The Energy Question Episode 51 – Energy Writer and Novelist Irina Slav

 

David Blackmon [00:00:05] Hey, welcome to the energy question with David Blackmon. I’m your host, David Blackmon and with me today is my podcasting partner with the Energy Transition Podcast and one of the best energy writers working today Irena Slav, Irina How are you doing today?

Irina Slav [00:00:22] Hi, David thanks for having me on, I’m great It’s summer it’s hot but not too hot not as hot as I hear it is in Texas.

David Blackmon [00:00:30] So hopefully not. It’s pretty warm in Texas but as we were talking about that before we started recording, that’s really nothing unusual here. Despite what we see in our propaganda media today. It’s really bizarre the reporting that’s going on.

David Blackmon [00:00:49] Yeah, we’re going to talk about a variety of topics today, I want to focus on things you’ve been writing about and we’ve been talking about on our other podcast. But before we go into that, I want to start because, with other guests, I keep forgetting to do this first, tell people where they can find you and read what you write.

Irina Slav [00:01:14] Well, as you said, they can most easily find me on Substack at Uranus level in energy and I also write about oil prices.

David Blackmon [00:01:24] Yeah. OilPrice.com

Irina Slav [00:01:26] Yeah. Yeah, that but that’s pretty much it.

David Blackmon [00:01:30] Well, and you’re also on Twitter. IrinaSlav1, right?

Irina Slav [00:01:34] Yeah. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:01:35] Did you ever get the other one? Is the other I.D. reactivated?

Irina Slav [00:01:39] No, no,.

David Blackmon [00:01:40] They just some side of me.

Irina Slav [00:01:42] The other account has disappeared but, you know, they couldn’t verify my ownership of this account somehow.

David Blackmon [00:01:54] Yeah, Despite you having it for how many years right? I mean, the same thing happened to me.

Irina Slav [00:01:59] A few.

David Blackmon [00:02:00] Yeah. I had a similar thing happen, in January, but they were very responsive to me and fixed it within the day. It was. It’s a bit, but I’ve seen other people having a similar issue on Twitter and I.

Irina Slav [00:02:14] Don’t know, they couldn’t establish they couldn’t verify my ownership because I had forgotten which email account I used to create this account. Right. And if I can’t remember the email account, which they probably have checked, I give them two alternatives, both mine. But oh, anyway.

David Blackmon [00:02:34] Oh well,.

Irina Slav [00:02:35] I’m still Twitter ranting away, so.

David Blackmon [00:02:38] Yeah. Good. Yes. Never leave Twitter. Twitter is good. It. So let’s go to Q&A here. Your most recent piece at Substack is about this rash of energy and climate-related litigation that’s happening in Europe and the United States, too. And you write about, you know, how what an important issue this is and also how the the the climate alarmist movement, as I like to call them, is using children as a weapon in these lawsuits. Talk about that.

Irina Slav [00:03:18] That’s what actually drove me to write this particular article when I saw this case in Montana, where the plaintiffs ranged in age from 5 to 22 and a 22-year-old girl is actually the only legal adult, which is why the case held was Montana is named after her. And that really shocked me because really, what does a five-year-old have in terms of an opinion on things like that? And I say this as the mother of a 12-year-old who was five years old at some point. You know,.

Irina Slav [00:04:00] I do not to be disrespectful to children, but at five or 12, you don’t exactly know much about the world, What you know is what you are being told by your parents, by friends, and by apparently by organizations such as Our Children’s Trust, which is actually the NGO doing the mitigation for these children who are afraid they don’t have a future because of climate change.

Irina Slav [00:04:33] It’s really very touching that media coverage of this case is very, very touching, how wildlife is disappearing, how wildfires are increasing in frequency, and how one of these children. When there’s a wildfire, she feels like her lungs are burning. And it is really very dramatic.

David Blackmon [00:04:59] Yeah,.

Irina Slav [00:05:00] But that’s all it is. And I don’t know how the case will end, but if it ends with victory for these children, will our children’s trust more accurately? I think this is this will be a dangerous precedent.

David Blackmon [00:05:17] Yeah and I think it would be.

