Energy News Beat
In this episode of Energy Newsbeat – Conversations in Energy, host Stuart Turley engages with Doug Sandridge to explore the complex issues surrounding the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California. They discuss the impact of the plant’s closure on the Northern Chumash Tribe, as well as the tribe’s efforts to purchase the land surrounding the plant from PG&E. However, the deal faces significant opposition from environmental groups and state regulators. Doug also delves into broader energy policy challenges, emphasizing the critical role of nuclear energy in California’s future while criticizing the inefficiencies of alternatives like ethanol. He highlights the urgent need for leadership that prioritizes sound energy economics.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
01:07 – Diablo Canyon and California’s Energy Mismanagement
02:34 – The Northern Chumash Tribe’s History
06:00 – PG&E and the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant
09:02 – Tribe’s Efforts to Buy Back Land
12:54 – Diablo Canyon’s Shutdown and Advocacy Efforts
15:29 – The State’s Role in Land Ownership
18:03 – California’s Legislation on Native Land Rights
20:18 – How to Help the Tribe
22:01 – The Landman Podcast Discussion
23:27 – Germany’s Nuclear Energy Situation
27:02 – Germany’s Energy Crisis and Nuclear Revival
29:31 – Hydrogen and Energy Policies
31:01 – Ethanol and Its Economic Impact
33:01 – Leadership in Energy Policy
35:56 – Conclusion and Final Thoughts
We recommend following Doug’s Substack:
Stuart Turley [00:00:07] Hello everybody, welcome to the Energy Newsbeat Podcast. My name’s Stu Turley, President CEO of the Sandstone Group. We are in an energy not transition. There is actually no energy transition going on right now because we need absolutely all forms of energy. We really need nuclear energy. And I happen to have Doug Sandridge, who is actually an oil and gas executive who… has started the oil and gas executives for nuclear a group. How are you today Doug?
Doug Sandrige [00:00:39] Could be better. Great to be with you again, Stuart.
Stuart Turley [00:00:42] I’ll tell you what, you, I have to do a little bit of a confession here. And I hate confessing my stupidity sins here, but you and I had a fantastic podcast at NAEP and the sound did not work because of me. So we are here to talk about a PG&E and your article on your sub stack, it’s energy remunerations. And it is a fantastic article.
Doug Sandrige [00:01:08] Thank you. Yes, I’m very proud of that article. I worked on it for over a year, about 14 months, and finally it became so voluminous I had to break it into two parts. But it’s really just a passion, a love story. I just love the story so much I just had to share.
Stuart Turley [00:01:26] Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, let’s kick off with the Diablo canyons. You know, California has got some serious mismanagement of energy policies. And I’m just going to say this out outright in the oil and gas side of things. We’ve got some great friends out there and I absolutely love Mike Umbro out there. He’s leading the charge. He is one of my favorite cats on the planet. And we’ve got Kern County out there. That is actually a great place to drill oil. They’ve done a great job, but California imports in 60% of their oil. And it’s even from sanctioned oil country. I don’t get this. And so when you take a look, should we go ahead and import from people who don’t understand how to do good things? Or should we use nuclear energy? And they’ve really Gavin Newsom’s tried to even shut down the Diablo Canyon, which is what? 9.8% I believe somewhere in that range of California’s energy?
