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The Dark Realities of Wind Energy

The world is finding out about the “Dark Realities of Wind Energy.” We are now receiving reports, and the truth is coming to light. You will not want to miss the Energy Realities podcast episode with David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, Irina Slav, and Stu Turley. We are live on LinkedIn, X, and YouTube on Monday morning at 8:00 Central U.S. time. We have a great time answering comments and questions from the live viewers each week.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:01 – Introductions

02:00 – Irina Slav on Grid Instability

06:49 – Tammy Nemeth on UK Wind Strategy

10:00 – LNG Contracts & Europe’s Shift

12:25 – Chinese Involvement & Grid Security

15:54 – Europe’s Nuclear Power Plants Are Being Sidelined by Green Power Surge

19:09 – Offshore Wind in the U.S. Halted

24:25 – Wildlife Harm from Wind Turbines

27:26 – Morocco-UK Energy Cable Critique

30:46 – Wind Turbines & Local Climate Impact

35:27 – U.S. Wind Turbine Reclamation Crisis

40:05 – Carbon Offsets as Future Wind Revenue

44:28 – ASK YOUURSELF! – Can Canada Endure, or Afford, Carney’s Costly Climate Vision That Risks Another “Lost Liberal Decade” of Economic Stagnation? – Tammy Nemeth and Ron Wallace

46:02 – Chasing the wind: The value of wind generation in a low-emission nuclear and hydro-dominant grid – the case of Ontario

47:56 – Interior Announces Eleventh National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program

48:37 – Trump Officials Weigh Earth Day Move Against Green Groups

51:14 – Europe’s power firms lift emissions as clean output falls

57:25 – To Be or Not to Be – Russian LNG Revisited

59:15 – Clean Energy Projects in the United States have been lost in the wind to the tune of $8 Billion – But how much cheaper will our electricity?

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

The Dark Realities of Wind Energy

Stuart Turley [00:00:11] Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to Energy Realities Podcast. It is Monday morning. That means we’ve got a fun energy topic going on today. And today we are going to be talking about the dark realities of energy, wind energy. And I have the Irina Slav out of Bulgaria. And I mean, not just the Irina Slav, but the one and only with the Irina Slav. How are you today?

Irina Slav [00:00:42] I’m great Stu, thank you. It’s a lovely spring day.

Stuart Turley [00:00:46] Oh, now how’s your garden going? Is it really going out there?

Irina Slav [00:00:50] Oh yeah, yeah, now that the weather has warmed, you know, everything is growing. Mostly weeds, but my vegetables too.

Stuart Turley [00:01:00] You know, mowed weeds look great.

David Blackmon [00:01:06] The next day though they look terrible

Stuart Turley [00:01:09] And joining us today, as always, is David Blackmon. He is a legend in my mind, because I copy most of his work. How are you today, David?

David Blackmon [00:01:20] Oh, I am just happy as a clam to be here, folks. Just really happy. Are you related to Eeyore? No, I’m happy. I’m just telling you, right? Beautiful day in Texas. I’m thrilled to be anywhere actually.

Stuart Turley [00:01:35] Well our topic today is about wind and I mean we’ve got some stories lined up and everything else around here. I’ll tell you I’m a little bit surprised about some of the changes that are going on around the world as we sit here and try to and we got some great stories that we’re going to talk about here in a little. Irina found some great stories out there as well but Irina what are some of your thoughts on the wind in the grid?

Irina Slav [00:02:08] The wind turbines make the grid less stable and I’m sure this comes as shocking news to everyone who’s watching, but I think reality as we have hopped on again and again and again for years, reality is seeping in and it gives me pleasure to see the wind power industry in trouble. And I’m not ashamed of it because it was bound to happen this way. They were bound to start asking for more money because, you know, things change. Interest rates don’t stay the same. There are things like tariff wars going on. And these are all unforeseen circumstances. But there are also very much foreseen circumstances, such as, you know, building a lot of wind turbines in. A limited space out in the ocean for example or the Baltic Sea and new guys coming with that turbines finding out that the old guys turbines are you know reducing their wind literally and they’re complaining about it or was it the old guy’s complaining about the new guys I don’t know but they are you they’re having trouble between themselves because of too many turbines being built in the same place. There’s just not enough wind for everyone because the wind turbines kill wind speeds downstream, as it were. And that was perfectly foreseeable. You know, but nobody foresaw it, because who cares when the government gives you money, whether you generate any electricity or not. In fact, they pay you to generate electricity and then they pay to not generate electricity when you’re generating too much. I mean, it was the perfect scheme, but even that is not good enough for them. So they need more money. It’s a fascinating world, wind energy.

Stuart Turley [00:04:19] Well, you know, Bulgaria just now has one oil field out there that they’re really excited about. That’s pretty cool that you now are going to be diversified in oil. I’m kidding.

Irina Slav [00:04:31] It’s not oil, it’s gas, and it’s two fields that they’re exploring, but we’ll wait and see. I do have hopes, and I just saw the news that the Turkish state energy company wants in on one of these fields. I’m not sure I’m happy about it, but it neighbors their own field, which is Rather prolific they believe I’d rather have another company than a Turkish one, but you know, it’s business.

David Blackmon [00:05:06] Turkey at least does have a long and productive history related to oil and gas going all the way back to the late 19th century. They do have some expertise in the area. It is not the best government to be dealing with.

Irina Slav [00:05:24] We have bad history with them. It’s not unheard of for them to try and be territorial to other people’s territories. Just to put it really delicately. But we’ll see how it goes. Hi Tammy

Tammy Nemeth [00:05:45] Hi there, sorry guys.

