12-4-25 - 10am - Demand for Energy

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Michael, speaking of kale, My dad, when he owned
a restaurant when I was a child, would take kale
and put it on the plate, as Dragon said, is
a garnish. And then when you were done with it,
instead of just throwing it away, he would run it
through the dishwasher and use it again. So anyway, kale
is very resilient. Thanks, enjoy your.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Kale, and people eat that crap. So I have to confess.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Then, when I first I thought, oh, Kathleen's listening, because
Kathleen sent me an email the other day and said
a former listener, because you know, she has to work
because Caldera is a slave driver. But so I'm thinking Kathleen,
and I'm not really yet tuned into what she's saying.
And all I hear is speaking of tail when you
talked about tale, and then Dragon's something about you know,

(00:55):
tale is just a garnish. But I'm like, what, Oh,
Kale Kale, David Kale, that's what they're talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
David kill. I like David Kle.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Just because I mentioned his names, that means I don't
like him. I just mentioned David Kale. That's all I'm
saying talking about Kale, I think about David.

Speaker 4 (01:13):
Kale knowing you and who you are. You know, you
name drop somebody like that. You know, it's the possibility
that you don't.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well, I just saw the newsrooms out there listening, and
so I'm trying to butter up the newsroom, you know,
like I'm really listening to you know, since we since
we made fun of the news story earlier about color
ranks as one of the third best states in the country.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
To drive in, we didn't make fun of that the talkback.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
Did I fullyheartedly trust Chad Bauer and his research and
finding out that information, then yeah, I believe it.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Well, I believe that Chad told us the truth about
what he read. I'm just saying that whoever did that
study has never driven in Colorado.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
I'm just waiting for the insurance rates to drop, because
were the state drivers, we should plummet.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Absolutely absolutely, and and of course you know they will,
of course of course they will. All Right, here we go,
we're talking about how the Church of the climate activists
is kind of dying on the vine. And while the
whole push for all of this electrification and trying to

(02:19):
go to wind and solar, green energy, all the greeny
weenie crap is beginning to go away. In Colorado, we
still have a bunch of dumbass Democrats and a governor
who are still pushing this nefarious and outdated and quite
frankly stupid agenda. And the PUC has decided kind of

(02:43):
on their own that they want to increase the electrification
target and increase the reduction in emissions beyond the statutory amount.
And I emphasize statutory amount because that's what the yahoos
in the Colorado Pollet Bureau. I don't know if I've

(03:04):
used the word Colorado Pollet Bureau since moving over to
K zero A, but now that I'm on KOA, you
need to understand that the Colorado Pullet Bureau is the
Colorado legislature, but I think they're a pollt bureau. So
the Polet Bureau established a target of twenty two percent
reduction by twenty thirty. The PUC decides on their own

(03:27):
that they want to change that to a forty one
percent reduction, implying a full one hundred percent cut by
twenty fifty to align with the POLIS statewide climate goals.
Whether you are a customer of Excel Energy like wah
whack Hill's energy, or at most if they're if they're

(03:51):
required to prioritize electrification, that means you have to remove
customers from the natural gas systems because well, you can't
meet the goals unless you do that, which means you're
going to face steep rate hikes. Excel's compliance could exceed

(04:11):
one billion dollars over the next five years. Black Hills
the estimates for them three hundred ninety seven million dollars annually. Now,
if you've been convinced that somehow a heat pump is
a good idea in Colorado, well I'd like to sell
you a few things too. Homeowners switching to electric heat

(04:34):
pumps incur more than twenty thousand dollars per household up
front before any incendies that you may or may not
get are counted. Yet, electricity costs fourteen point nine cents
per kilawa hour versus natural gas at ten dollars and
fifty six cents per million cubic feet according to twenty

(04:57):
twenty four EIA data. There is a study by the
National Renewable Energy Labs a boot Boulder in rail that
reveals zero zero, zero long term savings for Colorado's gas
heated homes, even if you try to put in some

(05:19):
sort of efficient pump, So what's that going to do.
That's gonna strand assets, meaning you're gonna be stuck with
the home that you can't afford to live in, so
you have to try to dump that home or maybe
leave the state. And then the burden because the costs
are embedded, So that's gonna shift the burden to users,

(05:42):
other users, even poor users, users below the poverty level
or at poverty level, or even those that are maybe
above the poverty level but barely barely getting by. All
of those costs are gonna shift over to them as
people at people that run businesses, people that have homes
or that otherwise consume power, decide it's just too expensive here.

(06:06):
It's just too expensive California. Move over, Just move over California.
Because Jared Posts and the Democrats want to make us
number one in everything bad. And then he has the
audacity go over look at my timeline over on x

(06:27):
at Michael Brown USA, he posts every once in a
while about you know, he's all about making Colorado more affordable.
He's why he's adopted the affordability mantra. Yes and housing costs.
He's going to bring down housing costs, he's going to
bring down the cost of power, he's going to do everything.

