Plant Food as a Pollutant
42:37 – Google says US is facing a power capacity crisis in AI race against China
44:07 – Why upstream companies might break their capital discipline rules
49:10 – ERCOT’s latest projections show potential problems for Texas power grid by 2027
53:11 – Trump to boost U.S. offshore oil and gas with new energy dominance council
55:00 – Final Thoughts: The Future of Energy Policy
Is the war on coal over?
David Blackmon [00:00:11] Well, hello everyone. Welcome to the Energy Realities podcast. Today is February 17th, 2025. It is the four week anniversary of the inauguration of President Donald Trump, and the world is still reeling from the level of activity here in the United States. Before we came on Irina Slav, who is in Bulgaria? Hello. How are you? Irina?
Irina Slav [00:00:41] I’m good. Little bit cold because winter is back.
David Blackmon [00:00:45] Yes. Yes, it’s back everywhere. I’m afraid, Stu Turley in Oklahoma.
Stuart Turley [00:00:52] Hey, it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
David Blackmon [00:00:54] Yes. Before before we came out, we were talking about J.D. Vance, his speech at the Munich Security Conference last Friday. That was it was really gotten quite the reaction in Europe and the United States. And it’s it’s a wild and wooly world we’re in right now. But we’re here to talk about all today. It’s it’s very interesting what’s happening on the coal front. Even before President Trump took office, coal refused to cooperate with the narrative of this energy transition and just go away quietly as China and India have made certain that it continues to be burned at record pace across the globe all time records, despite the spending of trillions of dollars in subsidies for wind and solar and some other, quote, green energy forms like hydrogen, which of course, we all know is a pipe dream and carbon capture and all these other things. Coal continues to be the king of power generation all across the earth. And one notable thing in the United States last week was the fact that our energy secretary, Chris Wright the most qualified person to ever hold that job, said the United States is going to stop closing coal fired power plants in the Trump administration. That sets the stage for a renaissance of coal here, even in the United States. And we’re here to talk about it. Irina What is your perspective on what’s happening on the coal front?
Irina Slav [00:02:26] Well, let me start with a personal story. I told you guys before we went live that the weather forecast has -14°C for the weekend, which is really, really cold. But you know what we have? We have coal. We have the three biggest coal power plants in the country. I can see them from my window. And sorry I’m working. Yeah, I believe full capacity because that’s the only kind of reliable electricity we can get in addition to our nuclear power plant. So I understand there are problems with coal. If you don’t control the operators, they can get careless and spew dirt in the atmosphere. And when I say dirt, I mean particulate matter. I don’t mean carbon dioxide. So control is obviously necessary, but coal gives you reliable and cheap electricity. It stops being cheap when you start taxing these coal power plants for their carbon emissions, which is what the European Union does. And it has made coal more expensive relative to other sources of energy. And it has been one of the biggest mistakes that the European Union has made. And maybe they will realize it, maybe they won’t. But even Germany is cranking up the coal power plants because there’s no wind. And by the way, did you did you see the new study that says it’s climate change? That’s. Responsible for the low wind speeds in Europe. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:04:13] That’s never happened before, right?
Irina Slav [00:04:15] It has never happened before. It doesn’t happen in winter generally, because when it’s so cold, the wind doesn’t blow so strongly. But yeah, it’s. It’s climate change. And I’m sure the solution I didn’t read the whole study, but I’m sure the solution is build more wind turbines. You know, keep yourself into the hole while you keep your coal power plants. And I think I think I’ve said this before on some episode, what China and India are doing is what everybody should be doing, because I think dominant in this, they score pretty much everywhere. It’s really accessible, unlike oil and gas in many parts of the world. But this coal. Pretty much everywhere. And there’s a lot of go in India and China, which is why they’re building new coal power plants. And we should all be doing this or, you know, not closing the ones we have.
David Blackmon [00:05:20] So I think that’s right. And Stu has a wonderful illustration of what’s happening. Germany has done pretty much everything wrong in power generation over the past 20 years. But one thing they haven’t done wrong is shut down all their coal fired power plants like the U.K. has done. And Stu, that World Energy monitor has a great map that illustrates what’s happened, what’s happening. Number one, with operational coal plants all over the face of the earth. But let us take a look, Stu, at what’s happening in Germany.
Stuart Turley [00:05:51] All right. But when we take a look at this, I have to give them a shout out. This is the Global Energy Monitor, and it was in an article from Tanzania’s I Can’t. She’s from Oil Price and I cannot pronounce your name. I apologize. I’ll Irina, how would you pronounce your name here? It’s . Tes, That tes.
Irina Slav [00:06:14] Bestfriend so her name is Tsvetana Paraskova
Stuart Turley [00:06:19] okay thank you. I cannot say it and I apologize. But she has a great article and I added the map into this after pirating it and it’s on my site. But now when we come over here that I did, I say that I pirated it. Yes. But I gave her credit. These are the coal plants around the world that are announced. Notice we’re there. They’re taking a look. We’re in Mozambique. We’re in India. And look at the size of these rascals. This one, these are some huge ones. As we’re taking a look. Let’s go into the permitted ones. I don’t know that there’s a permitting issue in India or China going on right now. I don’t know that that’s a problem. And I think we know them. Yeah. Lee Zeldin, the United States is going to do that. You notice the United States is still like no permits. Let’s go under under construction. Okay. Drumroll. Look at this.