Stuart Turley [00:05:49] And we also have joining us is Tammy Nemeth. I mean, she is a rock star across the pond and either Canada or the UK and I’m assuming you’re in the UK today.

Tammy Nemeth [00:06:03] I’m in the UK, yep, thank you for asking.

Stuart Turley [00:06:08] Hey, I just want to give you a shout out. I’ve enjoyed some of your podcasts and other interviews and stuff. You’re rocking it out there.

Tammy Nemeth [00:06:14] Thanks so much. It’s a lot of work to do the podcast, as you all know, and I try to do at least once a month.

Stuart Turley [00:06:25] Well, cool. And so as we get ready for talking about wind energy, you know, I always love that Bruce Willis line, skies blues, waters wet, wind blows, and you know wind blows. But boy, it sure sucks a lot of that profit out of the grid and goes into other areas. Tammy, what do you got? What are your thoughts on wind right now?

Tammy Nemeth [00:06:49] Well, I mean, there was an article out of Oil Price the past couple days, Felicity Bradstock, I think it was, who wrote about the UK doubling down on wind energy, where they’re going to like quadruple or some ridiculous number, the number of offshore wind turbines, and have this huge undersea cable that will power the UK and they have to work on some back up and whatnot, but it, you know. It’s like we’ve been talking about with respect to Germany. So Germany’s in a huge world of hurt. Everything’s expensive. The UK has the highest industrial electricity prices in the world, and yet they’re gonna double down on what has not been working with the hope that, oh, it’ll work this time. Maybe Germany just didn’t do it right, but the UK will do it correctly. And they’re going to be diverting all kinds of investment money And you know, all it will do is increase the cost to consumer, whether it’s industry or just regular residential consumers. And you know I look right now at our electricity prices and they’re insane and they keep telling us it’s all because of the war in Ukraine and natural gas prices are high. And then when you look at the data, it’s just not true. So you know they just keep repeating that lie over and over again. They don’t care what the data is. And as the article says, they’re doubling down on it. Now, what that means within the larger transition with respect to what the United States is doing, what Europe is doing. The UK wants to enter the European emissions trading system. They’re going to bring in a carbon border adjustment mechanism beginning next year. So they’re going to be doing all of these different things that is They’re hoping we’ll improve the UK economy, but they’re gonna be a global leader on clean energy. But what that will mean in terms of the economy, I think is that it’s just going to be in deindustrialized decline.

Stuart Turley [00:08:59] I think the UK, the European Union move to arc steel mills is absolutely horrific. And you brought up a super point last week when we talked about that they can only look at recycled steel or not creating holy smokes that you can’t build ships that way unless you tear apart the dark link.

Tammy Nemeth [00:09:32] Well, okay.

Stuart Turley [00:09:35] There’s, yeah, there’s Steve Reese. Uh, Germany is turning our way. They’ve signed a three MTPA takeoff of LNG contracts with German and Polish end users. We’ve met with 80 German CEOs and a hundred percent what you LNG Germany white waking up. They really do. Uh, they are.

David Blackmon [00:10:02] Yeah, it’s not like you have a choice, yeah.

Irina Slav [00:10:03] They don’t really have a choice, that’s great of course for exporters, good job, but they really don’t have a choose.

Stuart Turley [00:10:13] I had a great interview. I’m doing a little advertisement here for Steve Reese since I had a great interview with him last week.

David Blackmon [00:10:20] Captcha.

Stuart Turley [00:10:21] Oh, I’ll get I know he signed mine so I can’t give you this one

Irina Slav [00:10:26] But I have a question. Are these long-term deals? Because this is important. If they’re really waking up, they will be signing long- term deals. Are they?

David Blackmon [00:10:38] Which they’ve been reluctant to do so far.

Irina Slav [00:10:40] Exactly, if he is, this will be a really good sign.

Stuart Turley [00:10:44] One of the things I have to admit about Steve is that a he knows what he’s talking about and B He’s much better looking than I am. So but the important thing is is that Steve his company has they have audited a Huge significant chunk of the natural gas in the United States As far as in the pipelines and then he working with data centers and all of those kind of things Oh, look at this. He’s 10 to 20 years. Well, that’s.

Tammy Nemeth [00:11:16] Dude, this is waking up!

Stuart Turley [00:11:19] Isn’t that great?

Tammy Nemeth [00:11:20] Okay, let me add to that. So the EU is currently, honestly, I don’t know how, if these long-term contracts are worth the paper they’re written on, because the EU was now looking at ways to circumvent the long- term contracts they have with Russia. And they’re looking at Yeah, but so right now the rhetoric is that America is bad. So five years from now, when they decide America is the enemy now, then suddenly those contracts don’t mean anything. So I mean, the EU has not been a good contractual partner They were guzzumping others, so Pakistan had long-term contracts with Qatar. EU came in and said, well, we’ll offer you more money. So Qatar broke those contracts so that they would supply the EU. So like I said, five years from now, when America is the new enemy and, you know, displacing Russia, then, you know, what what value will these long term contracts have? So,

Irina Slav [00:12:25] But we’re totally off. Wind cores but uh can they afford to say the US is the enemy or do they believe that all these wind turbines and solar panels they build will you know will will take care of that But yeah, I’ve not been reliable

Tammy Nemeth [00:12:43] Right. Honestly, I think with the wind and solar, they’re going around cutting deals with China. I mean, we had the UK go over there, and now they’re gonna be rolling out solar panels on every school. And every hospital and whatever in the NHS, all the buildings in the National Health Service, and those solar panels I don’t think are going to be built in the UK. They’re going to be coming from China. The wind turbines, where are they coming from? Miliband and I think it was Rachel Reeves, who’s the financial chancellor, were making all these tours to China cutting deals, and they haven’t disclosed what’s in those deals. They haven’t disclosed precisely what it is that they’ve done. So, you know, they can talk about natural gas right now because they do need it in order for rearmament, but, you And as a backup to wind and solar, but I really think they’re really pushing for the whole wind-solar-battery thing to be the driver for re-arming economy and so on.