Irina Slav [00:05:17] Yeah, This. This trust, our children’s trust has been doing it in all states. I think it’s trying. It keeps trying to litigate against state governments on behalf of children on the grounds that climate change is robbing these children of a future then, you know, the same garbage that read the phonebook and lives have been spewing and I’m not apologizing for the words I’m using.

David Blackmon [00:05:50] Yeah. You know, and it is very reminiscent of what they’ve done with Greta Thunberg, starting with her when she was 16 years old, you know, delaying her education. She didn’t graduate from high school until this year. She’s 20 now. And yeah, time flies doesn’t it’s been four years she’s been doing all this.

David Blackmon [00:06:13] But so much of the propaganda that’s a part of that lawsuit is well, first of all, some of it’s false, like the increasing number of wildfires that are supposed.

Irina Slav [00:06:23] Yeah. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:06:24] When actually the frequency of wildfires in North America I don’t know about Europe, but in North America, it has been decreasing pretty rapidly. It’s just that we see a lot more news coverage of the issue because it helps with the climate change narrative. And then don’t children deserve a future world with whales in it? I mean, when we hear them talking about how.

Irina Slav [00:06:48] Well she.

David Blackmon [00:06:48] Remembered the story. Yeah. And eagles. And what about eagles and other endangered migratory birds? We just never see those stories focused on that. It’s pretty interesting.

Irina Slav [00:06:59] You know, I guess they deserve to be sacrificed to stop climate change because this is the ultimate talking point. We need to stop climate change if it’s something possible, stop it and stop climate change.

David Blackmon [00:07:15] Yes. Let’s stop it. Stop it by reducing plants in the atmosphere. Yeah, It’s amazing it’s amazing. How do you feel like? I mean, I’ve and I’ve written about how it all feels like a religion to me.

Irina Slav [00:07:31] it does.

David Blackmon [00:07:32] I actually found the copy, the first newspaper story I wrote along those lines in 1996 and so for 27 years I’ve been writing that, But doesn’t it feel like a religious war?

Irina Slav [00:07:44] I think it feels like a colt, colt weather with its dogma, which you cannot challenge because if you do challenge it, your nonbeliever, your denialist. And what worries me is that these people are targeting children through their parents, I’m sure. Because, you know, children believe what their parents told them and if the parents are in the colt, then the children automatically, you know, get into the colt and they grow up this way.

Irina Slav [00:08:18] There’s a generation of young people who will grow up believing that climate change is the single biggest threat to their lives. They will blame their unhappiness on it. They will blame everything on it, which is what our politicians are doing and not just politicians.

Irina Slav [00:08:38] You know, everything can be a dramatic change. Just like, you know, I think I’ve mentioned this before. Someone I know suspected that he got short-sighted because of the disaster in Chornobyl. Right. It’s a similar thing. Yeah. You know, the nuclear meltdown gave him short-sightedness. Okay.

David Blackmon [00:09:04] Well, you had another great piece that I think it was a few days ago now but you talked about it was focused on these recent the latest outburst from Secretary Gutierrez at the United Nations. And you had this wonder, you have great lines in all of your stories. This one just really I wanted to highlight these are just the most recent and the underlying message in all of them is the same things are not turning out the way we want them so we’re coping aggressively. We’re coping aggressively.

Irina Slav [00:09:40] Well, they’re coping aggressively,.

David Blackmon [00:09:42] Right? Yeah. And so, I mean, it’s so true. I mean, things aren’t turning out the way they have planned, Right? I mean, I think that’s becoming increasingly obvious, isn’t it?

Irina Slav [00:09:55] Yeah. And they will be stepping up the rhetoric further because, you know. This is the latest outburst from Gutierrez. Again, it was about oil and gas, wasn’t it, that everything is their fault. It comes just as it is beginning to emerge, that wind and solar are not doing as well as advertised just when Allstate said that it has problems with surging costs imagine that. And that offshore wind energy is not as cheap as it was purported to be as it was advertised.

David Blackmon [00:10:33] Right.