Doug Sandrige [00:02:34] Yes, California’s electricity. So yes, I’m good friends with Mike as well. He’s a friend of the industry. I got a text from him yesterday, in fact, and he’s doing great work in California, but they’ve got such a hot mess out in California. But let’s start the story 10 or 12,000 years ago, because there’s a tribe, excuse me, in central California. I’m going to refer to them as the white tribe. Their name is… more complex than that, but they go by white because most Anglos like me can’t say their name properly. And you might know them as the Northern Chumash Tribe, and I think there’s seven or eight Chumas tribe along the central and southern coast of California, but the Northern Choomash Tribe has occupied and their homeland has been the area of San Luis Obispo County for the past 10,000 to 15,000 years. I think anthropologists assume, you know, there’s evidence that they have been living there. uninterrupted for at least 12,000 years. So fast forward 500 years ago, Spanish and Portuguese explorers start to explore the western coast of America, and they come into first contact with these tribes, but they’re not really interested in California at that time. But about 250 years ago, the Spanish start to legitimately opine for California. They start to colonize California. they start setting up. military presidios and Catholic mission along the coast of California for the purpose of colonizing and essentially Christianizing the natives. And so over a period of time, the northern Chumash tribe, the White tribe, was dispossessed of all of their land. And of course, they were dispossess without compensation. They were disposed without mission. It’s a common story. This is what happened 200 years ago. So fast forward to… You know, World War II, we finally developed atomic energy, and after the war, President Eisenhower tries to reframe atomic energy and nuclear energy as a force for good. And you know, the U.S. had a lot of technology, mostly developed by the military, and the military was really intent on keeping all that technology to itself. They weren’t interested in sharing it with the world, but Eisenhower had this vision of ABUNDANT reliable, affordable energy, and he shared a lot of the technology that the U.S. had developed so that the world could enjoy safe, reliable, and affordable electricity generated from nuclear power. So nuclear power took off in the 1950s, the 1960s, and California, early days, California was the leader in nuclear energy. They had lots of reactors, a couple of test reactors. It was a hotbed of activity for nuclear energy, however, at some point in the Some of the NGOs, like Greenpeace, kind of changed their story. They originally had come out thinking that having clean electricity was a good thing for mankind. But then there were certain elements of those organizations started to believe, well, maybe we’re not mature enough as a species to handle the vast prosperity that we could have from having lots of abundant amounts of clean electricity. And so they turned their back on nuclear energy and started advocating against it. So we had several nuclear power plants that were constructed in California. But by the, excuse me, the mid-2000, 2010, 2015 era, California had shut down all of their plants except San Onofre and the Diablo Canyon. So in 2013, they decided to shut down San Onufre. Apparently there was some repair work and some upgrades that needed to be done, and it was decided it just wasn’t economic. Do that. And so they shut down that plant largely due to public pressure against nuclear energy. So that left only Diablo Canyon. And in 2016, the, I think, really caving to public-pressure, PG&E announced they were going to shut down Diablo canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo. And so that plant was built in the 60s, and when it was built, basically what the Diablo canyons, PG and E, that’s Pacific Gas and Electric. BG&E bought 12,000 acres of land upon which to put this nuclear power plant and I’m not sure that they needed all, they probably didn’t need all 12,00 acres and perhaps, I don’t know at the time, they believe they wanted a big buffer around the plant. So they built, they bought 12000 acres. They bought it from ranchers who had owned the land. They were the successors in interest from the people who had taken the land from the tribe. Alright. And so they bought the land and they had 12,000 acres, and they put the Diablo Canyon plant there. And the tribe didn’t even know anything about – the tribal leaders told me that they learned about the construction of the Diabolo Canyon plant at the same time the public did when it was publicly announced. So the tribe has – the tribe still considers this their homeland, and the unfortunate part is that the tribe is never – had any land of their own since they were dispossessed of this 250 years ago. Obviously, a few tribal members own a house. They may own a few acres or whatever. But there is no official reservation. They’ve never reacquired any of the land that they consider their homeland. So if 250 years, they have never re-acquire or been given any part of their land back. So when it was announced in 2016 that they were going to shut down… The tribe, they decided, hey, maybe this is an opportunity for us to get just a small piece of our land back. I mean their land consisted of 7,000 square miles of land, the entire county of San Luis Obispo essentially, and more beyond that. And they said, maybe we could just get this small little piece of land back, something we could call our own. we’re not looking. for the white man to give back all the county. We just – we’d like to get us something that we can call our own. So they approached PG&E, and they said, hey, if you guys are going to shut down this plant, we would like an opportunity to buy this land. And I think they rightly presumed that PG&B did not really want or intend to keep the land once the plant was shut down because…
Stuart Turley [00:09:02] Right.