David Blackmon [00:13:50] Right.

Irina Slav [00:13:53] So this means that… The Danish wind power leaders are dead if Europe and the UK are going to buy their wind turbines from China what’s going to happen to Vestas in Olstead?

Tammy Nemeth [00:14:06] I don’t know

David Blackmon [00:14:08] They’re going to need more subsidies.

Tammy Nemeth [00:14:10] Yeah, we need more subsidies to compete.

David Blackmon [00:14:13] I mean, if it’s horse debts involved, they’re going to need more subsidy.

Stuart Turley [00:14:17] Can I throw an ugly baby on this doorstep and this ugly baby on the doorstep is that Biden administration allowed back into the United States grid 482 major grid interconnects that can be remotely controlled by China. What about the grid operation on a wind turbine manufactured by China? Why do you think a hallway should not be allowed in your grid? Why do these turbines that can be remotely shut down, you would be held hostage.

Irina Slav [00:14:58] Can they, do we know that they can be remotely shut down by the magnifier?

Stuart Turley [00:15:03] Exactly. Just thought I’d point that ugly baby out.

Irina Slav [00:15:07] This sounds strange to me, sorry for playing the skeptic, but it sounds strange.

Stuart Turley [00:15:13] Um, so anyway, that’s always a good, nice kind of a thing. I we’re seeing a, a unbelievable wind thing. And, and I, I’m going to go out of turn a little bit here. Cause I think this topic or this story from Irina, let me add to the stage here. I arena’s story from Bloomberg, if my mouse will cooperate.

Irina Slav [00:15:37] It’s Bloomberg’s story, not my story.

David Blackmon [00:15:39] Bloomberg’s story

Stuart Turley [00:15:44] Yeah, let me get to your stories here. Sorry, I’m having a mouse panic attack here. This story I thought was very Europe’s nuclear power plants are being sidelined by green power surge. You want to go over this Bloomberg story?

Irina Slav [00:16:04] Oh, yes, of course. Well, basically, there’s so much wind and solar, especially solar on the grid now and spring is here with lots more sun than winter and then summer is coming with even more sun and the grid is going to be overwhelmed by by solar generation. But since the sun doesn’t shine 24 seven the nuclear power plant fleet will need to, you know, close the gap. But the problem is that the variability of solar power supply is very sudden, as one EDF executive explains in the story. And this means a lot of work and urgent work for nuclear power plant operators. And it also means that it will be really challenging for them to carry out things like scheduled maintenance. Example, because they have to respond to these peaks and troughs in solar power generation. And it sounds really horrible. And what is the French government going to do about it? Throw some money at nuclear power plant operators so they can manage better because they will be losing money when electricity prices because of surplus solar generation go below zero. So, they create the problem, they fund it. And then they fund what they see as a solution. And they’re going to pay utility-scale solar generators to not generate when there’s not enough demand. They’re going pay everyone for something that they created as a problem. I can’t get over this. I know it’s happening. It has been happening for at least a year. But they keep doing the same thing.

Stuart Turley [00:18:00] I don’t get it. France was the leader with 54, I think, ballpark reactors. Of their 54 nuclear reactors, they let their maintenance go away. We’ve talked about this before. And so they were only operating at 25% for quite a while because of their maintenance problems. And so the green renewable wind energy thinks they look good, But what do they actually sound like or look like? Um, I’ve got a video of what the wind energy thinks it looks like versus what it might actually look like David, what do you think should we play that now? Go for it Sorry, it’s reality versus what actually happens is sometimes what we’re gonna find out. I hope I didn’t offend anybody.

David Blackmon [00:19:09] Yes. It’s like Bob Dylan wrote the answer. My friend is blowing in the wind, but it’s not. It’s not, it’s really not in the United States. I think Freddie Mercury really got it right when he said, any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me. And that’s where we are in the United States, I think, after Doug Bergen issued his hot barter to Equinor on the Power Wind project, you talk about the high rates that have to be paid to these wind projects. The average per kilowatt hour rate paid by New Yorkers is about $36. Empire Wind’s contract agreement with the state of New York comes to $154 per kilowatth hour, okay? And that’s what they have to have. And they actually, Empire Wind doesn’t believe that’s high enough. Well, Doug Burgum and the Department of Interior decided based on input from the Commerce Secretary that the environmental impact statements that have been created by the NMFS, National Marine Fisheries Service, were not adequate as required under NEPA. And Doug Burgum has halted all work so that they can redo the environmental impact study, which may take a year or more to do. And I suspect that means this project’s dead because, you know, I mean, these wind operators offshore in the United States have all claimed that they’re barely able to make a profit even at these exorbitant rates they’re being guaranteed by these states. And all the subsidies they got from the Biden administration, those subsidies are going away. Now they’re gonna have to comply with the same regulations the oil and gas industry’s been complying with in the US offshore for decades. Suddenly they’re actually gonna be applied now to the big wind industry. And I suspect every project in federal waters in the North Atlantic that’s under construction today will end up going away as a result because they can’t comply. Those requirements, as we’ve seen evidence by the carcasses of upwards of a hundred wells now, washing up on the shores of New Jersey and New York and Massachusetts over the past two years since those projects began to be constructed. We’re rushed into construction by the Biden administration. This is one of the great atrocities in the history of the United state’s energy business, and this administration, I suspect, is going to expose it. And cut it off. Now there are some projects in state waters that the governors have control of out there and that I don’t think the federal government’s going to be able to shut down so they’ll probably go forward anyway. I think some of them are already producing a little bit but in the federal waters I don t believe we’re going to have any kind of offshore wind So that’s a wonderful news, bit of news for the United States. And then we have, what was the other story, big story last week, I’ve forgotten. It’s terrible being old.