Irina Slav [00:10:33] And as because the media, for all its propaganda push, it can not report on these things. If it has any remains of self-respect, you have to cover it at least to save face, you know, to be able to say. But yeah, we are covering everything. We are objective and impartial, which they are. And still paying lip service to objectivity and impartiality.

Irina Slav [00:11:04] And I think that as more and more of these things come to light because this is not changing. In any time soon. Wind and solar are not going to magically become cheap and profitable at the same time. I think we’ll see more of this aggressive going and we’re just seeing and there’s more more talk about the demand side of the transition, which is something we talked about in emails earlier today with you and Damion Alonzo.

Irina Slav [00:11:34] This is why they will now, as you said, by next year. That’s all we’ll be hearing. And I agree with you, because when the supply side fails, you know, wind and solar are not delivering as expected as advertised. Let’s refocus the attention. Let’s blame it on demand. Let’s talk about the right hands and stop teaching people to reduce their energy consumption.

David Blackmon [00:12:04] Yeah, we have this wonderful story, a wonderful I put in quotes at The New Yorker, this op-ed that the New Yorker printed Monday about how what was the title? Something about you needs to learn.

Irina Slav [00:12:21] that it was bad wisdom.

David Blackmon [00:12:22] Travel is bad for you because when you travel, you pretend to be at your best when really you’re at your worst. This is the narrative that the.

Irina Slav [00:12:33] Things are just endless as well, I mean, when I travel, I do not think that I’m at my best. You know, I think that I’m going to see some plays that maybe I’ve seen before, maybe I haven’t. But, you know, that’s as far as my traveling goes.

David Blackmon [00:12:52] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:12:52] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:12:54] So. So there’s a story this week about Chattanooga, Tennessee, that I don’t know if you saw it. It’s at a kind of niche website called The American Thinker, but Chattanooga, Tennessee. And Dusseldorf, Germany. These are going to be two of the World Economic Forum’s test cases for their 15-minute city concept. Right.

Irina Slav [00:13:19] And that’s why it’s a lot of cities.

David Blackmon [00:13:22] Yeah, I think it’s very big. And, you know, Chattanooga, I mean, Dusseldorf has to have several million people in it, Right? I would think Chattanooga is smaller, but still several hundred thousand people live there and they’ve agreed to become test cases for the WEF 15-minute cities. And that’s all about this degrowth concept, too, Right? The 15-minute city Olympics.

Irina Slav [00:13:51] Yeah, the 15-minute city idea is just wonderful.

David Blackmon [00:13:56] Yeah, I it’s amazing to me and I, I just really think that you know, it’s really grown in, in volume. The propaganda for degrowth and the European Commission just sponsored a whole conference about degrowth in May.

Irina Slav [00:14:17] Yeah, right. Yeah. So I really, really seem to have serious plans in that direction. And the 15-minute cities are supposed to be probably the main tool of doing this or how they’re going to go about it. Are they going to completely change the infrastructure? Because the idea is that you have everything within. And is it I’ve been asking myself this question, is it 15 minutes by what? By two by.

David Blackmon [00:14:46] I think it may be by bicycle. Yeah. Yeah. Because you’re not supposed to drive cars, right? I mean, it’s to get everybody out of cars.

Irina Slav [00:14:55] Okay. But not everybody can ride a bike. I mean.

David Blackmon [00:14:59] Right.

Irina Slav [00:14:59] Older people who cannot ride a bike. Well, maybe.

David Blackmon [00:15:03] They can use Segway.

Irina Slav [00:15:07] Are they still around? Oh, no. E-scooters. Probably. E-scooters.

David Blackmon [00:15:11] E-scooters. Yeah. E-scooters.

Irina Slav [00:15:13] Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:15:13] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:15:15] But they have charges.

David Blackmon [00:15:19] Well, yeah.

Irina Slav [00:15:20] Scooters.

David Blackmon [00:15:21] And that’s what’s that’s another thing that’s so interesting to me is the whole Chargers situation because in Texas we have this enormous chain of enormous roadside convenience stores called Bucky’s, and the stores themselves are the size of a small Wal-Mart, right? They’re huge. They’re enormous. 200,000 square feet, at least with 100 gas pumps sitting out there.