Doug Sandrige [00:09:03] PG&E doesn’t have a need for 12,000 acres if they’re not using it. Quite frankly, they probably could use the cash infusion. PG&P has always been battered by wildfires. They’ve had two bankrupt the last 20 years. So I think to me, it seemed like a perfect win-win situation. The tribe could get some of their land back, a small portion of their land back can benefit their stockholders, their shareholders, their ratepayers by getting this, this land back. And so they come to what appears to be an agreement that the tribe will be allowed to buy their land. The tribe is not asking for CTE to give it to them. The tribe has found benefactors willing to put up the money to buy the land. So this – hey, happy ending. Everybody’s happy. It’s a win-win for everybody. And that’s where the story gets a little complicated because, as you know, I’m also a pro-nuclear advocate, and there are a nuclear advocacy group. across the country that not only are promoting new nuclear energy, but really promoting, let’s say, what existing nuclear power plants we have. I mean, this is the low-hanging fruit. If you’re interested in decarbonization, if you’re interesting in low-carbon energy, why would you be shutting down perfectly good, existing, already constructed, safe, reliable, dependable nuclear power plant? So, there are some really great grassroots efforts afloat across the country and across Europe and other parts of the world. And so as you know, Heather Hoff, she’s the co-founder of Mothers for Nuclear Energy. She was working at the plant at the time that it was announced it was going to be closed. She started this organization called Mothers For Nuclear, and it was an effort to do just grassroots good faith advocacy in trying to keep the plant open. So that organization and several other organizations spent several years trying to convince California this is not a good idea. get me at the time. Diablo Canyon is contributing 9% to 10% of the total electricity generated in California. At that time, more than 25% of their low-carbon electricity. And so this is insanity. And they did great work advocating, but they were fighting an uphill battle because California is anti-nuclear. The government is anti nuclear. The public is anti, nuclear. All of the strong NGOs that have so much influence in California are anti nuclear Thank you for watching. I’ll see you in the next one. However, what they did with this advocacy is they laid the foundation, providing good information. Basically, I’ve heard it said they provided the oxygen that was necessary for these lawmakers to make a new decision. They did not really decide to make it and change their mind about closing the application until they started to experience Brown House blackouts. But in 2019… They started – you know, they put in so much wind and solar on the grid. They shut down their coal plants, shut down some of their gas plants, cut down their nuclear plants. Now they can’t keep the lights on. So now you have a governor who has national political aspirations. You can’t be governor of a state that’s going through blackouts. So Gavin Newsom’s office and Gavin Newsome himself started to realize maybe we need to rethink Diablo Canyon. And so credit all of these advocacy groups. who did all the hard work behind the scenes to lay the foundation, then come in the blackout, and all of a sudden, everyone’s food chain, and they say they agreed to save Diablo Canyon. So they have the state legislature pass a bill that says we’re going to extend the life of Diablo canyon. The governor signs the bill. Everyone is happy. I mean, it’s exciting as a nuclear advocate to think that these great advocacy groups we’re able to do with no money. just with hard work and good faith to save the plant. Uh-oh, what’s that do to the deal with the tribe?
Stuart Turley [00:12:55] Right, oops.
Doug Sandrige [00:12:56] I’m happy, we’re happy for the saving of the plant, but then now does this somehow get in the way and impede the transaction? Well, the tribe not to be deterred. The tribe then goes back to the community and says, we are glad you saved the plant. And actually the tribe is not anti-nuclear. They don’t want the land because they want to shut down the plant but the tribe supports the continued operation of the plants. In fact, a lot of tribal members work at the plant. at the no way. Yeah, there’s tribal members that work to make their power plant so that they were not wanting the land because they wanted to shut down the plant. They were wanting the land because they thought that the decision had been made to shut them. So they go back to Pete. And they say to Pete Dean, why don’t we go ahead and complete this deal? Why don’t We go ahead and consummate now, and we can either buy all the land now and lease it back to you or we can buy part of the land and you can keep whatever you need to continue off-rate plant, but. Let’s not let this opportunity go to waste. Let’s take advantage of the time and close the deal. And PG&E appears to have been willing to do that. However, there’s the big however. There are dark forces working in California to impede this deal. So what’s happened is the force is 12,000 acres. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Central California coast, but it’s absolutely phenomenally beautiful. So where else in California are you going to find 12,00 acres of undeveloped land along the coast. So you can only imagine their group – and I’m not going to name all of them, but I think Sierra Club is prime right out in front of all of us. They all want to get their hands on this land. And so what they have essentially done is pressured the government of California to step in and say, hey, I think we need to consider who should rightfully get this land, and in order to do that, we need establish some commission, some committees, and have some hearings. And so over the next ten years, California is planning to spend $150 million on studying who should get the land. And this is a travesty to the tribe. It’s a travesy to Californians. They’re going to pay $150 billion for this dog-and-pony show because what they should do is say that the tribe should get land. They’re not – the tribe is not even asking for it to be given. The tribe is saying, why don’t you guys let us buy this land?
