Energy News Beat
Irina Slav
International Author writing about energy, mining, and geopolitical issues. Bulgaria
David Blackmon
Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.
Tammy Nemeth
Energy Consulting Specialist
Stuart Turley
President, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host
UK Energy-Climate Policies
David Blackmon [00:00:00] Well, looky here where we’re live. Hello, everyone. I hope. I hope we have an audience out there. I’m not sure Stu Turley. Can’t be here today due to some other obligations he’s having to take care of. So I’m David Blackmon, here with Dr. Tammy Nemeth of the Nemeth Report. Tammy, how are you today?
Tammny Nemeth [00:00:21] I’m good, thank you. How is everyone today?
David Blackmon [00:00:24] I’m just wonderful. It’s a beautiful rainy day in Texas. We haven’t had any rain in two months, so I’m really happy about it. Irina Slav in Bulgaria. How are you today?
Irina Slav [00:00:35] I’m great, thank you, David. No rain today.
David Blackmon [00:00:38] Is growing and I.
Irina Slav [00:00:40] Yeah
David Blackmon [00:00:42] Awesome also be a bumper tomato crop coming is what I understand.
Irina Slav [00:00:46] And I have a second crop coming.
David Blackmon [00:00:50] For second.
Irina Slav [00:00:51] Harvest. And the first one was abundance. Well, the buttons and now I’m doing winter tomatoes for pickling.
David Blackmon [00:00:59] You know, one of the things and I’m sorry, this is just an aside. We’ll get into the topic here in a minute, But you know, my recent trip over to Europe, one of the things that that we’re always amazed by when we go to Europe is, is that tomatoes and cantaloupes and other vegetables taste like tomatoes. Cantaloupes, you know, the vegetables tasted when we were children in the United States. But our big corporate food companies have basically bred all the real taste out of most of our fruits and vegetables here in the United States. And so it’s always wonderful to go to countries that haven’t quite gotten to that point yet. The cantaloupe was really amazing anyway. Anyway, I’m a I’m a cantaloupe junkie and it’s hard to find a good cantaloupe in in Texas anymore. So here we are. We’re going to today. Boy, we got a special treat for everyone today. We’re going to talk about energy and climate policies in the brave new world of Keir Starmer’s Labor Party governing the UK. And I hope we don’t get anyone in too much trouble today, especially Tammy. I hope you’re safe in Canada today. Tammy No, you’re in, you’re at home in the UK, aren’t you? So we’ll have to be very careful. Yeah.
Tammny Nemeth [00:02:21] Tiptoe around, I guess,
David Blackmon [00:02:23] Right, I guess so. But you know, I mean the Labor government came in very predictably, has gone on a a real aggressive attempt to radically change policies, I think. And the way the country’s governed these days is, is was, you know, I think a lot of people predicted they would, including us. And so things are changing in the UK. They were already bad enough. Energy was already more expensive under the Tories than it ever had been. And I guess to me it’s getting more even more expensive now under the Keir Starmer government. What am I wrong about that?
Tammny Nemeth [00:03:09] Well, I think it’s coming. I think it’s a little too it’s a bit early, but they’re already setting up GB energy, great British energy, which is, you know, this state company that’s supposed to be investing in renewables, renewables, meaning wind and solar and and wanting to bypass how. Planning permission is done in the countryside in order to stick up windmills onshore is the big thing in the UK was always will put up the windmills in Scotland or offshore and that will be not in people’s backyard and people will be happy. But it’s not enough, right? It’s not enough and
David Blackmon [00:03:50] clear enough. Yeah.
Tammny Nemeth [00:03:51] And honestly, the the kind of middle part of England is traditional conservative territory. So it’s also a bit of a punishment, I think, from the Labor Party to want to put the windmills and solar panels across the beautiful British countryside. So what that will mean coming forward is unclear. I think they’re supposed to have a big policy statement in the next month or two, so that’ll be interesting to see. And then. There’s a few days ago, the UK government decided to nationalize the the electricity system operator. Now, what’s interesting is that the Conservative government had a consultation to do the same thing over the past three years. And so actually Labor is implementing what the Conservative government before it had recommended. So to me it’s it’s just another example of the unit party. It really doesn’t matter if it was conservative or if it was Labor, you were going to get the same thing anyway. I think Labor is going a little bit farther with respect to creating a state company in order to do a lot of this stuff. I think the Conservatives would have paid lip service to say, well, this is private and but we’re going to work in partnership with the private companies, whereas the Labor government is just like, Nope, we’re going to make this government controlled. And you know, it’ll it’ll it remains to be seen what that will actually mean for rate payers for taxpayers because they’re in nationalizing the system. They they’ve paid, like I mentioned last week, 600 and some billion or sorry, 600 and some million pounds of taxpayer money which they’re going to recoup from the rate payers, which are the tax payers. So we get to pay twice. Great.
David Blackmon [00:05:42] Well, Irina from Bulgaria, what what is your view on what’s happening in in jolly old England?