David Blackmon [00:07:19] Gosh.
Stuart Turley [00:07:21] This is under construction at this moment. There’s 437 of them with 4000MW. That is our power. Look at this one right here. So now let’s take a look at what’s operating right now. You have 6120MW around the world. And when you take a.
David Blackmon [00:07:50] Big cluster up in Germany. Let’s narrow in to Germany here
David Blackmon [00:07:58] Look at Germany.
Stuart Turley [00:07:58] Wow.
David Blackmon [00:08:00] With all those coal fired power plants.
Stuart Turley [00:08:04] And here’s Bulgaria down over here. So these. These are great. Which one?
Irina Slav [00:08:11] I’m right there. Near these. Them.
Stuart Turley [00:08:15] How fun. The.
David Blackmon [00:08:18] Well, you’re sure you’re going to have power going during this cold?
Irina Slav [00:08:21] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:08:22] But look at Germany. Operating
Irina Slav [00:08:29] Well, it closed them. You know, there was at least one person with some sense in their head. Who said we shouldn’t shut them down yet.
David Blackmon [00:08:40] Like they did with their nuclear Plants.
Stuart Turley [00:08:42] and.
David Blackmon [00:08:43] All their nuclear.
Stuart Turley [00:08:44] And look at Europe when you take a look at I added back in announced pre pre pre permit announced in operating and one of the biggest things that there’s another article that came out guys and that is that. Texas Ercot. I’ve been reviewing the grid in the United States and in the grid in the United States is not going to meet demand. I’m working on that article and it is going to not meet it. Ercot put out a report that we are going to see a little bit of a problem in 2020, 2026, 2026 and 2027. And so a little bit of a problem is, okay, that’s better than 90% of the rest of the United States. So Texas is at least doing better there. Let me go up here to this comment.
David Blackmon [00:09:44] That that is why I believe we’re going to be reactivating mothballed coal plants in Texas and eventually permitting new coal plants in Texas, because, I mean, you have to have the base load to keep up with our exploding economic and population growth.
Stuart Turley [00:10:00] Let’s go to Shell Mothball and cancel And so
Irina Slav [00:10:06] Its really really Stupid on the part of Romania’s government. They should rethink ocean.
David Blackmon [00:10:11] And yeah, that’s why you shouldn’t.
Irina Slav [00:10:13] Be around enough workers at coal power plants to protest because this is what we did. I mean, it’s still it’s still uncertain. I think they can still forces to do the same. But there are a lot of people employed in that industry.
Stuart Turley [00:10:31] David Absolutely, and that’s an excellent point from email. And take a look at the moth, canceled, shelved or mothballed. And how much of those have been shut down? There’s 170 mothballed. Now? I don’t know. I have to go look up the definition of mothballed and can they be turned back on? And in Germany, Bulgaria has several that are mothballed. Let’s take a look. Yeah, this is. 100MW. Germany. Yeah. So it started
David Blackmon [00:11:17] Supposedly renegotiating right now, also fighting off ONGs, which is what we call NGOs in the United States, trying to shut down hydro hydro, which is what Spain has done. It’s created so many floods in Spain, blown up dams.
Irina Slav [00:11:40] Romania has a lot of hydropower. If they want to start restoring rivers. And so putting a lot of people in danger and not just from unreliable energy supplies. Well, I hope you vote sensibly and we’ll add the next elections. I don’t know what to say. We can hope.
David Blackmon [00:12:03] Yeah. Well, but even if they do, you have to hope that the Deep State doesn’t come in and cancel the election. If it goes the wrong way.
Irina Slav [00:12:14] I think this is the second time. This will be really dangerous, I think.
David Blackmon [00:12:20] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:12:21] Really, really dangerous.
David Blackmon [00:12:25] So what is that? What is what are we showing here Stu?
Stuart Turley [00:12:30] These are retired. And I found this one very interesting. When you take a look at 1953, retired year was 2009. How much of the equipment has been removed versus how much is it going to cost to bring back on line? If the connections or grid connections are there? It should be fairly easy. It depends on how much equipment they removed. Right. Makes sense. Yep. But this is a very telling sign of how much has been been done. Let’s go back into Germany first so.
Irina Slav [00:13:07] UK look at this.
Stuart Turley [00:13:10] Isn’t that amazing? Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:13:12] And that’s all happened in this century.
Stuart Turley [00:13:16] Retired 2013 and their their energy prices have the UK and we’ve all talked about this about how the world. And their energy. Deindustrialization is ongoing right now.
David Blackmon [00:13:35] Yeah. Yeah. It’s just crazy. And that’s that’s part of what Chris Wright was saying. We’re not going to continue this deindustrialization effort the Biden administration had embarked upon and that we’re going to keep our coal plants open. And I suspect we’ll be reinvigorating some of these mothballed plants.