Stuart Turley [00:15:13] Wow.
Doug Sandrige [00:15:14] So it was just a story that I could not ignore. I love the story of the tribal efforts. It’s land back. They’re very sincere. They love this land.
Stuart Turley [00:15:24] But PG&E is trying to do the right thing, Doug. This is what gets me.
Doug Sandrige [00:15:29] And that’s what I want to make clear, because I’m not real close to PG&E. PG&Es generally want to stay out of the fray. They’re trying to lay low and just let things play out. But PG&e has acted honorably, as far as I can tell. He’s acted honorly here. You understand why PG&T does not want to go against the will of the state, because they have to have the state. It controls everything they do. It controls their future permits, their licensing, their rates. And so they have to play nice with the state, so they’re not going to go against the state. So what we really need to do is get the state to step aside and say, look, PG&E, do with it the land what you want. If you want to sell it to the tribe, give them a wink and a nod and let them go forward.
Stuart Turley [00:16:17] See, that makes sense because PG&E is being regulated to death and some regulations are good, I’m going to be honest with you, the United States and Canada produce the cleanest oil and gas in the, in the in the world. And some regulatory things are great, but when you over regulate costs go through the roof. And the, I don’t think that the government should be in every single business transaction, including the land. This to me is, is, uh, is like who, who benefits when the Sierra club gets involved, nobody.
Doug Sandrige [00:16:57] Well, the Sierra Club and their donors. I mean this is what’s happened. The Sierra Club, and a lot of these NGOs, they’re no longer true environmental organizations. They become these behemoths of money raising, fundraising, and they have to do things to keep the dollars coming in. If they’re not actively out there going and doing things like this, their donors are going to say, what are you doing for me today? So this is – the Sierra Club is – these organizations are the only ones who benefit from this. It’s a travesty. What’s even more appalling is in 2019, the state of California passed – the Public Utilities Commission passed a new rule that says that utilities must confer with native tribes, the historical owners of these lands, whenever they build new facilities and also when they decommission old facilities. And they are legally obligated to give deference to the tribe and try and give the tribe… basically first crack at buying land back. This is in the CPCUC rule.
Stuart Turley [00:18:03] Wow, yet the state’s ignoring this.
Doug Sandrige [00:18:05] They’re ignoring this because they are bowing to the pressure of NGOs. So I love the story. Obviously, I’m hoping by getting on a podcast with you, you’re going to broadcast this. We want to get the word out. We want the develop the grassroots effort and support for the tribe. We want this message to the right people so that we can pressure the California government to do the right thing. Just do the thing, Gavin. Step aside. Let this land transaction go forward. Stop impeding land transaction, and I’ll go one step further. They’ve already allocated the $150-$160 million by this bill. They’ve all ready allocated that in the budget. Instead of spending it on all these committees and all these commissions to determine who should own the land, why don’t we just take that $150 million? and pay for the land and give the land to the tribe so that everybody’s happy everybody’s made whole we can feel good
Stuart Turley [00:19:05] And the citizens of California can keep Diablo Canyon as long as they can. And everybody, it’s a win-win-win. How do we get Doug Burgum? How do get Chris Wright? How do you get president Trump involved on this bad dog? Because I think they’re in line with A, saving money, B, what’s doing right. This group of people that president Trump has are some of the best people on the planet. And I’m, I’m saying I’m serious. Who, how do we get PG and E to help get on a podcast with them? How do we, I just, I I’m ready to jump in on this.
Doug Sandrige [00:19:45] Well, that’s a good thing. Maybe I will send the article to Secretary Bergen. That might be a good first step. I bet. I know that Chris – I think Chris Wright is aware of this issue. I might send another copy to him. But we need to mobilize support. I mean, this is just such a – Obviously, it would be – I could go to bed at night and say, you know, I did something good. if we could somehow mobilize public opinion in favor of land transaction. And, you know, I could hang it up and go play golf. I wouldn’t have to do anything else.
