Daily Energy Standup Episode #259 – Geothermal Breakthrough, Alberta’s Power Struggles, and China’s Energy Surge

Chinese authorities have been keen to avoid a repeat of last year’s power shortages. Generally, China is certain that its winter power supply is guaranteed, but shortages could occur in the Yunnan province and Inner […]

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Intro
02:31 – A New Type of Geothermal Power Plant Just Made the Internet a Little Greener
04:18 – David Staples: Danielle Smith conjures up a new A-bomb to drop on Trudeau’s meddling in Alberta power grid
06:25 – The Green Energy Wall Gradually Coming Into Focus
07:59 – Lower CO2 emissions are partially due to shifts in power generation sources
09:50 – China Boosts Coal and Gas Consumption as Power Demand Nears Record High
11:31 – Markets Update
12:59 – Outro

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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Michael Tanner: [00:00:15] What is going on, everybody? Welcome to another edition of the Daily Energy News Beat Stand up here on this gorgeous November 29th, 2023. As always, I’m your humble correspondent, Michael Turner, coming from an undisclosed location here in Dallas, Texas, joined by the executive producer of the show, the purveyor of the show, and the director and publisher of the world’s greatest website, Energy News Beat.com. Stuart Turley, my man, how are we doing today? [00:00:39][23.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:00:39] It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. And holy smokes, Batman Red Hood Day. [00:00:42][3.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:00:43] Absolutely great to be back. We’re back in full force today. Absolutely insane. Menu lined up. First up, a new type of geothermal power plant just made the Internet a little bit greener. Al Gore is smiling ear to ear. Next up, David Staples. This is an opinion piece. Quote, Daniel Smith conjures up a new A-bomb to drop on Trudeau’s meddling in the Alberta power grid. Hoo hoo, A little north of the border, eh? So we’ll figure out what’s going on up there in Canada. Next up, EPA, energy wall gradually coming into focus. Next up, lower CO2 emissions are partially due to shifts in power generation sources. That’s courtesy of our favorite friends, the IAEA. And then finally, China boosts coal and gas consumption as power demand nears record high. May coal great again Stew. China loves it. He’ll then toss it over to me. I’ll quickly cover what happened in oil and gas finance. And we’ve got crude oil inventories that drop, which will forecast what the EIA might say here today at ten and then we’ll let you get on out of here, get back to work and finish up your day. Before we do all that, guys, remember all the news and analysis you are about to hear is brought to you by the world’s greatest web site. www.EnergyNewsBeat.com the best place for all of your energy news during the team. Stu do fantastic job of making sure that website stays up to speed with everything you need to know to be the tip of the spear. When it comes to the energy business, you can hit the description below. See all the timestamped links to the articles. You can email the show [email protected]. You can go ahead and check out Dashboard.EnergyNewsBeat.com That’s our data news combo product. Subscribe to us, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts at Energy News beat on YouTube. That’s about it, though. Stu, I’m going to let you hand it over to you. Where do you want to begin? [00:02:28][105.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:02:28] Hey, let’s start with a new type of geothermal power plant. Just made the Internet a little greener. Michael This is huge. I love geothermal. Geothermal is fantastic. This one, Michael, is in the Nevada Desert Project Red, developed by a geothermal startup called Furbo. I have reached out to the CEO, see if we can get him on the podcast in. Michael They operate Google servers. This is really cool. The first project read though Michael is only 2 to 3MW. Two and three. Excuse me. So that’d be five or enough power to do a thousand homes. However, a thousand homes, a lot of servers to start with. Hot rock everywhere. I absolutely love it. [00:03:18][49.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:18] No, I mean, this is you know, this falls in line with Exxon’s announcement that they’re going to start drilling for lithium. I think this is a while. It’s not quite the same industry. I think what you’re seeing is a shift away and a small dip of the toe into an alternative type of energy that seems to be sustainable. Again, geothermal seems to be a more sustainable option relative to other stuff. We love this. We love a little light making the Internet greener, so we got to love it. [00:03:45][26.