Stuart Turley [00:13:57] One of the key things that I think every all three of us understand, but I don’t know that all of our listeners really kind of have gotten it is. Let’s take a look again at this. Okay. That’s operating in under construction right now. The United States has reduced its CO2 output by 22% over the last five years, I believe. And it was because of natural gas coming online and coal plants shutting down. There is nothing that we can do. To stop or help this. When you take a look at how much CO2, the Great Wall of China rolls right around in somewhere around here viewable from space. It does not contain CO2 or particulate matter from coal plants as much as we would like to believe it. There’s nothing the United States can do to solve the problem.
Irina Slav [00:15:07] Just bomb them. How many look governments like this solution to problems? But I think there will be issues with emissions. I am looking.
Stuart Turley [00:15:24] Yes, I for this is for entertainment purposes only, but DOGE for DOGE. Discovering that USAID has been a corruption source for the three letter agencies disrupting governments around the world and more things. Can you imagine how much corruption that people are looking at right now? I’ve got a video of some U.S. politicians looking at the DOGE corruption report right now. Iryna, this is critical. And when you sit back and take a look, they are looking at this report, it is frightening to understand that they’re going, wait a minute. They’re more upset that Elon is looking at these reports. But here they are looking at these reports. So they’re not worried that they’re not that we’re funding trends, something or other parties in Afghanistan. That’s not the issue. The issue is that billions have been stolen from the. Billions of dollars and trillions of dollars have been stolen from the American people. And I believe that we are about to find out how bad that is. As it’s related to energy as well. Doge is now supposed to be auditing Fort Knox that hasn’t been audited since 1994. Oops. And there is a global shortage of gold going on right now.
Irina Slav [00:17:03] Not in China not in Russia. They have been buying gold very smartly over the past, well, at least five years.
David Blackmon [00:17:14] Yeah. And we’re supposed to have 6532 tons of gold at Fort Knox. And we’ll see how much we actually have. Maybe we do. I hope so. If not, that could create some fallout in the markets.
Stuart Turley [00:17:30] I believe in don’t. We’re going to find out.
David Blackmon [00:17:34] A belief here, but I don’t have any insight into that.
Stuart Turley [00:17:38] I don’t either.
Irina Slav [00:17:39] What does that include? Foreign reserves as in countries storing their gold at Fort Knox?
David Blackmon [00:17:46] How much physical gold we’re supposed to have at Fort Knox? That’s right. I think it’s 6542. I might be getting the numbers slightly wrong, but it’s it’s thousands of tons of coal supposed to be there.
Irina Slav [00:18:00] Yeah, but but, I mean, it’s not all US property.
David Blackmon [00:18:05] Right.
Irina Slav [00:18:06] It includes foreign storm.
David Blackmon [00:18:10] No, that’s just the physical gold that’s supposed to be at.
Irina Slav [00:18:14] Right? Yeah. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:18:15] That. I mean, there’s also, you know what you’re talking about to smuggle Copeland in Texas to get the $1.4 billion. I don’t know if it’s a loan or a grant from the USDA for solar and battery to place a coal plant. What a waste of our rural dollars. Yes, absolutely.
Irina Slav [00:18:33] They had the same idea about our coal plants. Exactly the same idea. Let’s put them into a solar power hub and green hydrogen. Let’s close the mines. Build the solar panels. Put in the batteries. And also put in some hydrolysis to produce green hydrogen. It is a horrifying idea. I hope this
David Blackmon [00:18:57] whole thing. All this
Irina Slav [00:18:57] Against global plans.
David Blackmon [00:18:59] Yeah, all those IRA incentives are under review right now. That may not mean we’ll see.
Irina Slav [00:19:06] Good.
David Blackmon [00:19:09] And that’s the objective, too.
Stuart Turley [00:19:11] Well, you know, Irina the hockey is a great is hockey a big thing in in Bulgaria?
Irina Slav [00:19:19] Well, not really. But I am a fan and it’s brutal and straightforward.
Stuart Turley [00:19:25] Yeah, the Canadians had a real fun booing of the United States. But I did find that after Trudeau went out and celebrated the loss by buying a new sports car. So this was pretty cool. This is a.
Stuart Turley [00:19:41] Yes, he he he did. Watch out.
David Blackmon [00:19:49] That really does look like.
Stuart Turley [00:19:51] It does look like him. I had the I had to show everybody that. Let’s watch that again. Watch this.
Stuart Turley [00:20:04] Okay. Sorry about that.
Irina Slav [00:20:05] It’s just him.
David Blackmon [00:20:06] I want one of those. By the way, I use wheelbarrows a lot. Man, I want one of those.
Stuart Turley [00:20:12] I do, too. I got my backhoe. I got it. My other thing. Other equipment around the place. So, you know, I got to have me one of them. That’s pretty darn cool.
David Blackmon [00:20:22] So a couple of of of little items of trivia that came out this week and couple of reports are new studies. One study found that China permitted more new coal plants in 2024 than in any year since 2015. Now, that’s directly contrary to the narrative that is being spun by the U.N. and the WB, that China is fully cooperating with the energy transition and over there leading the world in renewable energy and blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. They’re building more coal than they built in a decade. Why are they doing that? Because countries like the UK and Germany are de industrializing their economies, so all their heavy industries are moving offshore and many of them are moving to China, where if you’re going to make steel, you have to have coal. Yeah, you can do it with natural gas, but it’s more expensive. So they’re building coal plants to take in all these new heavy industries that the Western world is shipping over to them. What does that mean? It means that as China and the UK are industrializing their economies and bragging about their virtue, signaling about green energy and energy transition, their net reduction in global emissions is zero zero. They’re not doing anything. They’re not accomplishing a damn thing. And, you know, India is doing the same thing. India is also building a lot of nuclear, but they just continue to build more and more coal plants because they have to help them.