Stuart Turley [00:20:19] Well, Doug, how do people get a hold of you in order if they hear this podcast and say, I want to help.
Doug Sandrige [00:20:26] Okay. Well, there’s the – probably the easiest way is to message me on LinkedIn, connect with me on Linkedin. I’m very active on LinkedIn. And that’s probably the easier way. I also do publish my energy rumination blog on Substack.
Stuart Turley [00:20:41] Which is fantastic, by the way.
Doug Sandrige [00:20:42] Thank you. I love it. It’s a long form of writing. It is just a creative outlet for me. I write about anything that makes me – that’s of interest to me. I don’t write just about oil and gas. I read about wind and nuclear, all – whatever that I find interesting in the energy arena I will write about. And so you can subscribe to me on Substack, and I think you can message me on Substack as well. So those are the two easiest ways to get a hold of it.
Stuart Turley [00:21:11] Um, you know, I want to give you a shout out as well because of your article on the Oklahoma tribe was outstanding as well. You and Robert Bryce both did an outstanding job covering that story.
Doug Sandrige [00:21:23] The Osage Wind Farm. Yes. In fact, I’m going to go out to Lake Tahoe in April and make a presentation about that to you.
Stuart Turley [00:21:32] Yes, Dick
Doug Sandrige [00:21:33] Land and Mining, AAPL, the American Association of Detroit Professional Landmen are having a conference out there, and they’ve asked me to talk about the Osage Wind Farm issue.
Stuart Turley [00:21:43] That is absolutely way cool. Now I, I’ve got a shout out to our podcast listeners. I really enjoyed having you on with David Blackman and Mark Stansberry when we were talking about land man because you are a land man. So it was pretty cool podcast.
Doug Sandrige [00:22:01] I have so many people who have reached out about that podcast. I thought that podcast was just a kind of a lark. It wasn’t really that serious, and we were just yucking it up and talking about land. And so many have reached to me about that, because they loved it.
Stuart Turley [00:22:16] How fun. And, and, and I think the difference was people were, you know, Billy Bob Thornton has done a great job. I keep waiting for him. What was that movie where he was doing biscuit biscuits? I keep wanting for him to do his own imitation. I need I need to do a biscuit you know I mean that to me Billy Bob Thornton is really doing quite well and and and I know that it is a a total it’s it’s Hollywood but they they’ve got Great pointin’!
Doug Sandrige [00:22:47] Yeah, it’s a fun show. In fact, I have a sticker that says Landman from the American Landman’s Association. I put it on my computer the other day, and I was on a flight to Houston a couple of weeks ago, and the flight attendant saw my computer and she said, are you a landman? And I said, yes. I’ve never met a land man before, but I watch the show. I love the show, so we’re getting a lot of good press on that show.
Stuart Turley [00:23:10] Oh, and I thoroughly enjoy it. And I’ll tell you what, I got another question. How do you see a Germany? Cause you went to Germany and when you were out touring around, they were, you went in supporting of keeping their nuclear reactors. What’s going on there? What’s an update?
Doug Sandrige [00:23:28] Well, this is very interesting you ask that because Germany is kind of swimming against the current. I mean, almost everywhere in the world, nuclear is having a renaissance. Nuclear is forefront where people are trying to figure out how can we do more nuclear. And at the same time, Germany quite literally had the finest fleet of nuclear power plants anywhere in the the most efficient. I mean, they were German. Cathedral of Clean Energy. I mean, they were industrial cathedrals of clean energy, and their politics is crazy. They’ve got some mental issues around nuclear energy. They shut down all their nuclear power plants. So what happened is that they finally – they’ve had recent elections, and there’s a fight to see who’s going to – the parliamentary procedure of coalition is very complex, very difficult and you got to. party pony up with other people that you don’t necessarily agree with, agree with the strange bedfellows getting together in the form of coalition. We don’t know what’s going to happen. However, Mark Nelson Group, and Mark Nelson is the executive director at the Radiant Energy Fund, Radiant Energy Group, I think is how they call it now. They did a recent report on how you could restart those German nuclear power plants. And what they did is they had the people on the ground in Germany who were doing … were talking to employees at each of these decommissioned plants. They said, what is the status of decommisioning? They just came out with a report in December. And, incidentally, I wrote an article about this last month, so you can go to Energy Ruminations and read about it. But they did a report that shows that many of these plants could be restarted in a fairly short amount of time in a very relatively small amount of money. In fact, I think one of the plants could be restarted this year. with less than a half a billion dollars, 500 million dollars or less, or 500 million euros or less of upgrades and investment. And this report was fantastic because it provided an outline, a pathway for how they could open like six or eight of these, reopen these plants over a period between now and say 2030. The report was a fantastic and it really got a lot of people’s attention. I just heard two nights ago that there are some secret negotiations going on. … with the German government right now, I mean this week, where they have finally got the nuclear industry itself to stand up because part of the problem has been the German… … government over the last 20 years has staffed all of these – they’ve made sure that all these utilities, all these operators of these plants are being run by people who are anti-nuclear. And so in. institutionally the nuclear plants themselves that become anti-nuclear. And so now my understanding is the nuclear industry itself has seen how devastating it has been to the German economy, how devastating it is to price, how devastated it is for the public, how a devastating has been to their industry. They have a shortage of electricity, they have a shortage of clean energy, they a shortage of affordable energy in Germany. And my understanding Again, this. off the record, but I’m hearing that these utilities have finally come to their senses, that now they themselves are putting pressure on the German government to go ahead and restart some of these. So that’s the ending.