David Blackmon [00:15:48] But now they all have at least a set of ten or 12 Tesla chargers available for electric vehicles. And so in Texas, which I know is probably an exception to the rule, we have this partnership now between this huge chain of convenience stores and Tesla to install hundreds and hundreds of new rapid chargers and they’re everywhere they’re all over the place. But you keep. Reading Stories

[00:16:19] Have there been any cars charging there?

David Blackmon [00:16:21] Very few. Very few there, actually, when I was there in the middle of the day. And all the gas pumps, I couldn’t find a gas pump. There was one electric vehicle charging at one of the stations at that store. So, you know, there just aren’t that many EVs on the road in Texas yet.

Irina Slav [00:16:38] Yeah, but they will be right there if everything works out as planned, there will be.

David Blackmon [00:16:44] What do you think we can in Bulgaria? Okay, So I wanted to I’m going all over the place here. But Bulgaria, we talk about Bulgaria on our other podcast frequently. And your country is a member of the EU but seems to be somehow avoiding the worst excesses from the EU in terms of your energy grid and everything. And I wanted you to talk about how that is happening how is Bulgaria kind of avoiding all these bad outcomes that the other EU countries seem to be having?

Irina Slav [00:17:22] Well, that’s temporary, I think. I hope it won’t be.

David Blackmon [00:17:26] They just haven’t gone to you yet.

Irina Slav [00:17:28] Exactly. That’s one reason. And the other thing is we are a poor member of the EU and the energy transition is expensive.

David Blackmon [00:17:38] Right?

Irina Slav [00:17:39] So we can’t really afford to shut down our coal power plants just like that because we can’t afford to build. And I don’t think we have the space to build all the wind and solar installations that we would need in order to shut them down and then we have a pretty strong coal lobby and we seem to have people who have retained their sanity and professionalism and are in positions of responsibility and decision making power.

Irina Slav [00:18:16] And even our current crop of politicians in Parliament realize bonkers that they are, which they are. Yes, they do have enough common sense to realize that you can’t make electricity five times more expensive. You can’t even make it 45% more expensive, which is what E.ON did or even.

David Blackmon [00:18:44] Right,.

Irina Slav [00:18:45] Whatever the German agility, which is what they did to Germans you cannot do this in Bulgaria because Britain will or will take to the streets and I will be among them because this would plunge about 90% of the population of Bulgaria into energy poverty and overall poverty.

Irina Slav [00:19:06] So there is some rationality remaining but that’s the ultimate reason, The energy transition is expensive and we are not a wealthy country, even if we’re a member of the European Union. And this is actually true for the whole eastern-western divide. I mean, Central European countries such as Poland and the Czech Euro, and Slovakia are wealthier than us, but they’re still holding back on the full transition that Germany, for example, is tracking towards so.

David Blackmon [00:19:39] Well, is Germany really doing that, though? Because Germany has also been reactivating their coal plants here this year, Right? I mean.

Irina Slav [00:19:47] They closed their nuclear power plants, so that’s all right.

David Blackmon [00:19:50] Which is just insane.

Irina Slav [00:19:51] I just this is actually insane and people were against it. Remember that poll?

David Blackmon [00:19:58] Yeah. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:19:59] More than half a slim majority of over 50% but still, they were against it but they did nothing about it.

David Blackmon [00:20:07] So I wonder, you know, you we have talked about on our Energy Transition podcast, and I I’m sorry, I keep referencing that, but we have all these wonderful conversations.

Irina Slav [00:20:18] We do this every week.

David Blackmon [00:20:19] Yeah. And we’ve talked a lot about, you know, how all this is likely to lead to a turning over of the parties that are in power in Europe and maybe in the United States, too. And we’ve seen that happen now in Italy and in Sweden and in Greece most recently.

David Blackmon [00:20:41] And, you know, of course, I mean, not Bulgaria, probably because, you know, the countries that are kind of avoiding all these bad impacts are not going to have the social unrest. But I wonder, do you see that kind of a trend continuing to expand into other countries in Europe? Because it looks like the UK is about to go back to the Labor Party now.