Irina Slav [00:05:50] Well, as I said before, we went live. We were supposed to catch up with you guys. The East was supposed to catch up with the West, have a better live, you know, we were all going to be wealthier, more democratic, less corrupt. What I’ve been seeing is the opposite. You are catching up with us. Energy is becoming more unreliable. Governments are becoming more openly corrupt because governments have always been corrupt. It was just legitimized in one way or another by a lobbying or something. But now they’re just openly being corrupt. I mean, one of the stories that I’ve put in for for today’s edition of Headlines is that investors are returning to UK renewables. Yes. Why? Because of this great British energy and all the money that the government is going to pour into wind and solar. But for the life of me, I do not understand. Okay. Wind. There is wind. Over the British Isles. But solar. How does solar make any economic sense in England? All Scotland’s oil wells?
David Blackmon [00:07:09] Yeah, particularly Scotland
Irina Slav [00:07:13] Ridiculous It is a non returnable investment and it will never become returnable. So I think what’s going on in the UK right now is completely insane. And unlike Romney, who is delicate, I’m not going to be delicate. People are going to pay through the nose. Great.
Tammny Nemeth [00:07:31] Yeah. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:07:34] Yes. And that well, I mean, we’re already seeing that. Obviously. It all seem so consistent to me with, you know, what we’ve talked about many times here over the last couple of years on this podcast with every solution that is being pursued as a as a part of this transition. Of necessity requires governments, democratic governments to transition into more authoritarian forms of government. And that certainly is happening in the UK. We see it happening in the United States and Canada all over the Western world. And this just over the weekend, Antonio Guterres, I’m sure you both saw it in preparation for the General Assembly of the U.N. that’s beginning today, gave a talk in which he used all this code language about our institutions not being modern enough. They’re not dealing with the problems of the current world. And we have to completely dismantle our old institutions and build entirely new institutions in order to deal appropriately with the issues the world is facing now. And of course, all based in climate alarmism and using this climate alarm narrative as a means to essentially do away with democratic institutions that the Western world has had in place for hundreds of years and replace them with authoritarian, even totalitarian institutions. And I you know, I just think when I look at what’s happening in the U.K. and I don’t live there and, you know, I’m not experiencing any of it firsthand, but it all it all just seems to be, as Tammy pointed out, this unit party effort to transition a Democratic governor government into a socialist authoritarian form of government. And the establishment of this national energy company is the prime manifestation of that now. I mean, they’re just not even really trying to hide it anymore. And, you know, they just feel so emboldened and certain of their consolidation of power that there’s no real reason to pretend otherwise anymore.
Irina Slav [00:09:52] Yeah, they’re going to thrive on totalitarianism. I mean, the foreign secretary, it’s not yours. And secondly, I apologize. Said that climate change would be at the heart of British foreign policy.
David Blackmon [00:10:11] Yes.
Irina Slav [00:10:12] I mean, he was saying he’s stupid or something. I have no personal impressions of the gentleman, but putting climate change at the center of your foreign policy is.
Tammny Nemeth [00:10:25] That it’s a bigger threat than than war with Russia.
David Blackmon [00:10:29] Yeah. Yeah. And of course, we our government in the US have been saying the same thing,
Tammny Nemeth [00:10:34] saying. The same thing. Right.
Irina Slav [00:10:36] Why are they still poking Russia? It’s like they’re eager to go towards Russia. Yeah. Yeah. What about all the omissions? This would lead to their selves?
Tammny Nemeth [00:10:47] Exactly. But they say then they can sue Russia for climate crime.
David Blackmon [00:10:54] That maybe.
Irina Slav [00:10:55] They.
Tammny Nemeth [00:10:55] Started the war. They started it. And so therefore, Russia would have to pay theirs. They’ve already already been floating that idea. It was a few months ago.
Irina Slav [00:11:04] Are they seriously believe this is going?
Tammny Nemeth [00:11:07] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, why not? I mean, they can say all kinds of stuff. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:11:13] And then you have the leave them. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:11:17] Yeah. And you have the World Court or whatever it’s called that he has has some authority apparently to do that sort of thing. So I’m sure that that’s what the, the plan would be if they ever get a resolution to the war. I wonder, you know, Boris Johnson when he was still prime minister the the, you know, party leader or quote of the Tories, you know, announced before he was kind of forced out of power a plan to for a rapid increase in nuclear generation in the UK. Is that all just been tossed aside. I haven’t heard any news about that any time in the last year. I don’t think.
Tammny Nemeth [00:12:00] That’s a really great question. I think there’s a lot that are still in the pipeline like they’ve because they had been talking about the Rolls Royce smaller and they were shortlisting different things and and all that kind of stuff. So I don’t know. I mean, the process here is so long for anything to happen. It’s like in the in Canada and the United States, these things take forever. So I’m not sure. I mean, you would think that GB Energy would be talking about nuclear. And if you’re going to be redoing the electricity system operator, you’d be talking about bringing reliable nuclear into the mix. But yeah, they haven’t really that’s been really quiet. And and the Labor Party I think over the past few days has had their annual meeting or whatever, and they weren’t really talking about that at all. So I don’t know, maybe in the budget that’s coming up in October, they’ll say something. But at Lake we’re just waiting for all these things to drop, right? So what’s the actual net zero policy going to be? What is the electricity system operator going to be? What’s the natural gas thing going to be? It’s they’ve made lots of announcements and it’s but it’s unclear precisely how this is all going to work together. So
Irina Slav [00:13:21] will there be enough money for everything? Because nuclear, it costs a penny to build?
