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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you,

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Speaker 2: David bloomback with us. David is a commercial farmer, regenerative

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Speaker 2: ag tech consultant, biofuels pioneer, noted author. His book is

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Speaker 2: Alcohol Can Be a Gas, and a global food waste

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Speaker 2: optimization consultant as well. Early in his career, David worked

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Speaker 2: on experimental energy products with NASA as well as Mother

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Speaker 2: Earth News. A successful business leader and entrepreneur, he wrote

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Speaker 2: the Amazon dot com critically acclaimed ag tech bestselling book,

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Speaker 2: As I mentioned, Alcohol Can Be a Gas. David, welcome back,

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Speaker 2: my friend. Have you been well.

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Speaker 3: I've been doing great, George, always great to come on

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Speaker 3: the show with you.

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Speaker 2: What new projects are you undertaking these days?

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Speaker 3: Oh well, there's quite a few really, But you know, methane,

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Speaker 3: which we're going to talk about tonight, is kind of

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Speaker 3: tangential and maybe interesting. But I'm still working, you know,

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Speaker 3: on taking our road back from oil companies and maybe

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Speaker 3: a little more freedom for us on the ground.

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Speaker 2: To lots of things going on these days. I want

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Speaker 2: to talk with you about the push. First of all

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Speaker 2: from the United Nations down the local communities where they're

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Speaker 2: all looking for cleaner electricity, cleaner energy. Is that doable?

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Speaker 3: David, Oh, absolutely, we can make cleaner energy. You know.

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Speaker 3: The stuff we're using now is dinosaur energy from basically

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Speaker 3: corporations that have figured out how to sell something that

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Speaker 3: doesn't last forever and always goes up in price, and

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Speaker 3: we keep buying it. And that's like gasoline or oil products,

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Speaker 3: and of course natural gas, which is also a petroleum product.

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Speaker 2: I've had natural gas in all my electric and gas

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Speaker 2: ranges for years and years and years. In California, they

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Speaker 2: want to reduce it, probably even do away with natural

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Speaker 2: gas and propane.

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Speaker 3: Why, well, some places have already done it. You can't

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Speaker 3: even get a hermit in Berkeley, California to put in

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Speaker 3: a gas line into your house.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 3: So people need to realize the most amazing system we've

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Speaker 3: created in the United States for distributing gas. It comes

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Speaker 3: from some well somewhere in a pipeline and magically comes

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Speaker 3: to your street up into your house and it's right

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Speaker 3: there at your stove. So you know that when you

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Speaker 3: think about the spider web of steel pipes underground everywhere,

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Speaker 3: that's delivering all this gas, why would anyone want to

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Speaker 3: do without it? So think about natural gas is it's

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Speaker 3: like if you think about underground, you know where the

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Speaker 3: oil is and the rock down below, and the natural

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Speaker 3: gas is under pressure with all that rock above, and

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Speaker 3: it's kind of like a soda, you know, and you

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Speaker 3: pop the top, you know, like you drill a well

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Speaker 3: and the gas comes on up. So you know, when

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Speaker 3: you first get the gas, it's full of wall kind

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Speaker 3: of horrible stuff. But they do a pretty good job

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Speaker 3: cleaning up benzene and caluene and xylene and all that

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Speaker 3: stuff you really don't want in the house, and so

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Speaker 3: natural gas gets to you pretty clean. And when you

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Speaker 3: burn it, well, heck, you know. Natural gas is the

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Speaker 3: oil company term for the chemical methane. And we've all

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Speaker 3: kind of heard a methane without knowing what it is.

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Speaker 3: But methane is the simplest of these alkanes, which is

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Speaker 3: a group of chemicals, and it has one carbon and

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Speaker 3: four hydrogens all glued together. When you go ahead and

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Speaker 3: burn the methane like in your natural gas burner on

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Speaker 3: your stove, what's happening is the carbon grabs on to

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Speaker 3: a couple of oxygens and the hydrogen grabs onto some

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Speaker 3: oxygen and you got two different things. Now, so this

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Speaker 3: carbon with the oxygen, well that's carbon dioxide again. What

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Speaker 3: you're breathing out the hs the hydrogens that are sitting

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Speaker 3: on it, they become water. Weaper. If you're way up

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Speaker 3: north and you're cooking in the kitchen for a bunch

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Speaker 3: of friends, you notice the windows always fog up when

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Speaker 3: you have a natural gas stow because the moisture is

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Speaker 3: being released as as it's created when you burn the gas.