Stuart Turley [00:21:54] And and I want to bring this up. You mention that absolutely wonderful point. And that is, as the UK and Germany and the EU de industrialize India is industrializing and becoming one of the largest LNG importers in the world right now. And when you take a look at President Trump trying to do reverse tariffs, if you tariff something against the United States, he’s going to tariff your country the same rate. I love this. And I think it’s fantastic from the standpoint that the United, the UK, the EU tariffs, the United States unbelievably. And when you sit back and take a look at how much, you know, there’s a 200% Canadian tariff on U.S. farm goods. I’m all in. Let’s just do equal tariffs. You tariff us? We do if you have a great day. I like the way he’s thinking. But now LNG, David becomes Trump’s big thing because Europeans don’t want to buy Fords. And so what is what is the EU talking about right now, though? The EU is not at the table for the Russia Ukraine talks to be held in Saudi Arabia. So what is on the table right now for LNG? LNG? You’re going to have President Trump, you’re going to have Saudi Arabia and you’re going to have Russia, three of the biggest oil producers in the world. And a negotiation coming up next week for a wonderful end of the Ukraine war. And don’t tell me that LNG is not going to come up at this discussion. Well, sure. I think it’s going to be fabulous.
David Blackmon [00:23:56] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:23:57] Yeah. But first, they’ll they’ll close the deal between themselves and then they’ll invite the Europeans and maybe talk about LNG. And this could happen after the German election. So that will be interesting.
David Blackmon [00:24:10] That will be interesting. Although I think that German election is going to come out pretty status quo at the end of the day, after all. But after all the rhetoric around it.
Irina Slav [00:24:22] We’ll see. Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:24:25] So LNG is going to be Trump’s hip pocket for tariffs and energy exports for the United States in balancing trade wars. That is the best thing that the United States has going for it right now. So now getting a long term contract is also tough, David. You and I have both talked about the Jones Act. We can’t build our own ships fast enough. We don’t have enough shipbuilding. And if I was a
David Blackmon [00:24:58] Do you know.
Stuart Turley [00:25:00] If I would want to be able to control the entire supply line? We don’t own ships.
David Blackmon [00:25:09] No, and we can’t because, I mean, all of our shipbuilding capability, United States is tied up by the U.S. Navy and even they’re going to need much more capability in the coming years. And so, you know, we have dramatically devastated our shipbuilding industry in the United States. And so most commercial ships and all commercial ships basically are built offshore. And that’s going to have to change to at some point. Hopefully, hopefully, all the changes Trump is making will encourage new shipbuilding capacity to come online here in the United States.
Stuart Turley [00:25:49] And boy, if President Trump, if you’re listening to this, please get rid of the Jones Act. Just thought I’d point that out.
David Blackmon [00:25:56] You know, that’s ideal and I agree with you in principle, but I doubt they’re going to invest a lot of political capital in that because it’s such a. I mean, it’s just it’s like one of the fourth rails of American politics. It’s just so tied up in in labor politics, union politics. And it just I’m my God. The first time I worked on an effort to modify the Jones Act. Was in 2001. I mean, people have been trying to modify or repeal the Jones Act for over a hundred years. You know, I mean, it just it’s never ending. It’s a terrible law. It’s it’s stupid and totally counterproductive. But it has an awful lot of very powerful political interests lined up behind it to keep it in place And. You know, maybe any nation that goes off into that. Is diverting a lot of political capital from from other things.
Stuart Turley [00:27:03] Well, maybe a fallout. We’ll see how the fallout goes around the world, because the world I loved. Vice President Vance telling the E.U. some interesting things that they did not like, that he was actually saying, by the way, you all are stifling free speech. And I loved what he had to say as a vice president. He was very well received and they did not like what he had to say. So I think America is a lot better now.
Irina Slav [00:27:35] They’re not used to hearing the truth, which is a big part of the problem.
David Blackmon [00:27:41] And I wonder, does McGarry have any guarantees of free speech similar to the First Amendment in the United States?
Irina Slav [00:27:49] Well, I think it’s in the Constitution, but whether it’s respected or not is an entirely different matter. Well, at least we’re not throwing people in jail for hate speech.
David Blackmon [00:27:59] Right. I mean, in Scotland and the U.K., they’re throwing people in prison for.
Irina Slav [00:28:04] Yeah. And besides, it will be more difficult next year because, you know, we have this totalitarian past and people are not touchy about anything.
David Blackmon [00:28:17] Yeah. Well. So I guess our bottom line here on coal is. I mean, it’s the same thing, same story. Every year we’re using record amount of coal. We haven’t reached peak coal yet, so don’t anybody talk to me about peak oil. Yeah, there is no energy transmission. I mean, right to transition the energy transition is a myth that isn’t happening. We have an energy addition and energy innovation out the wazoo, but there is no transition taking place. And everybody really ought to just stop talking about it in those terms, in my opinion. What do you think, Irina?