Tammny Nemeth [00:13:26] It does.
Irina Slav [00:13:27] Is that the long term? But it is expensive to build. And they have all this money, I imagine, allocated for wind and solar.
Tammny Nemeth [00:13:39] Right. So, I mean, the subsidies can only go so far when you don’t have enough money. They keep saying there’s a 20 billion hole in the UK finances or something like that and which is a big crock. Everybody knows it’s a crock, but they say it anyway. And what what does that mean exactly for all these other things they want to do? You know, they’re throwing half a billion here, a couple billion there. And you know, what does that mean in the end?
David Blackmon [00:14:08] So, yeah.
Tammny Nemeth [00:14:10] It will just money for that stuff.
David Blackmon [00:14:12] We had this announcement this morning. I’m sure you both saw it, of these big banks, 14 major banks, including, you know, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citibank. Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas and others announcing doing this joint announcement with John Podesta at the White House today, old boy John Podesta. Speaking of climate authoritarians, is that they’re going to somehow dedicate increased capital allocation to to promote rapid buildout expansion of nuclear now recognizing it’s a zero emission source. And then we had the the deal last Friday, maybe the biggest piece of irony I’ve ever seen in the nuclear space. Constellation Energy, getting this 20 year supply deal with Microsoft to provide power generation for by restarting Three Mile Island. Yeah. You know which the unit two of Three Mile Island Unit. Unit one. I’m sorry. They’re going to restart unit one. Unit two was the one that had the incident 45 long years ago that has basically held the nuclear power expansion in the United States hostage for the last 45 years. But they’re going to restart Unit one, which was not impacted by that incident. And it had been voluntarily retired in 2019. And supposedly, they’re going to have that up and running by 2028. But then you have this announcement by the banks of of increased capital allocation. So the question becomes, though, is anything going to change in the permitting space, which takes 15 to 20 years to obtain permits for a new nuclear power plant in the United States? It’s just a crazy long time frame that in order to make any difference before 2050 is going to have to be sped up. And, you know, I mean, we’ve had a couple of legislative efforts over the past few years that have, you know, had bipartisan opposition and killed them. So I you know, I doubt anything’s different in Europe, you know, anywhere in Europe as it’s the same kind of thing, isn’t it?
Irina Slav [00:16:28] Probably.
Tammny Nemeth [00:16:30] I don’t know. I think France is able to kind of expedite.
David Blackmon [00:16:32] Well, yes. France
Tammny Nemeth [00:16:33] perhaps a little bit quicker than other countries. Germany. It depends. It depends on the will, you know, And it’s like what’s the the the trendy thing these days that that will accelerate things. Because if you think about it, what are they what are they restarting Three Mile Island for? Is it to actually help people have access to reliable energy for their own for your own household or anything like that? No, it’s for the air servers,
David Blackmon [00:17:01] right? Yeah. So robots can take over your jobs in your life,
Tammny Nemeth [00:17:05] Right. So I follow this blog from statue and called Small Dead Animals. And so they have a little screenshot. It’s go for
David Blackmon [00:17:16] small deadt animals. Okay.
Tammny Nemeth [00:17:17] It’s a really great blog. And they had a screen capture of it of, of a tweet from Christopher Laycock. And I just want to read it out because it’s so funny. Please turn down your thermostat so we can power the data centers we’re building to enslave you. And yeah, that.
Irina Slav [00:17:35] bullseye.
Tammny Nemeth [00:17:37] Bullseye.
David Blackmon [00:17:39] Boy,
Tammny Nemeth [00:17:40] Want you to have reliable energy for your household use, but we need to have reliable energy and we’ll build it out specifically for the server farms and for the servers so that it can control what you’re doing. Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s where we’re at.
Irina Slav [00:17:56] And it’s worth noting that even the International Energy Agency has been talking about nuclear for for a couple of years. The IEA has been pro-nuclear, although not so loudly as it talks about wind and solar. But it has said repeatedly that the energy transition would be impossible without nuclear. I mean, net zero. Yeah, that’s you know, that vision of net zero is impossible without nuclear. And nobody was paying any attention until the data center operators, as you said, somebody said they need to do energy well.
Tammny Nemeth [00:18:32] So the the other interesting element with the data centers and the data processing or whatever is that they’re being permitted to build their own power generation. Yes. So if a if a state or a province wants to do its own electricity generation, it has to meet all these different climate targets. But there doesn’t seem to be the same set of restrictions about meeting climate targets or the data centers because they can build natural gas or they can build whatever they need in order to ensure they have stable and reliable electricity. I’d like to know how that how that factors into the different climate policies that they’re that governments are putting forward. Do these companies have to you mean how does that comply with. They’re their ESG and net zero targets. Now, do the data center say, well, we actually are net negative because the stuff that we’re doing is helping people reduce their overall energy usage and therefore, we’re actually making the. Emissions negative.
Irina Slav [00:19:40] Right.