Irina Slav [00:21:05] It looks this way. I’m really, really sad for the Brits because they don’t really have a choice. Both of their parties are completely broke. Transition in the most radical way possible. I don’t really see any difference between the parties there’s not that I’ve studied the platforms, whatever, in-depth.

Irina Slav [00:21:29] But they’re both on board and I’m sure they will give the Liberal Democrats what was a third party. The Dems. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure they’re on board with the whole transition thing as well. So the British people do not really have a choice. Except, I don’t know. Going out to protest against this madness. I’m feeling very protest.

David Blackmon [00:22:02] Yeah, I am too.

Irina Slav [00:22:04] To protest, Egor. Yeah, you know, because it’s this whole climate emergency thing is being blown out of any reasonable proportion. Any imaginable proportion. It’s. It’s madness. It’s insane, as you said and unless we react in any way, it’s going to continue.

David Blackmon [00:22:27] Yeah. Yeah, I, I agree.

Irina Slav [00:22:30] And what’s happened is a witness is a very good sign.

David Blackmon [00:22:34] Well, I think so, although I think it was kind of over overplayed in some of the media they didn’t actually write. I mean, they didn’t actually do away with their climate goals.

Irina Slav [00:22:45] They just said, we’re not going to do any of this and besides, it’s easier for Sweden, which is a major nuclear power producer so it’s not that difficult for them.

David Blackmon [00:22:57] And frankly, you know, we shouldn’t do away with climate goals we need to have climate goals. I think that’s overall.

Irina Slav [00:23:04] You mean emission goals,.

David Blackmon [00:23:06] Right. Well, not necessarily emission goals, because I think the science of carbon dioxide is still kind of questionable. But yes, to reduce pollution, my God, we’ve made so much progress in the United States because of pollution.

Irina Slav [00:23:23] Of course, reducing pollution is a legitimate goal backed by science.

David Blackmon [00:23:32] Yes, actual Science Yes

Irina Slav [00:23:34] That’s yeah, and that’s unquestionable it has been empirically proven that flying particle pollution is bad for your health that’s why it’s called pollution this is not the case with carbon dioxide, but that’s what bugs me too, By the way, that pollution is nowhere on the agenda. Carbon pollution. However, the replace the meaning of the words with meanings that play into their agenda. Now, that’s not good. Well, you tell you.

David Blackmon [00:24:10] That I’ve been of course this, you know, debunking a lot of this is why we do what we do. Right. Do you think you feel like we’re starting to actually get some traction and people starting, you know, helping people understand the connection between what their governments are doing and all these bad outcomes that are happening? It feels to me like we are.

Irina Slav [00:24:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m very cautious about being optimistic because, you know, the people who watch and who read this are mostly people who think along the same lines as we do, and they tend to see the world in the same way that we do which puts us in an echo chamber and that’s not good, because we need to get the message out there to make people think.

Irina Slav [00:24:59] But I’ve been hearing from some readers that. They are seeing more people begin to question this climate narrative. And there was a recent poll in the U.S. councilmember will do something some institute from Harvard submitted but they rated people’s main concerns. And climate change was not even in the top three or all the top five. It was higher in importance than health care which is weird to me.

David Blackmon [00:25:35] Yeah, it.

Irina Slav [00:25:36] Is, but it was much lower. Yeah, but it was much lower than that. Uh, inflation, for example.

David Blackmon [00:25:43] Yeah, I think that was the Harvard Harris poll. Yeah. Harvard and Harris.

Irina Slav [00:25:48] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Harvard and Harris. Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:25:51] Yeah. And that’s, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s encouraging I mean, I, but I just yeah, I, it’s whether that’s going to lead to, to revive revision in the pursuit of public policy in Washington, you know, is another question.

Irina Slav [00:26:11] Though.

David Blackmon [00:26:12] We can hope I guess I.

Irina Slav [00:26:14] Wonder to.

David Blackmon [00:26:16] You so every everything you write I find myself laughing out loud at some of your progress is so wonderful. You’re very witty and funny and you know, I know you also are a novelist, right? Which you never get to talk about on our podcast.