Irina Slav [00:22:38] David, may I ask you a question about wind, now that the federal government is clearly not in favor of wind power at all costs. Have you noticed any signs of wildlife conservationists starting to speak up more freely about the damage to wildlife that wind turbines do?

David Blackmon [00:23:00] No, they’re all outraged at the government for interceding in the construction of the project.

Irina Slav [00:23:05] But there were people, actual conservationists, who drew public attention to the fact that turbines were killing bats and eagles and other birds.

David Blackmon [00:23:14] Well, yes, but not the big groups. Yes, local conservationists who are real, who are really concerned about endangered species and the whales and the fishing industry and all that. Yes. Those have been speaking out and all along in opposition to these things, but the national organizations like the Sierra Club, PETA, you know, all these high billion dollar groups that claim to be hiders for animal rights.

Irina Slav [00:23:44] I love the club, yeah, they should love so.

David Blackmon [00:23:48] So there are good people in the environmental movement. It’s just not any of the ones you hear about on the national news.

Irina Slav [00:23:55] No, they don’t have the same network. More loudly, you know, they might get more time in the spotlights, as it were.

Tammy Nemeth [00:24:04] Well, the problem is that the mainstream environmental movement would see anyone speaking out against like raising concerns about wind and solar as being those who are trying to slow it down. Yeah. And they have a certain word for that. I can’t remember what it is, but oh, you’re a delay or denier and something else.

Irina Slav [00:24:25] It’s a delayer.

David Blackmon [00:24:28] So the other story I wanted to refer to is these two new studies that have been published this year went onshore. Wind industry is decimating the population of golden eagles. Population of golden Eagles in the United States has fallen from 80,000, uh, about 15, 20 years ago to now around 32,000. It’s, it’s teetering on the precipice of being a threatened species under the endangered species act. And a lot of those deaths are due to the continued construction of these massive wind towers in known golden eagle habitat areas and migration corridors. And it’s not just golden eagles, of course, it’s bald eagles. It’s all manner of migratory bird species that are being decimated by these wind projects. It’s a really bad problem along the Texas Gulf Coast since they covered West Texas in these wind projects and now they’ve over the past five or six years, built a bunch down at South Texas. And that’s one of the most prolific migratory bird corridors in the world. Billions and billions of birds use that corridor every year for migrations between central and South America and Canada. And, uh, they, they cite these things where they know these species proliferate. Because that’s where the wind blows. So it may not matter to us, but it matters to the birds and the bats and the insects and the whales where these things are sited. And I think at least in the United States, it’s going to go away or it’s gonna be heavily restricted. But as y’all mentioned, in the UK, they’re tripling down on failure with the wind industry. At least the Germans are waking up, which is. Probably good news for the whole continent, actually. If Germany’s finally waking up, that probably means the whole continent is gonna wake up on this stuff. So I hate the wind industry. I really do. I won’t pretend otherwise. I feel a lot less passionate about solar for a lot of reasons, but I’m really glad to see the wind industry about to go away. And I think it can’t happen soon enough.

Stuart Turley [00:26:55] Let me throw this out here. The doctor may find his doctor and I really apologize for butchering your name, sir. Dr. Singh, I’m going to go there. Yes. Yes, thank you. Xlinks planning to generate wind, solar, invest in Morocco and put it into the UK grid through sea cables. The amount of energy loss through grid interconnects is substantial.

David Blackmon [00:27:26] That’s the most air-brain thing ever.

Stuart Turley [00:27:29] I don’t understand energy security starts at home. And it really is kind of like, you know, when you go to church and you hear great singing, the person standing next to you think they’re really sounding great, but they don’t sound very good at all, but yet you can’t laugh because you’re in church. Well, imagine if you are the wind energy and all of a sudden you have some kind of You think you sound great. I’ve got an example of what the wind industry thinks they sound like. They think they sound good.

David Blackmon [00:28:27] I want to teach my cat to do that.

Irina Slav [00:28:30] Yeah, good luck.

David Blackmon [00:28:32] So on the undersea line thing, I just got to say. So in Texas, I always refer to Texas because I’m creepy that way, but we got all those wind farms down south Texas and a lot of the energy they’re generating now comes up to the Dallas-Fort Worth area because that’s where the big market center is, that Houston. Well the line loss just in those 300 miles between those south Texas projects. And the Dallas Fort Worth area is 15 to 20% line loss. Okay. What’s it gonna be on a thousand mile line? I don’t know how far it is from Morocco to the UK, but it’s gotta be a thousand miles, right? Maybe I’m overestimating, but let’s say it’s a thousand. You’re gonna lose half that energy doing that. It’s insane. And what does that mean? It’s gonna be incredibly expensive energy because of the line loss

Irina Slav [00:29:28] That’s okay. Don’t blame natural gas prices.