David Blackmon [00:19:41] And they could claim that theoretically, of course, the data centers are allowed to do that because they’re not building utility scale power generation. And the regulations that are in place currently in most areas, at least in the United States, only apply to utility scale generation. So they haven’t gotten around to it. For example, I have a natural gas generator to back up my home, so they haven’t got around to regulating those things yet. And essentially a power supply for an air data center is the same sort of concept. It’s it’s an isolated use for a specific facility. And I think what you’re going to see, of course, is the authoritarians are going to go about regulating those home generators and anything similar to that in the coming years and probably already do it in California. I haven’t actually research that, but in Texas they don’t yet. So, you know, I mean, and the response to the by the central planners, you know, who are pushing all this stuff is always to crack down even harder. Right. Whenever anything like that pops up. And so you have this new burgeoning part of the economy that is going to be building a lot of site specific generation that they’re going to see as a problem that needs to be cracked down on. And and so they will. And this is only going to continue, isn’t it, until the people in these countries force them to stop. Right. And push these people out of power because this is their mindset. They don’t know anything else. The solution is always going to be more government, more sticks and fewer carrots as we go through time.
Irina Slav [00:21:32] But yeah.
David Blackmon [00:21:33] Yeah, yeah.
Tammny Nemeth [00:21:34] But it’s it’s kind of the bait and switch, though. And and this is this article that Iryna shared around this morning from The Wall Street Journal where they were talking about all the different nerds, the green nerds in in Holland and how they’re using dynamic pricing or real time pricing and all this different kinds of things in order to basically get their electricity for free because the wind and solar need to dump their electricity when there’s too much when demand isn’t so high. And they’re trying to create all this behavior shift. But that’s what they tried with the EVs. And if people I wonder if they’re realizing that this is a bait and switch so they get you in what they did with the EVs, you know, like, it’s free charging. It’s so great they don’t have to worry. We’ll have all these chargers everywhere. It’ll be for free or really low costs. And now there was an article that circulated on the weekend that actually the costs of an EV are like way more than a typical internal combustion engine vehicle because of the high price of recharging, you know, when you plug it in. So now they want to do this with your electricity consumption. They want you to be following real time pay for the real time on the I forget, what’s the what’s the price of wholesale pricing, the wholesale, the wholesale dynamic pricing. So it can vary any hour. So before it used to be you’d want to have stability in your pricing so you could budget. You knew exactly this is how much I’m getting charged per kilowatt hour. I know this is what it’s going to be per month or whatever. No, no, no, no. It’s every fricking minute. You got to know what you’re getting charged. And and when it’s peak time, well, then you’re paying like ten times what you normally would have. So they suck people into this. You get these green nerds going on about how great this will be. And wouldn’t it be awesome if America brought it in? And it’s like, No, don’t think this way. It’s it’s a trick. It’s it’s a bait and switch.
Irina Slav [00:23:36] It is a trick. And they’re so happy to partake in the trick. Remember that story? One of the green nerds who has two electric vehicles. So clearly he’s not exactly a middle class. Yeah. And they also happy that he actually earns about €30 by getting paid to charge his electric cars during peak output and travel demand. It’s amazing who’s happy about it. So how much did you pay to charge those EVs when you weren’t charging them at peak demand?
David Blackmon [00:24:13] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:24:15] that’s a big output.
Tammny Nemeth [00:24:17] And that’s what it.
David Blackmon [00:24:18] Emphasizes.
Irina Slav [00:24:20] Just to to output they are just dead man’s job. I don’t think I’ll be able to survive this. Dynamic pricing, honestly.
Tammny Nemeth [00:24:32] Well, they were trying to do that dynamic pricing at fast food restaurants in America. So if you showed up at noon when everybody else is showing up, you pay twice as much as if you were, you know, instead of showing up at 11 or at 230, you be paying twice as much at 12:00 because that’s when it’s busy. All right. That’s insane.
Irina Slav [00:24:53] Yeah. Did it work or does it drop it?
Tammny Nemeth [00:24:56] I don’t know.
Irina Slav [00:24:59] Yeah.
Tammny Nemeth [00:24:59] People just not going to much money.
David Blackmon [00:25:01] Yeah. People stopped going during the peak times, and so 11:00 became the peak times that at 12. Right. Which nobody could have seen coming, of course.
Irina Slav [00:25:10] Yeah, that’s true.
David Blackmon [00:25:13] So on leaves, though, we had a great report. Actually, I think this was in The Wall Street Journal, too, about the collapse of of TV sales in August. 74% year over year drop in Germany and 33% year over year drop in France in total units sold electric vehicle units. And so I mean, and the same thing is happening in United States. Demand is flatlined. Demand growth is flatlined in the United States for EVs this year. And do you think this is a permanent phenomenon or is it just temporary due to, you know, the evolution happening in that?
Tammny Nemeth [00:25:58] I think you get worse.
David Blackmon [00:26:00] You think, is it going to get worse?
Irina Slav [00:26:01] Yeah. And that’s not me hoping it will get worse. I think it’s going to get worse because I did not expect this sharp drop in European EV sales.
David Blackmon [00:26:09] I didn’t either.
