Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio, and.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to George nor with you, Steve Gorham with us.
Speaker 2: We'll take calls with Steve next hour here, Steve, what
Speaker 2: is a green breakdown that you talk about in your work?
Speaker 3: Yeah, green breakdown is the world is pushing for a
Speaker 3: thing called net zero energy right now, and that basically
Speaker 3: means and they want this to be done by twenty
Speaker 3: fifty by the way, I should say, the wealthy nations
Speaker 3: of the world, the United States, Europe, Canada, New Zealand,
Speaker 3: Australia and some others. They want to get rid of
Speaker 3: all coal, oil and natural gas, substitute wind, solar and
Speaker 3: biofuels and whatever they can't change. They want to capture
Speaker 3: carbon dioxide emissions from the hydrocarbon fuels that we're using.
Speaker 3: But this is really beyond. This is beyond a reachout goal.
Speaker 3: This is an impossibility. It's not practical, It just isn't
Speaker 3: going to happen, and we're already starting to see it
Speaker 3: break down. I do, George, I do want to go
Speaker 3: on and talk about the looming electric power shortage, though
Speaker 3: I think this might be the biggest topic this evening,
Speaker 3: we have electric power shortage coming in the United States.
Speaker 3: Can we go into that, sure, So a little bit
Speaker 3: of background first is last year the US got about
Speaker 3: a fifty nine percent of our electricity from natural gas,
Speaker 3: that was a forty three percent, and then coal sixteen percent,
Speaker 3: so just about sixty percent of our power from natural
Speaker 3: gas and coal, which the green movement, of course wants
Speaker 3: to eliminate as part of net zero, they want to
Speaker 3: shut all those down. Now, for the last two decades,
Speaker 3: our electricity demand has been flat in the United States,
Speaker 3: just about four point one million gigwat hours. And during
Speaker 3: that time we have shuttered about two hundred coal plants.
Speaker 3: We've replaced it mostly with natural gas and some wind
Speaker 3: and solar. But now all of a sudden, we have
Speaker 3: big new demand drivers for electrical power in the US,
Speaker 3: and we talked about one of those earlier. One is
Speaker 3: forced a switch to electric vehicles that's in process both
Speaker 3: at states and from the EPA. The second is a
Speaker 3: push for use of electricians appliances in home in homes
Speaker 3: and efforts to get rid of natural gas and propane.
Speaker 3: Cities and counties in six or seven states now have
Speaker 3: banned the use of natural gas, and new construction. The
Speaker 3: biggest one is the state of New York, which has
Speaker 3: a statewide banned by twenty twenty six for new.
Speaker 2: Construction, even for heating the house.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is heating, this is water heaters, this is stoves. Now,
Speaker 3: this can be very big. In New England, for example,
Speaker 3: they're estimating that if everybody shifts to electric appliances from
Speaker 3: gas this election, it'd be a bigger amount of electricity
Speaker 3: needed than a shift from gasoline cars to electric vehicles.
Speaker 3: The third big driver is something most people haven't heard about,
Speaker 3: but the federal government wants to create a green hydrogen
Speaker 3: fuel industry and they want to use that for chemicals
Speaker 3: and use green hydrogen to power chemicals and steel and
Speaker 3: other things. But the way you get green hydrogen is
Speaker 3: use wind and solar and you break apart use electricity
Speaker 3: to break apart water molecules, and you capture the hydrogen.
Speaker 3: This is very, very electricity intensive. So we got these
Speaker 3: three big green drivers. But the biggest of all is
Speaker 3: a new demand for artificial intelligence. And this looks like
Speaker 3: it's going to be huge, and it just happened about
Speaker 3: a year and a half ago. We had Chad GPT
Speaker 3: come out with their AI program about eighteen months ago.
Speaker 3: The thing is and this would be used in data centers.
Speaker 3: So today in the United States and today we have
Speaker 3: these big data centers that are mostly in use by
Speaker 3: people like Microsoft and Amazon and Meta. They use four
Speaker 3: percent of the US electricity today and that's used for
Speaker 3: cloud storage and for the Internet.