David Blackmon [00:29:31] Yes, of course,

Irina Slav [00:29:33] Regardless of the actual natural gas price.

Stuart Turley [00:29:35] And all you need is the USS Mino, a Ukrainian CEO or a Chinese tanker throwing an anchor out and dragging against the pipeline.

Tammy Nemeth [00:29:46] So in the one of the complaints by x-links is that the UK government is dragging its feet on approving this deal. And right now it’s in its pre-examination stage. I don’t know how long that it’ll take for them to actually make a decision. I suspect with this government, it’ll be sooner rather than later. But for all the talk about energy security and we have to have offshore wind because, oh, my gosh, we don’t want to be subject to the other countries controlling the oil market or the natural gas market. But you’re going to get your electricity from Morocco. Like, how does that make any energy security sense, where you’re now dependent on a North African country, you want to have interconnects from France, from Denmark, from Norway, from Finland, wherever, all these different interconnects, which then means the UK is dependent on all of these other countries for their electricity. And if the whole, Under net zero if everything’s electric then now you’re subject to the vagaries of these different jurisdictions. That is not sound energy security policy. So I think it’s absurd to do that. Never mind the fact that it’s going to be destroying the natural environment of Morocco to install all these wind turbines and solar panels. And if they do. If they do the wind turbines, I’ve been doing research into the climate and environmental effects of wind power, because I wanted to know what have been the studies on this kind of thing, and what have they been saying. And it actually turns out that wind turbines in already dry regions dry the soil out even more, down to like quite a significant depth of soil. So it bothers me when jurisdictions like Texas, like Saskatchewan, like Alberta, which are dry, arid, semi-arid areas are installing more and more wind turbines and then wonder why there is an increase of drought. And why is it being so bad? Well, because in these micro climates, in the regions, it’s actually drying out the soil. It heats the air. So they’re complaining that with climate change, the nighttime air is getting warmer. Well, you know, with all these wind turbines, that’s one of the profound effects, is that it increases the temperature at night by about one degree, one degree Celsius. So we’re supposed to reduce climate change by one point, you know, keep it to 1.5, but you’re increasing the nighttime air temperature with wind turbines by at least one degree, depending on your jurisdiction. So, I mean, it makes no sense to be investing in these kinds of things if you’re worried about climate change, because they’re affecting the air currents, the temperature, the soil. The wildlife, you know, with the birds and the bats and the whales and everything else, so.

Stuart Turley [00:33:01] Great point.

Tammy Nemeth [00:33:04] So,.

David Blackmon [00:33:05] I just, I, I need. I just did a little Googling. Uh, it is 1,638 miles from Morocco to the UK in a straight line. So it’ll be 2000 mile long cable by the time you get out and do the Y 80 path, you’re going to have to do in the ocean, how much line loss you’re gonna have even with high voltage, direct current to control the line.

Irina Slav [00:33:32] And they’re going to change weather patterns, because this last point from Jason Rondeau, there was research from a couple of scientists a couple years ago, precisely about utility scale solar in the Sahara Desert, which is the grand idea, you know, in North Africa, the Sahar desert is so big, we can just cover it with solar panels. No, we cannot. Precisely because it’s so big. If you cover it with solar panels, you will change the weather patterns all over the world.

David Blackmon [00:34:06] But the good news is that NOAA and the Met Climate Office will put numerous temperature stations there so that they can claim it’s the hottest month ever.

Irina Slav [00:34:21] And that’s not because of the solar panels, it’s because of climate change.

Stuart Turley [00:34:25] And then they manipulate the data. Let me throw this number out here, because this is very important. Tammy and you guys have all brought up some fantastic points. But as the subsidies, because in the United States, I’ve been trying to get the numbers. And four years is the average lifespan of a wind turbine before they start trying to upgrade the nameplate through subsidies. Because they’re not going to last 20 to 30 years. They’re going to last four. And so now that those subsidies are drying up, we’re gonna see another pattern start to emerge. And that is, I’m seeing those as I drive between houses in West Texas, a lot of wind turbines that are just frozen up and looking pretty hideous. They look kind of like Nancy Pelosi, out in the middle of the desert, frozen up like they’ve been. And they’ve got no maintenance going on. We have said, did I just say that on live?

David Blackmon [00:35:27] Pelosi’s eyebrows, is that what you’re

Stuart Turley [00:35:29] Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:29] At live.

Stuart Turley [00:35:30] But it’s 75,633 wind turbines on the United States ballpark grid that I can figure out and in order to do reclamation on those wind turbines it’s going to be 350,000 to 925,000 ballpark dollars in order just to get them taken down and hauled off to either recycle the steel and then put the blades in a boneyard and you ought to see some of the boneyards pictures that are out there. This is a global problem and I’m going to pose this out to the team. When you lose the subsidies of the tax credits around the world because I think this may catch on that fiscal responsibility may be coming in line with a bunch of things. How is this to impact the land reclamation because Warren Buffett in a Daily Caller article in 2014 said, I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate, Buffett told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit. We build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense Otherwise I’ve been hammered for saying this exact thing, but because he’s

Stuart Turley [00:36:57] He can get away with it. He’s much better looking. But when you sit back and kind of go, what is this going to be? We got wind subsidies, tax credits, are they going away? But the land reclamation, when the wind industry has been asked about the land reclamation. They said, We don’t wanna put that in it.