Irina Slav [00:26:10] I expected it to be much, much more gradual, much slower. But if this is what is happening, just. Now so soon, I think it’s going to get worse. But unlike me, Bloombergnef, I have the story open. It says that oil prices, a demand issue, biggest user segment to peak in 2027. And guess what? The biggest user segment is its car transports. And it tells us that. Sorry for taking the discussion in a different direction, but they’re telling us that EVs are already displacing nearly 1.8 million barrels of oil every day. And this is going to grow because this is now a temporary blip. Sales will pick up and start growing fast again to such an extent that by 2027. Oil demand growth will be all but flat lining. And these people are being serious about this. So let’s ignore this. It’s 44% drop for Europe in Ibiza, 44. That’s a lot.
David Blackmon [00:27:19] For the whole EU as a whole.
Irina Slav [00:27:22] I think is Europe including the UK? I’m not sure. And Norway and I’m not sure the. Okay. I have to check that.
David Blackmon [00:27:32] Yeah, I am. So. I mean, I don’t know what. Right. And I don’t know what’s happening in the U.K., whether it’s different or not in terms of EV sales.
Tammny Nemeth [00:27:42] Well, in the UK, they they mandated that the dealerships had to sell a certain percentage of new EVs and that to be of all their vehicles sold, a certain percentage had to be EVs and they weren’t meeting those targets. We had a story a few weeks ago where the dealers were like, you know, we’re putting people on a wait list. We’re rationing vehicles because nobody wants them, but we have to meet these percent targets. And so, yeah, what happens then is the price of used vehicles go up and so on. And if people still are driving used vehicles, then you’re still going to need petrol or diesel. If you’re keeping your internal combustion engine unit and not buying an EV, then you’re still going to need fuel. So for them to say that there’s going to be this decrease and so on. And Canada also has a mandate where by a certain year they have to start selling certain percentages of of EVs as new vehicles. But I think in the Canadian one, they’ve also included hybrids in that percentage. So if you if it’s a hybrid or a certain kind of hybrid, we often do that, right? So Germany’s also pressing for hybrids rather than periods as part of the whatever mandates is my understanding. So if it’s a hybrid, you’re still going to need fuel?
David Blackmon [00:29:03] Yes. But isn’t is it the authoritarian response to that to start outlawing the building of new gas stations?
Tammny Nemeth [00:29:11] That’s what I think.
David Blackmon [00:29:14] I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s coming soon to to all these countries.
Tammny Nemeth [00:29:20] Wasn’t it California that was not allowing new service stations to be built in some of the counties?
David Blackmon [00:29:26] Yes. Yeah, they’re already doing it there. Yeah. Any smart idea on energy you can think of as already being done in California?
Irina Slav [00:29:35] There is a pretty good network of petrol stations in Europe and they can patching the U.S. already. I mean, that won’t be tragic. But they’re trying to build more charging stations and they’re failing in that as well.
Tammny Nemeth [00:29:49] Yes.
Irina Slav [00:29:50] I just checked the numbers. UK EV sales were up 10% for the year in August. That mandate probably has something to do with because you remove the choice for people.
Tammny Nemeth [00:30:01] Yeah. They have no choice. So that looks like that. The numbers are different. I would like to know what the if that if that’s a percentage number or if that’s the actual number. You know what I mean?
Irina Slav [00:30:15] I says 10% up.
Tammny Nemeth [00:30:19] Of new car sales or EVs over all.
Irina Slav [00:30:22] Latest car registrations. Aids to sales of new electric cars grew by 10% last month as battery electric cars made up 23.2% of UK car registrations in August.
Tammny Nemeth [00:30:36] Of new car registrations because I was not allowed to buy
David Blackmon [00:30:41] The gas.
Tammny Nemeth [00:30:41] Connection engine. So then the numbers look better.
David Blackmon [00:30:45] Yeah, I was right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We ready to go to our articles here?
Tammny Nemeth [00:30:51] Yes, sir.
David Blackmon [00:30:52] All right, let’s see if I can. Figure out how to do this. That didn’t work. Where are we? Here we go. Okay, next slide. There you go. Tammy, you’re first.
Tammny Nemeth [00:31:05] Okay, so this article just came out, I think, yesterday in the Telegraph. And the title is Lack of Net zero Clarity Puts Future of British Manufacturing at Risk. And the article talks to a UK packing packaging giant which does paper processing, cardboard and paper and so on. And in the article the the person was complaining about that. They’re not sure, are we going to still keep gas, natural gas? Are they going to be penalized for using natural gas to produce their paper? How are they how can they be competitive with their European and American counterparts that have significantly lower energy costs? And so one of the the arguments was that the in the UK they’re paying something like £0.30 per kilowatt hour. And in France it’s 16 and in Germany it’s 17 equivalent pence per kilowatt hour. And in the United States, it’s a fraction of that. And he’s like, so how can we keep going if we have these massive electricity costs and energy costs? And so one activist group, which is the manufacturing group that was cited by this author, is blaming natural gas for the increase of energy costs of 230% since 2008. But if you go to carbon brief and I really don’t like them, but they have this really great interactive map of the UK and it shows the change in the grid in the UK from 2008 to 2018. And I mean in 2008 the UK produced 337 terawatt hours. In 2018, that dropped to 330, and over that period of time, Hall fell off a cliff. So they shut down coal. They built up a load of wind and solar. Solar went from 0 to 12 terawatt hours. Wind went from 7 to 57. So you have all of these subsidized generate electrical generation, which drove up the cost and then they shut down the reliable, cheap coal. Then they built a lit actually the amount of natural gas power has dropped. So how can it be the fault of natural gas when the whole grid has been reoriented? All the new transmission lines, all the stuff to wind and solar? So the argument that this is all the fault of the high cost of natural gas over the past two years is just it’s just garbage. So are we in for more of this? Probably. And the manufacturer was like, we need some consistency and clarity on where the grid is going, what we’re allowed to use and how much this is all going to cost because we can compete.