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Speaker 3: So it's a pretty harmless fuel, except for the fact

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Speaker 3: that that extra carbon dioxide is controversial nowadays because it

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Speaker 3: comes from underground. It's millions of years old, and now

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Speaker 3: we're releasing it into the air and increasing the amount

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Speaker 3: of carbon dox on our air, which is a whole

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Speaker 3: subject for discussion, David.

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Speaker 2: Most gas furnaces in the North and the Midwest work

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Speaker 2: on natural gas as well. It's today is still the

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Speaker 2: cheapest form of energy, isn't it.

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Speaker 3: Yes, But it's about to start ratcheting up because you know,

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Speaker 3: there's only so much of it in the ground, but

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Speaker 3: there and so that it goes up in price because

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Speaker 3: it's non renewable when it comes from the ground. But methane,

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Speaker 3: I make it right on my farm. I have a

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Speaker 3: one hundred foot long bag I've made out a pool liner,

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Speaker 3: and I put plant matter in from my alcohol plant,

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Speaker 3: the waste products after I've made the alcohol, and it

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Speaker 3: goes in there, and it's underwater in this bag, so

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Speaker 3: it starts rotting without air. And so when things don't

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Speaker 3: have air and they're rotting, instead of giving off other things,

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Speaker 3: they give off methane. So my natural my my methane

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Speaker 3: that I used to power power my still comes from

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Speaker 3: plant waste, you know, weeds, grass, whatever, you know. In

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Speaker 3: my case, apple pulp. You know that I'm making alcohol

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Speaker 3: from well the peels are left over at the end. Well,

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Speaker 3: I felt the methane digester and it powers my still.

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Speaker 3: So I'm not even using the utility company's gas to

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Speaker 3: make my alcol a hall for fuel.

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Speaker 2: Nationwide, do you see a ban of gas stoves coming

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Speaker 2: up or maybe even gas furnaces, Well, you got to.

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Speaker 3: Understand what it's all about, and yes, it's coming. You know.

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Speaker 3: When you see something like this, uh, you got you

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Speaker 3: got to wonder what's behind it, you know, And it's

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Speaker 3: easy to blame the government because they're making the rules.

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Speaker 3: Like here they are talking about basing out natural gas,

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Speaker 3: which is, you know, all said and done, it's a

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Speaker 3: pretty clean fuel. But uh uh so, so who So

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Speaker 3: if we're saying the government is doing it, well, the

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Speaker 3: government doesn't do it on its own. There's a guy

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Speaker 3: up above them with you know, with strings that are

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Speaker 3: making that that government puppet dance and take actions. So

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Speaker 3: who benefits from banning natural gas? Well, you know, we

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Speaker 3: have a limited amount of that right now and it's

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Speaker 3: going to run out. But one thing we have a

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Speaker 3: lot of is coal. You know, we're oil. We might

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Speaker 3: only have a couple of decades left coal. We have

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Speaker 3: two hundred years of coal left at least. Yeah, it

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Speaker 3: could be even more if you go further. But so

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Speaker 3: a lot of our utilities in the United States are

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Speaker 3: coal fired plants, and the whole world is recognized that

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Speaker 3: the pollution from coal burning just is far worse than

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Speaker 3: almost anything else. So what you're seeing is the oil

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Speaker 3: companies hedging their bets knowing that they're not going to

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Speaker 3: be able to keep supplying natural gas. And the way

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Speaker 3: they want to get around that is electrify the country

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Speaker 3: and power it with their coal or nuclear Okay, so

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Speaker 3: here we are talking about two really dangerous energy sources

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Speaker 3: with lots of waste problems. I mean, oh my god,

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Speaker 3: the ash, the toxic ash left over from burning coal

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Speaker 3: is unbelievable. So what we're seeing is the government being

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Speaker 3: manipulated into doing what the fossil fuel industry wants, which

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Speaker 3: is a conversion away from natural gas. Because if we

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Speaker 3: start running out of natural gas from oil wells, well

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Speaker 3: people will start making natural gas. Right now. If you're apartment,

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Speaker 3: USDA will give you a grant to put in a

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Speaker 3: methane gas generator, a thing that makes the natural gas

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Speaker 3: from say you're cow maneuver in a dairy or that

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Speaker 3: kind of thing. It'll digest in the in the underwater,

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Speaker 3: and it gives off lots of natural gas. But that's decentralized.