David Blackmon [00:37:20] That’s why there are no regulations, that’s why they fight so hard to prevent there being any regulations requiring this.

Tammy Nemeth [00:37:28] Well, let me add to what Stu, or answer what Stu was putting forward there. I think the only jurisdiction that is actually removing the subsidies and tax credits is the United States. Everywhere else still has them. And from what I’ve heard in different conferences, watching what China is saying, what Europe is saying and whatnot, what the UK is saying is that with the carbon border adjustment mechanism, with the mandatory transition planning. That companies will have to demonstrate in order to get financing, in order get investors or even banking. They will have to prove that they’re reducing their emissions. And one part of that is to purchase offsets from a company that’s like a wind company or a solar company. And so you get these other companies that have emissions, maybe they’re hard to abate or whatever, then they’re going to have to purchase these offsets from these wind companies. And that’s what allows them to stay in operation because they have to show I’m purchasing so-and-so credits from this great renewable company. And that counts on their on their paper, their transition plan, that the banks are looking at, that the investors are looking. So even if in the United States if the subsidies are removed or the tax credits are removed, there’s this other option there that companies will need to be purchasing. And I would just point out that the Securities and Exchange Commission last week has given approval for a new exchange that’s specific for sustainable companies. And when you hear what these large asset managers are talking about, they want to be able to shift their money. They want to shift it from so-called polluting, high-emitting companies to these other ones. And now there’s going to be an exchange specifically for those companies. And if you get the UK, the EU, China’s bringing in mandatory disclosure, if you get all of these countries that say you must report and that information will go to the UN’s Net Zero Data Public Utility, where that information is available for everybody, then that money will move. And it’ll move to these jurisdictions and these companies that have so-called renewable. They won’t need the tax credits anymore because the money’s going to go there. I don’t know how that’ll work for pension funds that require return on investment because there’s no guarantee these will actually. Have a return on investment.

Irina Slav [00:40:05] They will still not make money. If they could make money, they would be making some, but they will not be making money. Sure, wind power operators may start asking about more subsidies so frequently when trade with carbon offsets picks up, but it will not enough to make the whole industry profitable, because at one point there will be too much supply. It might exceed demand. I don’t see this, I have no idea how these people, these big asset managers, how they imagine this could actually work in real life. But when it’s the only game in town, right? When you phase out the- They will still be playing that game and they will all want to make profit. Yeah. And they won’t be able to.

David Blackmon [00:41:07] Christopher Messina says Green Impact Exchange Piffle. I’ve seen it, been in the exchange business for 30 years, seen at least 20 just like this since 99. None of them exist anymore. Nonsense, Green Grift. It’s certainly Green Grif, yes.

Tammy Nemeth [00:41:22] Yeah, well, I mean, we’ll see what happens with it. I hope he’s right in it and it dissolves or whatever, but I think it’s dangerous because there’s all these pension plans that have committed. They have transition plans. They said they’re going to get to net zero by 2050. That means there’s certain obligations that their shareholders will hold them to to meet those transition plans, which means they want to have the to be able to move the money to that that’s in alignment with their transition plan and unfortunately I think this stock this new exchange is one way to do that but so is the climate disclosures and the and the transition plans for all the companies that they want to bring forward to me this is just a sort of global Chinese social credit system that’s being put together, and the Western countries are acquiescing. Well, I don’t know. From the United States perspective, I think so. I just don’t with respect to what the EU wants to do and if they’re actually going to fall apart or if they are going to keep driving this forward.

Stuart Turley [00:42:34] I’m trying to open the comments here. I’m sorry, I’m just saying we’re getting a lot of great comments, so go ahead.

Irina Slav [00:42:44] Well, there are those saying that ESG investors should go into oil and gas, so, you know… To face them out. The narrative… To face the mouth. Maybe or maybe because they’re making money, you know, I think the narrative is not as monolithic as it was just a couple of years ago with all these turns, U-turns that Big Oil is making. I think there’s a certain fragmentation, at least in the narrative going on. And now the EU is thinking about relaxing its methane rules for US LNG. So, you know, nothing that sounds like it’s set in stone is actually set in stone, regardless of how much its architects want it to be set in because… Because they won’t. Yeah, we’ll see what happens. Oh, this is great. This is the greatest quote of the week.

Tammy Nemeth [00:43:42] Yeah, I agree.

Stuart Turley [00:43:43] I’m sorry I had to put this in. David Turner writes, now it’s been confirmed that a bloke and address with a gender recognition certificate is not a woman. Can we agree that a wind turbine with a renewables obligation certificate is NOT a dispatchable power station? I’m, I really, that was fabulous, sorry.

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:07] Yes thanks for highlighting no irena had put that she’s like i forget what you said on your sub stack note when you when you saw that, that you gas.

Stuart Turley [00:44:19] Sorry, Tammy. I’m trying to get to your stories here. There you go. You had some great stories this week.