David Blackmon [00:34:08] All right. And otherwise, they’re going to have to move overseas, right, To have to move the plant to China or wherever.
Tammny Nemeth [00:34:14] Right. Or if they’re friend or friend shoring or whatever will go back into the EU or whatever, and it’ll go over to France as France will have cheaper electricity.
David Blackmon [00:34:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s the the negative impact of all these policies potentially to two national economies is the loss of industry, de-industrialization of the country, which really is at the heart of the goal of all of this. Frankly.
Tammny Nemeth [00:34:40] Right. And and the most hilarious thing in this article is they were talking to the minister for, I don’t know, net zero. Not net zero is something else industry or whatever. We have to be really careful that we that this doesn’t turn into deindustrialization. It’s too. Late.
Irina Slav [00:34:58] And you’re not going to do the name.
Tammny Nemeth [00:35:01] Right. And I’ll put some other name to it. Who, who knows, right? I mean, just.
David Blackmon [00:35:05] My gosh. That’s like raising the alarm after the fire has already consumed half your home, right?
Tammny Nemeth [00:35:10] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. That was. That was my story.
David Blackmon [00:35:15] Irina.
Irina Slav [00:35:17] You mentioned Podesta. Yes or no is sitting right here that he actually has a good word to say about the growth in US oil and gas production and the fact that this growth continues under the Biden administration. Why might that be? You said it’s a it’s an economic success. It’s an energy security success. You’re saying this. But now remember that the election in less than two months.
Tammny Nemeth [00:35:48] I know. That was so funny. I couldn’t believe that headline.
Irina Slav [00:35:52] And so pathetic and so obvious. And apparently he didn’t care about it being pathetic or obvious.
Tammny Nemeth [00:36:00] No, he’s shameless.
Irina Slav [00:36:02] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:36:02] He had polling data that showed it might be positive for the Harris campaign to say that
Irina Slav [00:36:09] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They needed polling data for that.
Tammny Nemeth [00:36:14] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:36:16] Okay. And the other stories. This is just ridiculously funny. And the other story that I mentioned, Is it time to invest in the UK’s green transition? Again.
Tammny Nemeth [00:36:28] Like they all.
Irina Slav [00:36:29] Know, it was an outflow of investments from the UK’s green transition. So apparently after the same government came into power and all these GB energy and all these other ambitious plans. Are making investors optimistic about the UK’s transition once again. Translation. To my mind, they’re giving out money. Let’s get in line for some because that’s exactly what it sounds like. Yeah. Left to two market forces, the transition is uncertain at best. So apparently investors were getting more reluctant. But now that, you know, Labor has this manifesto of doubling onshore wind, tripling solar, quadrupling offshore wind and then giving money to this. So obviously, investors will be very interested in that. Which is stupid. You know, if I invested, I would’ve thought, this is stupid, because you cannot secure long term returns on subsidies. I thought this has become clear and evident about it. Hasn’t. Are they still calling for this?
David Blackmon [00:37:42] But not to the Financial Times. I can’t help noticing the source of that story.
Tammny Nemeth [00:37:47] Yeah. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:37:48] Which is a real newspaper that contained real news about business and the economy and now is nothing but a reciter of the prevailing.
Irina Slav [00:37:59] There is it’s become almost the same as the Guardian. It still reports news and reports facts begrudgingly and never fails to give it a little bit of a spin. Make it sound better in line with the narrative. It’s way tragic, but the investors are once again interesting, but in this case, transition. Let’s see how it goes.
David Blackmon [00:38:23] Yes.
Tammny Nemeth [00:38:23] Yeah. Subsidies, handouts, all that kind of great stuff that apparently had lost the money even though we’re in debt, you know?
David Blackmon [00:38:31] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:38:31] What about the.
David Blackmon [00:38:33] Hole in the budget.
Irina Slav [00:38:34] When you make people pay twice for the same thing? I mean, you get money until people run out of money.
Tammny Nemeth [00:38:42] Yup.
David Blackmon [00:38:43] And then you print more money.
Irina Slav [00:38:44] Tireless efforts.
David Blackmon [00:38:46] Yes.
Tammny Nemeth [00:38:46] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:38:47] Well, you know, a $20 billion budget hole is nothing here in the U.S.. We are going to pay $1.2 trillion.
Irina Slav [00:38:55] And actually, you guys know it.
Tammny Nemeth [00:38:56] Yeah, I know. That’s crazy.