Irina Slav [00:29:01] I hope they will, but I doubt they will until they absolutely have to. Which is when they will start pretending they never pushed for this transition in the first place. I keep on saying this. It is my firm belief that this is what we’re going to see of the past over the next sorry few years. I think the bureaucrats, especially in Europe, they will fight to their last political breath to keep the narrative going in the face of all the evidence that it is not going as they hoped as they drain. It could never go this way because it’s impossible. And they will keep burning coal that will keep importing Russian gas even if they slap more sanctions. I mean,
David Blackmon [00:29:54] What is that? What does it say about the laws of physics and thermodynamics? Right. I mean, we talk about
Irina Slav [00:30:02] Yeah. Yeah. You can’t do anything about them. The laws.
David Blackmon [00:30:09] Stu, what do you think.
Stuart Turley [00:30:11] About the energy transition?
David Blackmon [00:30:15] Yeah. And about the law of physics and thermodynamics.
Stuart Turley [00:30:19] A great man once said, physics and fiscal responsibility matter to the grid. And I believe his name is David Blackmon. Did I call you a great name? I apologize. Sorry. Sorry about that. I did not mean to be nice. But when we sit back and take a look at the amount of corruption that is being discovered, the amount of Green New Deal energy policies coupled with corruption, people, regimes change when they don’t have low cost energy. And we are seeing that play out in Germany. We are about to see the amount of global corruption coming out, and I don’t think anybody is prepared to understand how corrupt the government mechanism around the world is, not only the United States government.
David Blackmon [00:31:16] That’s right.
Stuart Turley [00:31:17] It is The Green New Deal is not an energy transition. There is going to be no energy transition with the current technology. In my opinion, I think that Tesla, the inventor, Tesla had it right there. There is free energy machines that are popping up around the world, but anybody that invents a free energy energy machine is killed. I mean, it’s just one of those kind of things. So as those things come around.
David Blackmon [00:31:50] Well, okay.
Stuart Turley [00:31:53] That’s a whole different topic.
David Blackmon [00:31:55] You talk about the laws of physics. A free energy machine stands in complete defiance of the laws of physics.
Irina Slav [00:32:03] Right. Many have tried, but none have succeeded.
David Blackmon [00:32:06] Yeah. I mean, it’s just the perpetual motion machine, right?
Irina Slav [00:32:09] No.
David Blackmon [00:32:10] It’s just in a small scale. They just can’t work it.
Stuart Turley [00:32:14] They have. They have built several small ones, and they’ve got one that’s now in testing mode. And I’m watching these things because I’m trying to see how all this is going around the world. Building a microgrid. We are seeing microgrids come in to support natural gas is the only way the United States for the next five years is going to meet its demand is with natural gas. Period. I mean, it’s all the new plants coming in to coal.
David Blackmon [00:32:45] Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:32:46] Yes. And so what we are seeing, though, is perpetual based machines built on a small scale do work. They are very independent. But can they scale? Not yet. I don’t think so. That will be a time when the energy transition happens, when those kind of things can happen. Till then, it ain’t happening, in my opinion.
David Blackmon [00:33:14] Well, it’s all kind of like nuclear fusion, isn’t it? Cold fusion?
Stuart Turley [00:33:18] It is.
Irina Slav [00:33:19] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:33:20] I mean, we’ve been hearing about cold fusion just around the corner since the 1970s. It’s a lot of very wide corner folks. I mean, and you may never get around it. We all we all have to be aware that you just might not ever get around that corner. And and you have to make sensible investments and do the right things to maintain reliability in your energy space. On the possibility that you never get around that corner. And that means we have to take advantage of all of our resources, mineral resources and otherwise, to ensure this world remains powered properly. And we’ve lost sight of that the last four years. And at least in the executive branch of the United States government, we are refocusing on the right things, which is a good thing.
Stuart Turley [00:34:16] You bet. And we are seeing doge doing a lot of cutting. I’m not sure if I showed this one already, but this is pretty cool when you take a look at doge doing cutting again. Look at that. They’re being precise. They’re going to do some serious cutting here. Watch this. This is damage cutting. Sorry about that.
David Blackmon [00:34:42] All right. We have ended our cold discussion. Five minutes overtime. So now it’s time to go to our weekly feature, our favorite news articles of the week. Who’s first.
Stuart Turley [00:34:54] And we got to give a shout out to Tammy. She’s out running around, but follow her Substack. The Energy Report’s Nemeth Report Substack.
David Blackmon [00:35:07] I also got a big apology for not mentioning the fact that she wasn’t here. . We miss you, Tammy. Anyway.
Stuart Turley [00:35:15] You look nice, though, David.