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:25] So I wrote an op-ed with Ron Wallace, who is a former board member of the National Energy Board before it got dismantled by the Trudeau government. And they created some new impact assessment Canadian energy regulator that is. Not so good, but he and I wrote an article about the carbon border adjustment mechanism because this idea is being floated by Canada, by Mark Carney of course, that this is something Canada needs to do to be in alignment with the EU and to increase our trade and so on. We published this on Energy Now. It’s a great online news source for all things related to energy. But I wanted to just point out one aspect of it, and that is people think that a carbon border adjustment mechanism is really simple. You pay a carbon tax and we pay a carbon tax, and whatever the difference is, that will be the equivalent of the tariff. But it isn’t. It’s like this whole regulatory structure that gets established where you have to have. Carbon emissions accounting, third party verification. It then needs to get verified by the EU in order to get this certificate. And then after that, they’ll make a calculation. So you have to set in place all this bureaucracy before you figure out how much tax you got to pay. I mean, it’s ridiculous. And then the second one would be, this energy regulation quarterly had a brilliant piece called Chasing the Wind, the value of wind generation in a low emission nuclear and hydro-dominant grid, the case of Ontario. Ontario has been subsidizing its wind power for a long time. They have to pay the United States to take the excess energy quite often. And so a regression analysis was done in order to see what the cost benefit of the wind power is on the grid. And it actually is a cost of negative $127 per megawatt hour. So when you do a cost benefit analysis, it’s in the negative. It’s a significant cost. And so I highly recommend this article for just laying out a proper cost benefit analysis and then projecting forward for the up until 2030, what the likelihood is of cost benefit and it’s a significant cost, so.

Stuart Turley [00:47:04] Wow, That’s cool.

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:05] Yeah, thank you.

Stuart Turley [00:47:07] Um, yeah, I was working on cost benefit analysis and how much it costs the wind and solar on the United States grid. And I came up with 44.1% if we saved if we nevermind. Okay, that they’re just kidding. And your Substack is

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:24] Yeah, TheNemethReport.substack.com. I had a podcast interview with Brendan Long, and he wrote this great book called Energy Shock. So yeah, that’s my substack.

Stuart Turley [00:47:38] All right, let’s go to who’s next on the block here. And I have got to get a new mouse.

David Blackmon [00:47:50] Oh, that’s me. Uh, so, so uh, the first one is the department of interior restarting the offshore leasing plan for oil and gas that the Biden administration had illegally suspended for four years under all sorts of different false pretenses. Uh, we’re going back to regular order now going to do a new five year plan that’s going to. You know, involve a lot of new lease sales, uh, in, in the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America, excuse me, Atlantic Pacific, Alaska. Um, and you know, it, it just is, it’s essentially return to normal order. Although the news media will portray it as some radical new idea. Uh, on the other one, tomorrow is Earth Day everybody. It’s Earth Day and the Trump officials apparently. Have been considering and have been developing an executive order for the president to sign that would result, revoke, excuse me, the tax exempt status of an array of major, quote, green groups like the Sierra Club, like the NRDC, like the World Wildlife Federation, like the Wild Earth Guardians and all these. Supposed nonprofits who have been making enormous profits and paying their executives exorbitant salaries just like every other apparently left-wing 501c3 group in America these days. So I don’t know if that’s actually going to happen or not, but wouldn’t it be glorious if it did. So, and let me just say that the reason there, if you’re a 501C3. You are supposedly not to engage in political advocacy, right? Every one of these groups is strictly a Democrat subsidy group. Everybody knows it. It’s a Democrat party front group and everyone knows it and it’s time for all of them to have their taxes exempt status revoked and start paying taxes on all those billions of dollars that they’re raking in. So I sincerely hope the Trump administration is going to do that. Have to wait and see.

Tammy Nemeth [00:50:13] That will be fascinating if they do that, because I just think of the revolving door between NRDC and Sierra Club and the EPA. I mean, it was sickening.

Stuart Turley [00:50:27] go? Where did Jennifer Granholm go? That will tell you something.

David Blackmon [00:50:34] I have no idea. She’s probably sitting on several boards, making breaking in big bucks. I would imagine

Stuart Turley [00:50:44] be interesting. And David, you’ve got some great Substacks.

David Blackmon [00:50:51] Well, it’s Blackmon.substack.com. Come see me. We try to write about it every day. I took yesterday off because it was Easter.

Stuart Turley [00:51:03] And, Irina, we talked about one of yours that I love, the Bloomberg story. That was a good one.

Irina Slav [00:51:11] Yeah, the Reuter story is also excellent. Yes, Europe’s power firms lift emissions as clean output falls. Who knew this would happen when it’s cloudy and windless? I don’t even know what to say because the headline says it all. Because during the first months of the year, it was winter, you know, and the wind wasn’t blowing very much and there was no sun to power the panels. Europe was forced to use its gas and coal power plants. If you have nuclear, you have a nuclear, but overall emissions actually rose, which proves pretty conclusively to me that the number of wind and solar installations you build has no bearing on your energy security because of seasonal factors such as amount of sunshine and amount of wind. And the argument that many people transition advocates put forward that if we build more wind turbines and more solar installations they will produce more even in unfavorable weather periods and this will help boost overall electricity output. Clearly this is not the case and emissions will rise regardless of the number of these installations. Which brings me to the comment of Dr. Singh who asked do we have any alternative to wind PV and battery storage? Yes we have. Coal, gas, nuclear and oil for the cars. But assuming you believe that we are facing an existential crisis of a changing climate, because climate used to be fixed and changing 150 years ago, then we are dead. Because these alternatives are non-viable, they depend on the oil and gas industry, and they’re not a solution to this imaginary problem. Assuming this problem is not imaginary. So it’s just that.

David Blackmon [00:53:16] Isn’t that the real alternative?

Irina Slav [00:53:18] Call and wait for all of us to die.

David Blackmon [00:53:22] Isn’t that the real alternative to stop obsessing about the amount of plat food in the atmosphere? It’s the basis for all life on planet Earth. It’s not a pollutant. Stop it.