David Blackmon [00:26:36] But I wonder if. Well, first of all, I want to give you a chance to plug your latest novel, if you would like. But second, I wonder if doing that other kind of writing, that other style of writing, if you think it actually helps enhance the creativity of your energy writing do you see one influencing the other?

Irina Slav [00:27:00] Well, it could be. I haven’t I haven’t really thought about it. But first of all, it helps me detach myself from the energy world. What I. What I do every day. Yeah. Living. And not just for a living, but because I feel I have to do it.

Irina Slav [00:27:18] And that’s I think that’s a good thing because if I keep myself immersed in the energy problems of the world, I will burn out.

David Blackmon [00:27:30] Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:27:31] Or I will just despair at some point and give it up because what’s the point if nothing is changing as fast as it should be changing? But. I don’t know. In the book I’m currently writing, I actually found myself, including some of the things we rebel against on our podcasts and in our writings. I guess it was only a matter of time.

David Blackmon [00:28:00] Yeah,.

Irina Slav [00:28:01] It’s funny because it’s like I write. I write supernatural fiction I write about. Fantastic creatures, which is, again, my way to take a step back from reality and have a break in an impossible world that does not exist, which is so much simpler and easier to navigate than our world because you have superpowers.

David Blackmon [00:28:25] But I thought that’s what the Energy Transition is, Isn’t that what the Energy Transition is going to be? A simpler world where nobody has to worry about anything?

Irina Slav [00:28:32] Yeah, there’s a lot of times in the energy transition where you write about that. Maybe. Maybe I need another kind of fantasy, which makes. Which makes more sense, at least to me. And again, people in my books do what I tell them to do most of the time.

Irina Slav [00:28:53] So maybe there’s some exchange of ideas between the two pages. And it certainly helps me to have the energy to keep writing about the actual problems. And the other thing that fiction writing is helping me with is, you know, plausibility. And because I try to make my books supernatural or not, you know, sociability is important in fiction writing.

David Blackmon [00:29:20] Yeah. Yeah.

Irina Slav [00:29:21] And because I put so much effort into trying to make it plausible, like crime novels, you know, things have to add up. I’m looking for this plausibility and things adding up in the news. I read into the research, I read on energy, and things do not add up. So in this sense, fiction writing has helped me really significantly. I just realized this now when you’re asking this question. So thank you very much.

David Blackmon [00:29:51] I just thought of that question 15 minutes before we started recording.

Irina Slav [00:29:56] This is a great question. Thank you. Thank you as well. I was thinking about myself. But yeah, when you see something that doesn’t make sense, you know, if you are used, if you have trained yourself to look for sense-making for one reason or another, and when you see the absence of sense, you get alerted and you start asking questions, which is how I started this step because I was asking myself so many questions about the transition and things didn’t add up and I still don’t.

David Blackmon [00:30:34] Right. And that’s actually one of the great things about writing it Substack is because it’s more of a free-form thing and I, of course, enjoy, you know, writing it at these publications where you have editorial standards and, you know, you have your lanes, you have to stay in and all that. And that’s fine to have.

David Blackmon [00:30:55] But Substack gives you a freedom that you don’t have at an oilprice.com or, you know, and other media places. And so that’s one of the really good things about it. I’m afraid we are running up against time, which, you know, I got to about a third of the things I wanted to talk about here. So we’ll have to do this again.

Irina Slav [00:31:17] Same thing here.

David Blackmon [00:31:20] But thank you so much. I appreciate your time and, you know, as I tell you guys, you and Armando and Tami, and even with our weekly Energy Transition podcast is my favorite hour of the week, you know, because it’s such a great.

Irina Slav [00:31:37] I love it, too.

David Blackmon [00:31:38] To focus the mind at first.

Irina Slav [00:31:40] Great team.

David Blackmon [00:31:41] Yeah. Yeah. It really has been a lot of fun, you know doing that. Yeah, but I appreciate it I hope you have a great week and you, and we will talk again soon. And with that, I’ll have to close this out Thank you to the Sandstone Group for producing our podcast and to our extraordinary Producer, Eric Parel. I’m David Blackmon signing off.

 

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