Stuart Turley [00:27:02] And I think it’s pretty ironic that the German government bought 20 years worth of uranium from Russia last year. I mean, now go figure that one out. I did not have them buying that much uranium from Russia on my bingo card.
Doug Sandrige [00:27:19] It’s a tell. It’s the tell. So I’m hoping I’m really I’m more positive today that I’ve been in four years about the possibility, the real possibility Germany will start.
Stuart Turley [00:27:32] If countries don’t have low cost energy regimes change, and I think the Germans are, are finally going to realize that they’re going to have a regime change in leadership if they don’t get their energy policies met and their energy policies have been absolutely, I believe Kurt Russell and a few others use the word FUBAR one time, and that was absolutely horrific.
Doug Sandrige [00:28:01] No, there’s no question. And so the far-right, so-called far- right party in Germany made great inroads in the last election. Right. And so I see some of the more moderate and even some of left-leaning organizations and political parties in Germany being more interested or more willing to at least talk about reopening these power plants because I feel like they understand that if they don’t kind of soften their views on nuclear energy, These far-right, so-called far- right political parties in Germany are going to have an ever-increasing role, and so I think they see that as an incentive to maybe have a little bit more energy sobriety in Germany.
Stuart Turley [00:28:43] Let me ask you this about Chris Wright and his staff over there. And they are absolutely phenomenal. I think they have done phenomenal things. And I saw something this week that just really kind of struck home a little bit. He’s, he said he’s looking at, at curtailing any energy policies or any production of energy that costs more. to make than it does to then you get energy out of it and that’s hydrogen all of a sudden you’re hitting home on the hydrogen in the inflation reduction act hydrogen unless it’s white hydrogen if i remember right is the only one that’s naturally made and there’s only about 40 companies that are going after that white hydrogen are you following any of that
Doug Sandrige [00:29:32] I am and I, you know, I don’t want to comment too closely on what our friend Chris is doing, but he is the most energy sober person on the planet.
Stuart Turley [00:29:44] Isn’t that great?
Doug Sandrige [00:29:45] And so I mean I think he’s going to do what makes sense for us energy-wise. And you talked about cost earlier, and cost is really important. I heard someone say once, if energy is not affordable, it doesn’t exist. And it took me a minute to figure what does that mean? But what that means is it may technically exist, but it can’t be used because if you can’t afford it, really it’s out – if it’s… of your price range, you really it you don’t you can’t use. So affordability is as important as reliability. And you have to have reliable energy, but you have has to be affordable. And so hydrogen right now does not meet that criteria.
Stuart Turley [00:30:27] And now I’m, I’ve been writing on, on ethanol and the, it’s kind of like ethanol. When I go between my houses, you know, they’re seven hours away from each other. So I get to know exactly if I’ve used unleaded gas. or I use absolutely no ethanol. You know, I know how many miles per gallon extra that I get. Ethanol is a waste of energy and I would love to see that rascal targeted, but it seems like the farmers really have that subsidy locked up.