Speaker 2: It doesn't sell a lot, but it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't sell much. But all these folks now want to
Speaker 3: upgrade these data centers to run artificial intelligence, and to
Speaker 3: do that they're putting in high speed processing cards and
Speaker 3: they're running this generational AI to make them think like
Speaker 3: humans these machines and when they do it, they run
Speaker 3: these routines for weeks and weeks on end, twenty four
Speaker 3: hours a day. Now when you upgrade a data center
Speaker 3: with these new cards, and by the way, these come
Speaker 3: from Nvidia mostly, and you know, in Vidia just became
Speaker 3: the biggest company in the world in terms of value
Speaker 3: selling these cards. When you upgrade a data center, u
Speaker 3: six to ten times more electricity than you did when
Speaker 3: it wasn't an AI data center. And so it's projected
Speaker 3: that the data center consumption is going to rise from
Speaker 3: four percent to twenty percent of power demand within ten
Speaker 3: years huge?
Speaker 2: Can we service that?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: It's just I don't think the Biden administration really knows
Speaker 3: about this. But you listen to these grid operators. Here's one.
Speaker 3: Jason Shaw, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission, stated, quote,
Speaker 3: when you look at the numbers, that is staggering. It
Speaker 3: makes you scratch your head and wonder how we ended
Speaker 3: up in this situation. How are the projections that far off?
Speaker 3: He means projections for electricity demand. This has created a
Speaker 3: challenge that we've never seen before. In Virginia. Virginia has
Speaker 3: the most data centers in the country. They have let's see,
Speaker 3: what is the number, four hundred and sixty seven of
Speaker 3: them near Washington, DC. And these things are huge. They're
Speaker 3: five and six acres these data centers. And the big
Speaker 3: companies went to the utilities in Virginia said we need
Speaker 3: two gigawatts of additional power. That's like two nuclear plants
Speaker 3: in Texas. They were forecasting they would need eighty five
Speaker 3: gigawatts by the year twenty thirty. They just update up up,
Speaker 3: They just doubled that to one hundred and fifty gigawatts.
Speaker 3: But they don't know where they're going to get the power.
Speaker 3: And so this is going to be this is this
Speaker 3: is impacting power all over the nation.
Speaker 2: And then what happens when the solar flare takes out
Speaker 2: the grid, Well.
Speaker 3: That's another thing too, if there's some sabotage. Another example
Speaker 3: is Amazon. Amazon just purchased a data center a next
Speaker 3: to on a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania so they could
Speaker 3: get enough power for artificial intelligence. So we have all
Speaker 3: these these big guys going out here and saying we
Speaker 3: need a lot more power. They can build these data
Speaker 3: centers about six months, but you can't build nuclear plants
Speaker 3: and gas plants and wind and all these things. You
Speaker 3: can't build them, and it takes it's a years and years.
Speaker 3: And so this is going to have a tremendous impact
Speaker 3: on our electrical grid and all of our consumers. So
Speaker 3: let you get a question in here if you want
Speaker 3: that's story. I want to talk about the impacts.
Speaker 2: That's scary stuff, Steve. We can't afford to do this.
Speaker 3: Well, so here are the impacts. The first thing that's
Speaker 3: going to happen is that fifty nine percent of power,
Speaker 3: the coal and gas plants that the green movement wants
Speaker 3: to retire. That's not going to happen. And already they're
Speaker 3: extending the power plants. The Diablo Cannon nuclear plant in
Speaker 3: California is being extended to twenty thirty was going to
Speaker 3: shut down next year. They are restoring a nuclear plant
Speaker 3: in Virginia, I'm sorry, in Michigan called Palisades that went
Speaker 3: off in twenty twenty two. They are putting that back
Speaker 3: on with a billion and a half dollars of federal money.