David Blackmon [00:35:17] I do look great. No, no, man, that’s my favorite shirt. No, I knew no logo cap, so I don’t piss people off with my longhorn cap or my Dodgers cap. Anyway, since you’re here, we’ve got Reuters got paid millions of dollars by the Department of Defense for large scale social deception. This is one of the revelations here over the past week by. They went into the Department of Defense budget and found out it was paying Reuters $170,000 every month for the last nine years to engage in a campaign of large scale social deception. They don’t even mince words about it in the line item in the budget. That’s what Reuters has been getting paid for. And a lot of that large scale social deception has been related to climate alarmism and energy. And they’re not the only one. We’re going to find out that pretty much every major news organization in our country has been paid not just by the government, but by Soros funded and other billionaire funded foundations and NGOs to create climate propaganda over the past decade or two. The Washington Post is a great example. They employ more than 50 reporters who write about climate at one.
Irina Slav [00:36:43] Time and.
David Blackmon [00:36:44] Yes, just for climate. Now, do you think The Washington Post editorial staff decided to fund that out of its subscriber base budget? Please. That money is coming in from left wing interests funded by billionaires like Soares and the Rockefellers and the parks and the Hines’s and all the rest. So this is a tip of the iceberg scandal that is going to be I, I think the mainstream media is already dying. This is going to accelerate that process. The other one is Diamondback Energy, one of, well, the biggest independent producer now in the Permian Basin since Exxon-Mobil bought Pioneer Natural Resources is in talks to buy Double Eagle, another big independent producer, for $5 billion. You know, this is just going to give Diamondback an even bigger position of contiguous acreage in the Permian Basin. It’s going to allow it to become much more profitable and produce and drill more wells at lower cost. And, you know, it’s just another big deal. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s probably going to happen here in the coming days. So. And still there was that other one. What was it? The, the. Did you see my email about India Is that one company in India, as in NTPC, it has been $62 billion. 30GW of new nuclear power plants in India over the coming decade. That’s right. That’s a big deal. And that’s where I think we’re going to see a lot of announcements like this year over the next few years. Yeah. And this one I just wrote this morning. Trump Well, it his first day he actually signed an executive order, but they held a a media availability a week ago that most in the media didn’t even write about ordering Zeldin to produce by February 19th, which is this Wednesday. A reevaluation of EPA’s endangerment finding related to carbon dioxide and methane.
Stuart Turley [00:38:58] Wow.
David Blackmon [00:39:00] Us to regulate them as pollutants under the Clear Clean Air Act. Now carbon dioxide is plant food. Clearly, it’s not a pollutant. And no sane person or honest person would ever even attempt to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant. It’s the basis for all life on planet Earth. How can it be a pollutant? And the thing about this is that that endangerment finding in the 2007 case, Massachusetts versus EPA, that gave EPA the incentive to make that finding came about when the Chevron deference was still a legal doctrine in American law. Chevron deference orders all federal courts to give deference to bureaucrats and their internal lawyers on how they interpret the intent of federal statutes. Well, that doctrine was repealed by the Supreme Court last year, and it no longer exists. And it can no longer be used as a foundation for this endangerment finding. And I think Zeldin and Trump are going to make a real effort to reverse that endangerment finding. If they do, then every thing, every climate regulation invoked by both the Biden and Obama administrations will be subject to immediate repeal. And it’ll take a long time for all of this to work its way through the courts, regardless of what EPA does. There will be a million lawsuits challenging it, and all have to go back up to the Supreme Court again. But this is the foot in the door to begin that process.
Stuart Turley [00:40:43] David, a couple of things here. And Jeff Chestnut has a great point. Learn more about CO2, the carbon compounds. I’ve interviewed the folks over there at the CO2 coalition.org and they’re good People disagree, right? Right. Stone is absolutely a hoot. Love him. I’ve interviewed him I think, three times. Good. He is a good dude. And this brings up a really big point. I don’t know the answer to this, but carbon credits could be a thing of the past. Is that a fair statement? If the CO2 is no longer a pollutant. Why one. Car? It’s a whole carbon market.
Irina Slav [00:41:28] That is a very long way from that yet because now they’re talking about biodiversity credits.
David Blackmon [00:41:34] Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, those efforts aren’t going to ever end voluntarily. They will have to be forcibly stopped. That market would have to be and you’d have to have a global government consensus that it should be stopped, not just the United States. So, you know, those there’s trillions of dollars at stake in those things. Yeah. Okey doke.
Stuart Turley [00:42:01] And your substack.
David Blackmon [00:42:05] Well, that’s my political substack there. That’s not my. I’m sorry. It’s that. But yeah, my energy substack is called Energy transition Absurdities. It’s Blackmon dot Substack dot com also write about politics at the campaign update and keeps me busy. It’s what keeps me busy these days is writing about all this stuff. It’s a lot of fun.
Stuart Turley [00:42:26] Young and beautiful, right? And we have everything.
David Blackmon [00:42:30] Irina
Irina Slav [00:42:35] Relates to our discussion about coal. Google says US is facing a power capacity crisis in AI race against China. Well, now that we’ve seen the map of operating and permitted of being constructed and coal power plants in the U.S. and in China, I think it’s safe to say that Google has a point. But what anyone is going to do about it is a mystery. And it’s interesting that Google is the one saying it because Google was very big on wind and solar. Google was very big on carbon credits and Google thought it would be net zero by 2050, which is not going to happen if it was to stay in the AI race.