Irina Slav [00:53:37] And it’s not changing the climate. The sun is changing the climate as more and more people are starting to, you know, to say because they got brave by what Trump is doing, apparently. At least I don’t have any other explanation. I think Trump and his really vocal opposition to the whole transition business has indeed involved a lot of researchers to speak up, to speak out. And I think this is very good news. They were starting to speak. Or Trump.

David Blackmon [00:54:09] The other thing that’s going to embolden them is the fact that the money flow is going to shift, right? The federal government is not going to only be paying. Right. I mean…

Irina Slav [00:54:20] Yeah, that’s not really a good thing. I don’t want somebody to be saying we have no problems whatsoever because they’re being paid to say that.

Tammy Nemeth [00:54:30] To say that, yeah, exactly,.

David Blackmon [00:54:32] I agree. No, but what I’m saying is we’ve had this incentive in place for every climate science person who calls himself a climate science to intentionally rig their studies to show climate change so that they can get a federal subsidy for it, federal grant, that’s all change.

Tammy Nemeth [00:54:51] I think that’s part of it, it’s more complex than that. I think Roger Pilcher Jr. Has spoken quite strongly about the sort of caretaker effect of journals. And I mean, if you’re a research scientist and you wanna get published, publication is how you get promotion. And if you can’t get published because you’re not speaking to the right ideology, not saying the right things about climate. You’re gonna say the right things about climate to get published, unfortunately. So I don’t know how that changes. Yeah, okay, maybe the money’s not there, but I don’ know what stops those gatekeepers.

David Blackmon [00:55:31] Well, I don’t, I don’t know that either. All I’m saying is you’re going to have competition now because you’re gonna, it’s not going to be a single qualification to get a grant like it has been for 25 years.

Tammy Nemeth [00:55:45] Yeah, and I mean, we should all want accurate science, accurate studies that are ethical, prove to me that the wind turbines aren’t drying the soil, aren’t changing the weather patterns, aren’t change local and regional climates. And okay, then we can have a conversation. But, you know, those things need to be taken into account when we’re considering any of these things, because it’s about trade-offs. You know, Dr. Singh asks, are there alternatives? And Irina gave it a brilliant answer, but because it is about trade-offs. Do we want human prosperity and flourishing, or do we want suffering and all of these other things? And I agree with Alex Epstein, when he says that hydrocarbons make us safe from climate. Climate’s changing, it will always change. There’s not much, we affect things, maybe not in the way that we But in order to weather those changes, you need to be strong and resilient and hydrocarbons at the moment allow us to do that. So does nuclear. So, you know, we should be investing in the things that allow us to be resilient and to adapt. And I see less on adaptation and more on just changing things, which isn’t, I don’t think it’s a good priority.

Irina Slav [00:57:11] Totally agree. Yeah, that’s my stuff.

Stuart Turley [00:57:18] I love your Substrack, by the way, I’ll listen to you, I can, so it’s kind of cool. And then to be or not to be Russian LNG revisited. This was actually from Cyrus Brooks, who I’ve interviewed on the podcast several times and his dad from our RB AC. I did not have this on my bingo card that there is discussions about having the United States be an intermediary. To manage the Russian natural gas pipeline into the EU. I did not have that on my mango card. But think about it. They don’t trust Russia, but they might trust the US. I don’t think it’s going to happen. But when President Trump asked our secretary, right, would you mind managing a Russian nuclear plant in Ukraine? He said, sure, boss. I don’ mind. Hey, if he can if he says I Chris Wright can manage it. I bet he could So that is that and.

Irina Slav [00:58:20] Some questions.

Stuart Turley [00:58:22] Do what?

Irina Slav [00:58:23] The Russians will not think about this.

Stuart Turley [00:58:27] Yeah, I don’t know I I know the President Trump does not have the information he needs in order to make a deal Secretary Rubio basically said we’re gonna give him a few days and either we’re out or we’re in and do a peace deal.

Irina Slav [00:58:44] Yeah, maybe in a few days or no longer than that.

Stuart Turley [00:58:47] Exactly. His team does not have the deal. I’ve been saying this for months. All Putin has to do is nothing. And why would he want to help the EU when the EU has been breaching all of the deals with Gorbachev and Reagan? So I don’t know. The other story was more on the online topic. Clean energy projects in the United States have been lost in the wind to the tune of $8 billion. But how much cheaper will our electricity be? I kind of enjoyed writing that one. That was a lot of fun. You got some great feedback on that. And you can find me on the Energy News Beat. Dot substack.com or on energy newsbeat.co or energy news beat.com. And we have had a hour long discussion here today, gang. This was absolutely a lot of fun. And I want to thank all of the great comments out there from Christopher, Joanna, Josanna, Kendra, and Uh, we had all the doctora Same thing. Yes, absolutely. We had some great comments. Steve Reese. Again, thank you all. Let’s go around the last word, Irina.

Irina Slav [01:00:11] I think we said everything on the topic. Wind is not good for the planet or for people or for wildlife. I’m especially touching on this subject, so yeah, wind must go.

Stuart Turley [01:00:26] So Bruce Willis was right, wind blows, water’s wet, sky’s blue.

Irina Slav [01:00:32] Bruce Willis is always right.

Stuart Turley [01:00:36] Until then, we’ll see you guys next week.

Tammy Nemeth [01:00:38] Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Bye

Irina Slav [01:00:40] Have a Great week.Bye bye

Stuart Turley [01:00:43] Okay, bye guys.