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:45] We love that, especially for the Bitcoin miners that I’ve interviewed over the past. Love me some bitcoin when they use natural gas, trap natural gas and make money for the energy providers. Well, love me some bitcoin. All right. Now, the NPR operators, Michael, this is 7000ft down. They know how to drill holes. And that’s exactly what you got to have for geothermal. So let’s go to our buddies up in the Canada just we finished up Heidi and Terry again, two really classy Canadians up there. Daniel Smith conjures up a new A-bomb to drop on Trudeau’s meddling in Alberta power grid. You know, their president or Prime Minister Trudeau is absolutely a moron. I’d like to see our moron play ping pong with their moron and I’ll raise you a moron. This is absolutely despicable. And the A-bomb is Alberta Crown Corporation. Electricity generation represents Alberta arming up to reverse the broken federal provincial power dynamic. Here’s the problem, Michael. They are going to go challenge a 15 year earlier previously agreed upon by the crown and this is private industry could do this with natural gas, but they want to go ahead and change the entire baseload. For Alberta, a renewable renewable does not work in the cold. I’m sorry. This is absolutely nuts. [00:05:23][97.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:24] It’s exactly what I was going to say. Imagine all those batteries seizing up in the freezing, frigid winter. [00:05:28][4.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:05:29] Oh, that’s like me on a pile of cash when my batteries run out of ice hardware recorder. Hold that thought, Mr. CEO. This is. As Schmidt described it, the new Crown Corporation will be similar to escort owned by the city of Edmonton or in Macs, owned by the city of Calgary. Quote, We want the private sector to step in with new natural gas generation, with nuclear, new nuclear generation. But if they don’t, we need to step in. We’re sending a message to the market. This is a reluctant entry. It would be a generator of last resort. The government’s forcing them to go to renewable. [00:06:10][41.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:06:11] Yeah, it’s absolutely insane. I don’t get it. It’s going to backfire and bite them in the bootie soon. Trust me. [00:06:17][6.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:18] Oh, yeah? He said booty. Okay. Okay. Here we go. Let’s go to the next round here. The green energy wall gradually coming into focus. This one is important, Michael. I’ve been talking about this for a few few times in the opinion piece, and I liked it because it had a hair in here. The Euro news today had some quotes from the manifesto of the Freedom Party. The manifesto declares, we quote, We have been made to fear climate change for decades. We must stop being afraid. Side note Bill Gates has already said that the climate change is always changing first century. The document goes on to say, When conditions change, we adapt. We do this through sensible water management, raising dikes when necessary and by making room for the river. But we stop the hysterical reduction of CO2 with as much as a small country. We can wrongly think we can save the climate. I agree with that 100%. One small company or country is not going to change China after they put in. They have 400 coal plants in in already permitted. Oh, yeah, right. [00:07:35][77.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:07:36] I mean, there it is. We’re about to cover here. And two stories. They are absolutely embracing coal. So, no, if you’re going to start the energy transition has to start with China. And if it doesn’t, you’re deluding yourself on the planet. [00:07:47][11.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:07:47] Oh, absolutely. And so everything we’re doing for paying the wind farm and the solar are giving to China so they can pay to put in their their coal plants. I don’t get it. Okay. Let’s go to the next one. Lower CO2 emissions are partly due to shifts in power generation sources. Michael, this is from our buddy over there at the e i a. Okay. Here is where the EIA last year said their same article they did last year. Let’s go through the numbers here in just a second. But last year, Michael, this article was titled The only reason we lowered our CO2 was because of the natural gas plants that were put in to retire the coal. What is this like our favorite Monty Python skit that you and I are going to do at the sandstone Christmas party here? I’m not quite dead yet. Not quite. Not quite yet. Or Miracle Max. Mostly dead. Okay. We forecast the US energy to emit 4790 metric tons of CO2 in 2023, a 3% decrease from 2022 electrical generation from coal fired plants. Much of this decline. I think it’s pretty funny. [00:09:07][80.