David Blackmon [00:43:22] Here’s a bit of irony about Google. Google is also the company that went to Nebraska and convinced regulators there to keep two major coal fired power plants operating for another 5 to 10 years to power. That was Google. Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:43:40] But they’re been carbon neutral since 20 209.
Irina Slav [00:43:45] Sure. Yeah, because by so many carbon credits. And I really think that it’s still lying that that carbon neutral.
Stuart Turley [00:43:53] Hogwash. I was. I was. We’re calling hoo ha on that one.
Irina Slav [00:44:01] They’re sounding an alarm and this is good. This is going to get even more hilarious than it already is. The other funny news of the week why upstream companies might break their capital discipline rules. Why you think that might happen? Because, you know, Wood Mackenzie have found out that oil demand growth may be stronger than they expected.
David Blackmon [00:44:24] No one could have seen that coming.
Irina Slav [00:44:26] Which is what happens when you sell out to the transition gang. You stop thinking. And then when you somehow, you know, regained the ability to think, you make such a stunning discovery that oil demand drop is not weakening. And you come out with, you know, reports like that.
David Blackmon [00:44:57] Irina. That’s such an awesome point. So many of these giant advisory firms. Over the last 5 to 7 years in the United States, but completely into this green energy transition nonsense. And they’ve been advising their clients like BP, Shell, big oil companies, to spend billions of dollars investing in wind and solar and batteries and all this stuff that is not within their company’s core competencies in order to burnish their ESG credentials and virtue signal about green energy. I wonder how they are all feeling and their clients are all feeling as we want your company like BP, you know, announced last week that they’re going to completely rejigger their entire corporate strategy to focus more on their core business. I just wonder how these firms, what their current status is, how comfortable they’re feeling about their contracts being renewed here in the near future by these clients.
Irina Slav [00:46:07] Honestly, if I were and I would drug them because they have. I have believed that the transition is happening. I have believed the hype and the unrealistic expectations and plans. And these are supposed to be professionals.
David Blackmon [00:46:23] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:46:23] I mean, I used to joke with Svetlana that we should set up a consultancy because we’re at least as good as any other consultancy, because we know how the energy system works. And these people know too, and yet they allow themselves to be misled. Or maybe they got paid off. I have no idea of knowing, but I think that to know they believe going on. About this transition. And it kind of is an echo chamber. The International Energy Agency says this is going to go like this. And if the IEA says it, then it must go like this. With all these government subsidies and all the shunning of oil and gas and peak oil demand because of the transition and because of subsidies and EVs and all these stranded assets. Remember, WoodMac was big on stranded assets.
David Blackmon [00:47:21] Right?
Irina Slav [00:47:22] Yeah. Now, upstream companies might raise their capital discipline as well. Callum is shocked.
David Blackmon [00:47:30] Well, I think that the advisory firms who resisted going down that road and I’ll just say embarrassed, resisted it as just one example, are probably going to you’re going to probably see them outgrow some of these other some of their eds in the coming years.
Irina Slav [00:47:48] Good.
David Blackmon [00:47:51] S&P Global another and S&P Global resisted going down that road and should be commended for that. I think Daniel Yergin, who’s their vice chairman, probably had a lot to do with that.
Stuart Turley [00:48:04] Is go get.
David Blackmon [00:48:06] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:48:06] Well, he’s one of the coolest in the business. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:48:15] Can make you change those comments. I don’t care.
Irina Slav [00:48:21] Yeah. stuck.
Stuart Turley [00:48:23] His name’s David Blackmon.
David Blackmon [00:48:28] Like I said, anything that’s not true.
Stuart Turley [00:48:31] You did not. Anyway, here’s Irina. I love your Substack. And where can they find you?
Irina Slav [00:48:38] At Irina Slav on energy, dot Substack. And I should start putting some images of my thing. Looks kind of empty.
David Blackmon [00:48:48] Yes. But the content is so wonderful.
Stuart Turley [00:48:51] And the. Voice.
Stuart Turley [00:48:55] Well, there’s a couple of stories that I want to go over. And as I’ve been, like I mentioned earlier in the show, I’m not going to spend any time on this one, but I’ve been reviewing the United States grid versus demand expectations versus what’s in construction. And Ercot is projecting an 8% shortfall in 2027. The projection states large industry, cryptocurrency mining and large data centers. And what we’re seeing is like the data center in Abilene, Texas, also where I live is where you’re seeing a natural gas power plant coming in dedicated only to that data center. And it’s going to be able to power 97,000 homes. Except it’s not going to be powering 97,000 homes. To me, powering that data center. So microgrids are going to be all important. Texas Ercot, out of the three grids in the United States is the only one that is on track, even though they’re announcing they may have some trouble. Let’s see. A little bit of the trouble is means you’re aware of it and you’re able to fix it. The other folks, they are really got some problems. I want to share this story out. A year ago, I put out could China hack our electric grid in four words? Yes. The real question is secretary is in on it. And yes, I got whacked for this story, by the way, trying to say something bad against the Biden administration. And when I put this out, I put it out that there were 32 major grid interconnects that were connected and discovered to have been back doors into them from China. Let me say that again. There are 32 major interconnects that President Trump took out, President Biden put back in. And now they’re with it after four years of President Biden administration, because I don’t know that he knew he signed this. There are now confirmed 495 major grid interconnects in trend and transformers that have Chinese backdoors in our grid. After I put this story out, I had over 5000 denial of service attacks on my website. Tell me that did not strike a major heart attack in people by putting this story out. Just thought I’d put this out there. It’s a real issue.