Speaker 3: Utah is extending coal plants to twenty forty they were
Speaker 3: going to shut down. So the first thing is that
Speaker 3: the green movement's going to be screaming because we're not
Speaker 3: able to shut down these colon gas plants. And then
Speaker 3: the second thing is that everybody's electricity prices are going
Speaker 3: to go up if you're a consumer, because these big
Speaker 3: guys like Amazon and Microsoft, they're probably going to get
Speaker 3: those contracts, but everybody else, we're going to have a shortage.
Speaker 3: Rates are going to go up.
Speaker 1: Now, this is going to.
Speaker 3: Affect charging stations who are struggling to break even with evs.
Speaker 3: It's going to be very hard for heat pumps to
Speaker 3: be cost effective versus gas in a house just going
Speaker 3: to have a big, big impact. And this just clobbered
Speaker 3: me about a month or two ago. And most of
Speaker 3: the world doesn't really understand this. But if your listeners
Speaker 3: will look at at you'll see start seeing a lot
Speaker 3: of articles that say AI is going to interrupt the
Speaker 3: green revolution. And that's exactly what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: And let me ask you this. The World Health Organization
Speaker 2: has proposed a global ban on eating meat and dairy products. Yeah,
Speaker 2: why and what is what is that going to do?
Speaker 3: Well? They want to do this because of global warming.
Speaker 3: This isn't a health issue, you know they so they're
Speaker 3: getting into the global warming business. So I said, okay,
Speaker 3: So you might say, okay, Well they say, by twenty
Speaker 3: fifty this is a worldwide band on meat and dairy. No,
Speaker 3: not twenty fifty, how about twenty forty. No, they said,
Speaker 3: if you can believe it, next.
Speaker 2: Year, not going to happen.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty five. They want a global ban on meat
Speaker 3: and dairy I'm not sure what planet these folks live on,
Speaker 3: but every nation in the world, the meat consumption has
Speaker 3: been rising for the last sixty years, except with the
Speaker 3: exception of India. Of Brazil, meat consumptions up by a
Speaker 3: factor of four, Japan by a factor of five, and
Speaker 3: the average person in China is eating sixteen times more
Speaker 3: meat meat they were in the nineteen sixties. You know,
Speaker 3: this just isn't going to happen.
Speaker 2: What are they concerned about methane gas from the animals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's another one. Methane is a is a greenhouse gas.
Speaker 3: And we have about a billion cattle on the planet,
Speaker 3: about a billion and a half. And when those cattle graze,
Speaker 3: then they emit methane from the nose end and the
Speaker 3: tail end. So that is a factor as well. And
Speaker 3: so we have all we have states in federal government
Speaker 3: passing methane laws to try and cut down from first
Speaker 3: the oil and gas industry, but eventually agriculture. But you know,
Speaker 3: we could go into a bunch of science. But the
Speaker 3: short thing is that methane is a good absorber of
Speaker 3: infrared radiation the greenhouse effect in the lab, but not
Speaker 3: in the atmosphere because methane is already saturated in the atmosphere.
Speaker 3: I like to say it's like painting. Does anybody in
Speaker 3: the audience paint their house room in their house ten times?
Speaker 3: Nobody does, because after two coats of paint, you can't
Speaker 3: see any difference. So the good news is we have
Speaker 3: methane already sat rate in the atmosphere, so if we
Speaker 3: had some more, it's really not going to have any
Speaker 3: any measurable effect.
Speaker 2: Steve, Why is this issue overall so polarizing?
Speaker 3: It really is astonishing, isn't it. The world is spending
Speaker 3: There was an estimate just came out sey Is that
Speaker 3: said in twenty twenty three, the world spent almost two
Speaker 3: trillion dollars to try and promote renewables. And we have
Speaker 3: all these other problems to solve. But the fear, the
Speaker 3: fear of man made global warming is powerful. And you know,
Speaker 3: people are talking about not having children, about not eating meat.
Speaker 3: There was even a recent article of study in Canada
Speaker 3: that said it was getting too hot in Canada for
Speaker 3: kids to get exercise. You know what about Las Vegas
Speaker 3: or Atlanta or Miami. I mean it was a goofy study.