David Blackmon [00:38:59] But that’s. That’s child’s play to us.
Tammny Nemeth [00:39:00] How many zeros is that? What’s a trillion?
David Blackmon [00:39:06] So I’ve got I’ve got a couple here. I’m going to do the second one first. The Pete Buttigieg defend the Biden/Harris EV Charger Boondoggle.. Now, this is one I posted on LinkedIn. I got a copy of the video of of our glorious transit transportation secretary who has zero qualifications for the job. He’s a former mayor of a small town in Indiana. But he’s, you know, well, few years ago, he was like the rising star in the Democratic Party. So they gave him this cabinet position, thinking it’s an easy gig. You know, for four years, the raises profile. And he appeared on CNBC and tried to explain why it is that the Biden administration has wasted $8 billion on a program that’s supposed to be building out thousands, tens of thousands of new EV charging stations all over the country. And they’ve only managed to build eight of them.
Tammny Nemeth [00:40:07] My gosh.
David Blackmon [00:40:08] And amazingly, you know, LinkedIn suspended me for simply publishing a video of of of a driver. And I think it was in Germany getting out of his car and pulling just stop or protesters off the road so he could drive on down the road. And I have you know, I posted that video on LinkedIn and last Sunday they suspended me for three days until they determined, well, that doesn’t really violate our community rules. I, I thought when I posted this video op ed judge stammering around about wasting $8 billion on eight charging stations, that they’d probably suspend me for that, too. But no, they let that thing go viral and it was no problem. So I, I really don’t understand what the censors are thinking at LinkedIn anymore. So I’ll just keep on posting the videos that I find interesting. Anyway, you know, there’s no way to justify wasting $8 billion on eight charging stations. And then that’s what poor Pete had to try to do. The other stories.
Tammny Nemeth [00:41:14] Maybe it was for, you know, it is an election year.
David Blackmon [00:41:18] It is an election year. Yes, it is. And Kamala Harris, you know, has to justify. Well, no, she really doesn’t, because nobody asked Kamala Harris any questions.
Tammny Nemeth [00:41:27] Anything. Yeah,
David Blackmon [00:41:27] totally in the tank for her. So she never gets a real question posed to her. So she’s she doesn’t have to explain any of this. But the guy on CNBC who I’m going to forget the host name, he’s really good. Really smart guy and a great host. And CNBC, actually, unlike the Financial Times, still focuses on economic and financial news, which is. So it’s it’s what I watch most of the time during the day. Then the other story, Beirut blasts Lebanon rocked by a wave of handheld radio blasts as solar energy systems explode. Right. This headline just cracks me up, you know, So the Hezbollah terrorists are based in Lebanon and their first their analog pagers all blew up and killed and maimed a bunch of them. And then the next day, their walkie talkies blew up and killed or maimed a bunch more because the Mossad. It intercepted the the shipments of those. Walkie talkies and pagers, you know, devices, whatever you want to call them, that have been ordered by Hezbollah and implanted explosives in them that they were able to detonate simultaneously. But then at the same time, that was happening with the walkie talkies, on the second day, a bunch of home solar panels blew up that were on top of people’s houses in Lebanon. And I haven’t seen any follow up stories yet to to explain whether or not that was connected to the walkie talkies, you know? Yeah. And you got to kind of wonder now, you know, sometimes I’m almost afraid to turn my television on at my home. I don’t think the Mossad has a grudge against me, but it’s all it’s all a pretty stark lesson. Lesson that you don’t want to become a target of the Mossad, which I thought it was just, you.
Irina Slav [00:43:26] Know, so that if one intelligence service can weaponize devices, then so can others.
David Blackmon [00:43:31] Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Irina Slav [00:43:33] One that I haven’t read the story, but I did remember reading a couple of years ago, I think it was a study of the most frequent problems with rooftop solar installations. And by far, the biggest problem was that bad work, but bad installation work. Yeah. Yeah. Was a fire. So, you know, in Lebanon, they had a really big problem with energy supply. I think they still do.
Tammny Nemeth [00:44:01] They still do. Didn’t Robert Bryce focus on that in his one of his documentaries?
Irina Slav [00:44:07] I can’t remember.
Tammny Nemeth [00:44:08] Yeah. Where they they had these little generators. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:44:13] So if they were hastily assembled, you know, hastily installed and improperly installed, that that could be. It’s. Yeah, I mean, I do hope Mossad wouldn’t be that wouldn’t waste time to, you know, get some changes in people’s rooftop solar installations. That would be a step too far. But yeah, this, this is a problem. And with this shortage, remember there were complaints about the shortage of qualified technicians to put a rooftop solar. So probably there’s a lot of shoddy work in rooftop solar. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:44:48] Yeah, there probably is. And you know, there probably is in the United States, too. Although I think, you know, rooftop solar does make sense if you can afford it. Right.
Irina Slav [00:44:57] It doesn’t make. Sense. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:44:58] You know.
Irina Slav [00:45:00] selection right now.
David Blackmon [00:45:02] Yeah. And so, you know, I mean, it does make sense. We priced it out in the wake of the winter storm a few years ago for our home. And it was going to cost four times the cost of a natural gas generator. So we went with the generator instead. Yeah, I mean, it was just crazy the way it’s marketed in the United States. Home solar is basically this Ponzi scheme.