David Blackmon [00:51:51] Yeah. And most of the the concern is with the Transformers. I mean, we don’t make them here in the United States. We have to get most of them from China. We we have a severe shortage inventory, shortage of them. It’s a crisis situation in our grid. And so these power companies have to take the transformers anywhere they can get them. It’s taking up to four years in some instances to source these things. So they have their in emergency crisis situation and it just creates this environment where it’s so easy and so easy. If China has that intent to do something like that.
Stuart Turley [00:52:31] At the 32 major grid interconnects I calculated at, about 9% of the U.S. grid could be shut down depending on where that 9% came out. Millions would die. So it is a big deal.
David Blackmon [00:52:46] Yep.
Irina Slav [00:52:48] Essentially. Potentially.
David Blackmon [00:52:50] Potentially.
Stuart Turley [00:52:51] No. We got to get him out initially. Okay. Absolutely. But you also have to look at the 32,000 military age Chinese men that came across the Darien Gap. Now let’s go to the next story here. Trump to Boost U.S. Offshore and New Energy Dominance Council. I absolutely love this. This is made up of a great group of men Lee Zeldin, Doug Burgum, and Chris wright. Holy smokes, Batman. This is the group to help deliver low cost energy for the United States. I think this is a phenomenal thing.
David Blackmon [00:53:36] It will also include some of the other cabinet officials as well. Secretary of Commerce and transportation. Right. But yeah, those are the three main.
Stuart Turley [00:53:46] And yes, he was up there as well, too. Duffy, I really like him. He is a cool cat. Duffy And then, yeah, there’s energy news beating the energy news beat and lots of fun stuff there. So.
David Blackmon [00:54:05] It is fun. There’s a wealth of information.
David Blackmon [00:54:10] A match. I’ll put out every day.
Irina Slav [00:54:12] You do or not?
Stuart Turley [00:54:14] Yeah. I don’t sleep very much, but, you know, I have to
David Blackmon [00:54:20] Yes, we do. Jeff. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:54:23] This is the best point anyone’s ever made. Yes. Be like Russia. Be more self-sufficient because self-sufficiency is security.
David Blackmon [00:54:35] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:54:37] You know this.
David Blackmon [00:54:38] Ah, thank you for this. Yes. Demand has grown historically with world population growth. The slope has started to increase with all the new electricity electric energy demand. So all the efforts on transition is not significantly change the energy mix? That’s right. 80% of primary energy remains supplied by oil, gas and coal. Just as it was in the late 1990s, Nothing has changed.
Stuart Turley [00:55:04] You know, and I do want to say that Turley’s law is in effect and what I have been reporting for for years and, you know, on this thing, it’s been more than that. But when you sit back and take a look at the more money that is invested in renewable, in renewable, non sustainable energy,
David Blackmon [00:55:28] intermittent Energy.
Stuart Turley [00:55:29] the potential energy, the more fossil fuels will be used, Turley’s law, the more money invested in renewables,
Irina Slav [00:55:40] See, yeah, we can see it and really like it.
David Blackmon [00:55:44] So.
Stuart Turley [00:55:46] All right.
David Blackmon [00:55:49] Okay, folks, I think we have beaten this cohort.
Stuart Turley [00:55:56] And then we shall.
David Blackmon [00:55:56] Not. I’m proud of it. I’m really proud of it. I think we did a good job here with us. And I apologize again to Tammy for not mentioning that up front. But she will be back next week, thank goodness. And we’ll have another thrilling enthralling. Highly encouraging and no doubt conspiracy filled. Topic to cover. Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:56:24] I think she was with Justin Trudeau when when he was buying his thing. Maybe she was in Canada, though.
David Blackmon [00:56:35] That is just to be here. I think.
Stuart Turley [00:56:37] Be him and that’s.
David Blackmon [00:56:39] Not raising anything.
Stuart Turley [00:56:41] But I still love Doge. I want to play this for the last folks. This. yeah. Again, this is the last time I got to say. Maybe, maybe not. This is too funny, but doge is causing so many people looking at the reports. Imagine democrats and rhinos looking at doge reports. Okay, hang on. Here we go.
David Blackmon [00:57:07] I think that’s actually Margaret Brennan of CBS News.
Stuart Turley [00:57:12] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:57:15] You’re bad, you’re bad.
Stuart Turley [00:57:16] Or do you think it’s Politico because Politico got millions and millions of dollars from NASA and I think that’s them looking at their doge reports. There you go.
Irina Slav [00:57:27] With so many outlets and entities that are currently in death throes because of Trump and Doge.
Stuart Turley [00:57:38] Which is really fun.
Irina Slav [00:57:40] Yeah. It’s great fun.
Stuart Turley [00:57:42] All right. We’ll see you guys next week.
David Blackmon [00:57:45] All right, Everybody have a wonderful week.
Irina Slav [00:57:47] Comment
Stuart Turley [00:57:50] Have fun guys. See ya.
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