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:08] Yeah. I mean, the fact that the EIA can’t come out and directly say that the reason why we have lowered emissions is because we switched from coal to natural gas shows you that they’re being a political organization flat out, flat out. [00:09:19][10.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:19] And then when you have the allegations of them fudging the numbers to make the Biden administration look better, whether or not that’s a conspiracy theory or not, I find it funny that their servers are down for a month at a time, right before an election. Too. Good. Hey, maybe Dominion should have their servers. What do you think? [00:09:41][21.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:43] Oh, let the courts decide what’s next. [00:09:45][1.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:46] Let’s go to China. We’re going to flap our wings all the way around to China now. Okay. China boost coal and gas consumption as power demands record high. Chinese authority been keeping avoid last year’s power shortages. I applaud China for one reason. They’re taking care of their citizens first, not like the U.S., where we’re like third rate. We’re like going, hey, what’s going on? China is trying to get all. A power they can to their citizens and elevating as many people out of poverty as that they can. They have, as we talked about 440GW this winter is coming up on its peak demand. It’s rising by 12.1%. That’s a lot gigawatts that it’s rising, dude. Yeah. [00:10:39][52.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:10:39] And every little lie. Know. So that’s why John Kerry should stop flying on his private jet. [00:10:44][4.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:10:44] Oh, the other article here on News B this week was a hoot. It was. There’s two of them that were out there. Amazon, Bezos. His one yacht is putting out more than I believe it was 47,000 people, something like that on their homes. You got to be kidding me. One guy, one yacht, the other article was 1%. The 1% is emitting more CO2 than 60% of the rest of the world. [00:11:14][29.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:14] We talked about that on the show yesterday in our little solo show. So we’re very familiar with that one. [00:11:18][4.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:19] Okay. I didn’t listen to you as I normally don’t listen to you. I treat you like a wife. I do not listen to you. Okay. With that, I’m done. I’ve been ranting. It has been a wonderful day today. [00:11:32][13.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:33] Yeah. Super quick here. We’ll go ahead and and pop over and cover a little bit about the oil and gas finance overall markets. S&P 500 only up a 10th of a percentage point. Nasdaq up 3/10 of a percentage point. Oil trading 7659. That’s actually up about two and a half percentage point or excuse me, about a percent and a half relative to the opening trades a little bit below 75. Main reason prices jumping mainly on the possibility that on Thursday with this online OPEC meeting that was pushed off from last week could result in more cuts. We did see a slight drop in crude oil in forecasted crude oil inventories, but 800,000 barrels, that’s via the API. As you listen to this today, the EIA will drop their numbers and either confirm or deny that. You know, I think the big thing is there was a storm that that actually caused some some some Kurdish oil output to drop. So that actually helped boost prices up a little bit. And that largest is the Kazakh oilfield, down 56% due to storms. And it really is everything that moved prices today, hours about all. We also saw in the oil and gas side, we saw bay techs up in Canada divest of some Viking assets located in Forgan and Plato. That’s in southern Saskatchewan. It’s a ten one effective date for about 153 million. This brings them even more into the the U.S. oil market as they have made up recently, made a large purchase in the Permian Basin. So they are or excuse me, in the Eagle Ford. So they’re looking to diversify. But that’s really all I’ve got to do is pretty quiet for the oil and gas today. What should people be worried about? [00:13:00][87.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:13:00] Well, cops come in around the corner and I’m still working on the like, live events. You know, they you want to me to go there. And I said, no, I’m sorry. Just like I don’t listen to you as a as my work wife. But we’re cop 28 is going to be a hoot. Did the oil and gas guys are showing up? Yeah, you got to believe that now. It’s okay. [00:13:22][22.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:23] Absolutely. So. Well, good. We look forward to Cop 28 and all of the analysis. But with that, guys, we’ll go ahead. Let’s get out of here. Get back to work. Finish up or start your day. We appreciate you guys for checking this out for Stuart Turley on Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow. [00:13:23][0.0][775.7]