Speaker 3: But the fear man made warming is powerful, and it
Speaker 3: has the world doing all kinds of crazy things.
Speaker 2: These electric vehicle pushes, the driverless cars, driverless trucks, are
Speaker 2: they going to happen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned trucks. Now, trucks is another big thing
Speaker 3: that is really crazy. California pass an Advanced Clean Fleets
Speaker 3: regulation as the first of this year that says, all
Speaker 3: new heavy trucks, these aren't little trucks. All new heavy
Speaker 3: trucks must be zero missions vehicles that are registered with
Speaker 3: the state. These are big fleets, These are government vehicles.
Speaker 3: These are drayage trucks that take freight from ports to railheads.
Speaker 3: But nobody can do this. I mean, we don't have
Speaker 3: charging for these things. These trucks cost two to three
Speaker 3: times more. They get very poor range, about three hundred
Speaker 3: miles versus a diesel truck that gets fifteen hundred miles.
Speaker 3: One truck or one truck. Fleet guy said, we were
Speaker 3: going to need twice as many electric trucks on the
Speaker 3: road as diesel trucks if we shift to this. So
Speaker 3: how is that environmentally friendly? Double the number of heavy trucks.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is another thing that isn't going to happen,
Speaker 3: and it's it's one of the first areas that's going
Speaker 3: to break down as part of the green breakdown.
Speaker 2: Rail trains run on what kind of fuel?
Speaker 3: In the US, it's mostly diesel for freight. In Europe
Speaker 3: they have a lot of electric trains, even for freight.
Speaker 3: We have some passenger trains that are electric in the US,
Speaker 3: but it's mostly diesel. But that's another area of push.
Speaker 3: California is doing the same thing. They want to convert
Speaker 3: all railroads to electric railroads. And they can be pretty
Speaker 3: good products electric railroads, but you know, you have to
Speaker 3: convert all the tracks, you have to have all the rails,
Speaker 3: either overhead or in the rails. It's very expensive and
Speaker 3: we require billions and billions and billions of dollars to
Speaker 3: do that sort of conversion. It's no and it isn't Again,
Speaker 3: it isn't going to have any effect on global temperatures,
Speaker 3: which are dominated by nature, not man made emissions. Despite
Speaker 3: the push to do this.
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit about the green breakdown. How
Speaker 2: realistic is that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's already happening. In Europe, for example, we
Speaker 3: see some pushback. Netherlands, which had a push to eliminate
Speaker 3: all gas by twenty fifty in homes. That was the
Speaker 3: government directive. Amsterdam declared itself a gas free city. It
Speaker 3: was going to be a gas free city. Well they
Speaker 3: have they have just backed down on that. They said
Speaker 3: we're not going to do that. Anymore. Gas is used
Speaker 3: in over ninety percent of the homes in Netherlands and
Speaker 3: to make everybody switch would just cost a huge amount
Speaker 3: of cost to everybody. There's also a push now to
Speaker 3: eliminate the mandate for one hundred percent electric vehicles by
Speaker 3: twenty thirty five, which has been a European community mandate.
Speaker 3: But the new elections with the new conservative folks that
Speaker 3: have been elected, are now pushing back to change and
Speaker 3: stop that. So that's part of the green breakdown we see.
Speaker 3: But the people are not going to put up with
Speaker 3: higher energy prices, are not going to put up with
Speaker 3: electricity blackouts and the loss of freedom for choosing your
Speaker 3: car or your appliances. They're going to demand a return
Speaker 3: to low cost, reliable energy and I think we're seeing
Speaker 3: that breakdown coming to four already.
Speaker 2: And convenience, Steve, Convenience is important.
Speaker 3: And convenience right, I don't want to spend that much
Speaker 3: time with my car. Let me tell you. I want
Speaker 3: to be able to get gas in five minutes and
Speaker 3: not have to be searching for a charging station and
Speaker 3: all the rest.
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