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Speaker 3: The oil companies don't own that, and that is a problem.

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Speaker 3: So they don't want to see us expand the non

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Speaker 3: petroleum natural gas, which is renewable and it doesn't add

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Speaker 3: any carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

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Speaker 2: Is there anybody or any organization fighting these possible restrictions.

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Speaker 3: I think it's too early to see a big mobilized

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Speaker 3: organized fight over this. You know, people are sensing that

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Speaker 3: there's something wrong, like why is the government doing this?

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Speaker 3: But until they know the bigger picture and the plan

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Speaker 3: to you know, basically run up colon nuclear, you know,

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Speaker 3: it'll get to a point where they'll say, oh, sorry,

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Speaker 3: all that electricity we're having you cook with and heat

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Speaker 3: your house with, well, you know, we don't have enough electricity,

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Speaker 3: you know, and so you know, we're going to have

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Speaker 3: to start using nuclear power plans. So we're going to

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Speaker 3: have to do you know, it's going to give an

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Speaker 3: open door to technologies that really need to go away.

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Speaker 2: Is it a diversion, David.

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Speaker 3: It's it's a diversion from anything that's renewable and decentralized,

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Speaker 3: in other words, something we can do ourselves. You can make.

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Speaker 3: You know, I've seen people use truck tires to uh,

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Speaker 3: not the tire but the inner tubes to make natural

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Speaker 3: gas to you know, to cook their food. You know,

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Speaker 3: you take a big truck tire and you put a

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Speaker 3: bunch of you know, plant matter in it and fill

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Speaker 3: it with water, and you know you have if you

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Speaker 3: have a you know, right from where the air hose

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Speaker 3: used to be, that can be put a valve on

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Speaker 3: that and it comes right up to your stove and

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Speaker 3: there you go. You're running on your own natural gas.

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Speaker 3: So methane is is a good thing if it's made

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Speaker 3: from plant matter, and it's really negative if it's made underground.

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Speaker 3: So where does methane come from? Well, methane in the

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Speaker 3: atmosphere comes. The two top sources are drilling for oil.

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Speaker 3: When they hit the deposit, there's enormous amounts of natural

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Speaker 3: gas just going up into the air. And then the

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Speaker 3: ongoing operation of an oil well is the second biggest

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Speaker 3: source of methane in the air. But number three is

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Speaker 3: a big surprise, which is the landfills all that organic

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Speaker 3: matter that.

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Speaker 2: We How do you capture it.

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Speaker 3: Though, Well, they do that right now all over the country.

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Speaker 3: They sink pipes into the they cover the top with

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Speaker 3: a rubber membrane, and then they sink pipes into it

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Speaker 3: and it pumps out all kinds of ethics. I remember

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Speaker 3: when they built in the Bay area here the shoreline

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Speaker 3: amphitheater on the site of an old dump, you know,

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Speaker 3: and they were at the first concerts that were you know,

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Speaker 3: playing there. It's a huge, huge, grassy, you know, mound

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Speaker 3: that used to be the landfill, and people would light

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Speaker 3: up a joint and all of a sudden there be

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Speaker 3: a JETI flame cover you know. So, yeah, nature makes methane,

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Speaker 3: but when it makes it from plants, it doesn't get

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Speaker 3: into the whole argument about are we having global warming

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Speaker 3: or not because of too much carbon dioxide. But methane

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Speaker 3: in the air eighty times more potent in creating global

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Speaker 3: warming than carbon dioxide.

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Speaker 2: So you're saying that's a bad idea.

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Speaker 3: Oh, we don't want methane in the air, not at all,

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Speaker 3: you know. And so the oil companies are the biggest

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Speaker 3: and they're they're not even being fined for that yet,

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Speaker 3: and you know the harmous worldwide problem.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast a m every weeknight

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