Doug Sandrige [00:31:01] Well, they do. I mean, ethanol in the US. Now, I don’t want to say all biofuels are bad because of where it’s made and what it’s native. If you’re making ethanol from sugar cane in Brazil, where you have natural irrigation, you have plenty of water, you can make ethanol work and make it work. But in the U.S., we now know that it takes more energy to create. So, you’re going to use the equivalent of 1.1 gallons of energy to make one gallon of energy. And so it doesn’t make sense. It may make sense back when President Bush was president and we’re trying to say we have an energy security problem. We need to learn how to make energy here ourselves. That’s not the case anymore. We have no energy security issue. We don’t need ethanol for that reason. Ethanol makes no sense in the US at any level. It drives up food prices. It uses lots of water. In fairness to the people who make the ethanol, the corn growers, I don’t think we should pull the carpet out all rip it out one day because they had been encouraged to grow corn and encouraged to make ethanol. And so it’s unfair to jerk the carpet immediately. But we have to recognize it’s a failed policy, and we need to slowly wean ourselves off of ethanol. Those farmers need to make something other than corn for ethanol. That is just not a good.
Stuart Turley [00:32:24] I have a plan.
Doug Sandrige [00:32:25] And so I support that, and I tell you what, I saw a quote from our good friend Al Gore, and he said one of the biggest mistakes that he ever made was advocating for ethics. He said, in hindsight, he realized how bad that is for the environment, for economics, for water, for food prices, so can’t you admit it?
Stuart Turley [00:32:48] Here here is my I did not have Al Gore saying anything truthful on my bingo card. You totally shocked me today.
Doug Sandrige [00:32:58] So when you’ve lost Al Gore in the fight.
Stuart Turley [00:33:02] That’s-
Doug Sandrige [00:33:02] So you know ethanol we need to phase it out and it makes no sense at any level It’s just basically it’s energy theater is what it is
Stuart Turley [00:33:12] And then it is so fun when you see a Chris Wright up there and you see Lee Zeldin and you say Doug Burgum. What a trio of energy powerhouse, because all three are really needed in order to meet president Trump’s commitment to lower energy prices. You got to have Doug Bergen running on all cylinders. You gotta have Chris Wright running on. And Lee Zeldin, it seems to me that group, that core group for energy is running on also.
Doug Sandrige [00:33:45] We’ve never had a stronger trio than those three. Never. Chris Wright – so I was – I started writing articles in support of Chris Wright when he first got announced. I wrote the article, but then I realized everybody’s writing articles. I mean you just get lost in all the articles. And also I didn’t want to say something that I’d later regret, so I didn’ end up publishing it. But my thoughts when I was writing this article was I was alive. I was in high school when the first – when the Department of Energy was first formed. by President Carter. And so I have seen every secretary of energy in my lifetime. You can’t say that about everybody. We’ve seen everyone. And we’ve had some political appointees. We have had some academics. We had some hacks. We’d had our last one who didn’t know even how to spell energy. I mean, we’ve had all across the board, but I could say definitive we have never ever had a more qualified a more knowledge a bigger humanitarian as the Energy Secretary than we have right now.
Stuart Turley [00:34:49] I mean, I, I absolutely love Chris Wright and I have enjoyed, I believe it’s been, he’s been on, I’ve interviewed him four times and I’ve been in offices in his office over there at Liberty, but he is an absolutely class act and I’m, I’m looking forward to giving him a big hug.
Doug Sandrige [00:35:07] It’s going to be it’s it’s a big help when you have somebody running the the Department of Energy, which is a huge Department. You have somebody over there who actually know what energy is and actually knows what works that doesn’t work What’s affordable? What’s not affordable? What’s reliable having him there instead of our former Secretary of Energy? It’s just the difference that night and day You have to have somebody confident in that position
Stuart Turley [00:35:33] But, but I’ve also seen him in discussions about international oil and gas, he understands oil and gas is an international commodity and he understands how the U S needs to play in it. And this is just fresh. Again, thank you for your time, Doug. I just cannot wait to get this podcast out there. And is there any last words for you?
Doug Sandrige [00:35:56] No, we’ll just stay in touch and we’ll talk about something else the next time you’re ready. Sounds great. I’m always happy to talk to you. Talk to you later, Stuart.
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