Irina Slav [00:45:25] How is it so expensive? So subsidized.
David Blackmon [00:45:28] So so what happens is they advertise you get a 0% interest loan, right? To finance your home solar system for our house. If we paid cash for for home solar for our whole house and two big Tesla batteries in our garage for backup. It would have cost us about $40,000 in cash. Okay. But if you do the. Quote zero interest loan over which has a 25 year term so it makes your payments pretty low. But when you calculate it out, the number of payments times the monthly payment you’re paying, it came to about four times that $40,000. So $160,000. So is that really a 0% interest loan? And the little kids, you know, they send a kid out who doesn’t know anything about it to go through a PowerPoint with you. And when I asked him a question, I said, well, you know, if it’s a 0% interest loan, I’d only be paying $40,000 over that span. So. So how can you say it’s a 0% interest loan? He said, well, you know, the finance company just marks up the principal to that amount.
Tammny Nemeth [00:46:35] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:46:36] To calculate your payment as well, then it’s not a 0% interest loan. That’s about a 12% interest loan. In reality, that’s the reality of this. Yes. And people falling for it is mostly people. Yeah, and mostly the people. And it’s a 25 year loan, so it’s effectively a second mortgage on your house. Yeah. And most of the people who fall for it are elderly people and people who really can’t afford a second mortgage. Yeah. And so it’s this whole scheme is going to fall apart in the United States the way it’s being marketed. And they’re going to have to ultimately, you know, I mean, you’re already getting a lot of blowback, pushback from people in California and Texas about it. And I think in the coming five years or so, it’s all going to kind of fall apart and they’re going to have to come up with a different, more honest model to to market those systems to homeowners. Otherwise, the politicians who who have supported it all are going to win reelection.
Irina Slav [00:47:34] So it’s horrible.
David Blackmon [00:47:36] So we’re 50 minutes in. I think we’ve gone through our agenda. We have an amazingly quiet audience today, although there are plenty of people watching, no one wants to ask questions.
Irina Slav [00:47:49] That’s probably because Stu isn’t here.
David Blackmon [00:47:51] I guess so, yes. Stu must be the question generator. Anyway, do you guys have anything else you want to raise for this episode of the Energy Realities podcast?
Irina Slav [00:48:01] I think we covered everything runs and all.
David Blackmon [00:48:05] I think we have I think we have. Next week we’ll be talking about something else and hopefully Stu will be back. We’ll have our full retinue here. Yeah. And you can find Tammy at the Naismith report.com. Where else can people find you, Tammy?
Tammny Nemeth [00:48:22] I’m on LinkedIn and I’m thinking about doing a substack, so that’ll be.
David Blackmon [00:48:27] Where we need you on Substack. Absolutely.
Irina Slav [00:48:31] You come on. Substack still getting attacked.
David Blackmon [00:48:34] Yay. All right, good deal.
Irina Slav [00:48:36] I don’t know how it is, but he said he was.
David Blackmon [00:48:39] using the word. Okay, Rita, where can people find you?
Irina Slav [00:48:43] On Substack, Irina Slav in energy. And I’m on X mostly reposting 14 other people’s posts.
Tammny Nemeth [00:48:53] Which is fun.
Irina Slav [00:48:54] It’s fun. Yeah, it.
David Blackmon [00:48:55] Is. It is fun Stu You can find stuff on Substack as well. It’s I’m sorry. Energy News Beat substack. You can find me on Substack We’re all on Substack or we’re going to be when times get.
Irina Slav [00:49:09] A great place.
David Blackmon [00:49:10] Exactly. I know we all got substack and. And I have a lot of fun there. Everything I do you can find linked there. And if you are watching on YouTube, please please subscribe and hit the like button. That will really help us our metrics. And for the rest of you, I’m sorry you didn’t have any questions or comments. I guess we bored you to tears or more Surely .
Irina Slav [00:49:33] you have something?
David Blackmon [00:49:34] Yes, we had fun anyway. And the whole way I.
Tammny Nemeth [00:49:38] Have one thing is is it the Climate Week in New York this week or something?
David Blackmon [00:49:43] It’s UN General Assembly Week. I don’t know. Maybe it is Climate Week.
Tammny Nemeth [00:49:47] Okay.
Irina Slav [00:49:48] I haven’t done that week.
Tammny Nemeth [00:49:50] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And they’re supposed to be climate in front of everything, right? So every day is climate. Climate, right?
David Blackmon [00:49:59] Yes. Well, I can’t wait to hear what fry language Mr. Guterres rolls out when he makes his opening remarks. I think that’s the day today.
Tammny Nemeth [00:50:10] Okay. I’m excited to talk about next week.
David Blackmon [00:50:14] Absolutely. Maybe. Maybe we should make that our topic anyway. Folks, thank you for joining us. We’re out of here about ten minutes early, but that’s okay, too. And appreciate your watch in. And we’ll be back in a week. You’ll have a great week have a great one.
Tammny Nemeth [00:50:30] Have a great one bye.
David Blackmon [00:50:35] And we will end the stream. There we go.
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