(06:49):
I think he thinks that he's the god in the
church of the climate activists, and then all of his supporters,
like the environmental groups like the Sierra Club, they all
applaud the stringency, but critics absolutely quantify the affordability burdens
on not just low income families but everybody. So the

(07:13):
Public Utility Commission's decision advances forced electrification and subsidizing switches
amid feasibility concerns. It's absurd what they're doing. But let's
go back to just last month. Let's go back to
November of twenty twenty five, a mere what four days ago.

(07:35):
We are exactly a quarter century removed from the Millennial panic,
the Kyoto Protocol height, and the first waves of the
irrevocable irrevocable tipping points. It was supposedly coming in ten
years IE in twenty ten, we were till the fossil
fuels had to be phased out immediately. The planet was

(07:56):
going to be warm by at least five to six
degree centigrade by twenty one hundred, So twenty five years later,
multiple trillions of dollars, millions of wind turbines and solar panels,
and calls last chance payment summits. Later, fossil fuels supplied
eighty eight percent of global primary energy in the year

(08:16):
two thousand. It went from eighty eight percent in two
thousand to twenty four years later to eighty six percent.
We decrease dependency on fossil fuels by two percent. Now,
I want you to understand something. While the percentage of

(08:40):
all the power supplied by fossil fuels decreased by two percent.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
The overall demand for power.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Increased enormously, so that eighty six percent in just in
terms of whether you want to measure it by BT
use or by barrels of oil, however you want to
measure it, it's still increased. After a quarter century of

(09:13):
the most expensive industrial policy in human.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
History, the share.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Of fossil fuels and global energy declined by that whopping
two percentage points. Even though the amount of fossil fuels increased,
despite the decrease, overall that still increased, And the original
justification that catastrophic five degrees centigrade warming has quietly been
abandoned even by the IPCC's owned models. Now they're worried

(09:43):
about I whossay a two to two and a half
degrees centigrade maybe three degrees centigrade in the very highest
scenarios that well, actually nobody actually expects. The general warming
that we've experienced, it's somewhere around one point three degrees
centigrade since pre industrial times. Has coincided with four pretty

(10:03):
important things. Record record crop yields, exploding, global greening fourteen
percent more greenleaf aery since the nineteen eighties, thank you
CO two. No detectable increase in normalized disaster losses, record
low climate related deaths. They're actually down ninety eight percent

(10:23):
since nineteen twenties. But the new Energy Institute Statistical Review,
which is data through twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Four, is brutal for this stupid narrative.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Global energy demand hit another all time high, fossil fuel
consumption hit another record all time high. CO two emissions
hit another all time high. Wind and solar grew by
a record amount and still only supplies maybe if we're lucky,
six percent of primary energy.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
The transition, in other words, is not.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Displacing fossil fuels, it's just adding on top to meet
all of the world's demand for cheap, reliable energy. The
EI statistical reviews the Global Energy Scoreboard, published annually since
nineteen fifty two. It's now it's third year. EI is
a pro net zero professional body. It's not a skeptical

(11:17):
shop which makes their own framing. This year specially revealing,
they described today's world as a period of energy edition,
where renewables grow fast but alongside alongside record high in coal,
oil and gas. I think this is to go back
to the first down. I think that this is why
we are reaching this tipping point and the climate catastrophe,

(11:45):
yelling and screaming and hollering that oh my gosh, it's
going to be the end of civilization. And I truly
believe that. With the advent of the data centers for
artificial intelligence, I think with the realization that oh we've
increased by one point three degrees integrate and the world
hasn't come to an end and we've actually seen some
benefits of this. I think that's why people like Bill

(12:07):
Gates suddenly start to back off. Now, the al Gores
of the world without back off, because al Gore that's
how he makes his living. He makes his living off
the fear mung. He makes his living off making sure
that you're scared and that all of the useful idiots
that follow of people like al Gore are all screaming
and crying and they got climate anxiety and everything else

(12:30):
because they believe that if we don't change our ways,
that somehow we as humans have the capacity to destroy
the planet. Kind of like, oh, what's her name? Who
wasn't Lady Gaga?

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Who was this?

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Said? I have sometimes I have thought long and hard
sometimes about blowing up the White House. Well, I have
thought long and hard about what if we had a
thermonuclear war and the war or was just inundated with radiation.
Over time, Now you and I might not survive it,

(13:09):
but over time the planet would start to evolve back again,
because physics and the natural order of nature tells us
that it will. Have you ever seen the videos where
they show what it's like. They'll take a city like
New York City and then they will use, you know,

(13:30):
a video to show you that if New York City,
if Lower Manhattan were abandoned, how quickly the weeds and
the trees and animals and plant life would just take
over everything. Yeah, Because that's what nature does. We come
in and you know, we we build a parking lot,

(13:51):
or we build a building like this, you know this
where the studio is located, and so we push that
to the side, and we've got green belts and everything else.
But we have it all around there. And if we
were just suddenly just to abandon this building and it
was I could make a joke about if we'd abandoned
the building, that the maintenance would start to deteriorate and

(14:14):
the toilets wouldn't work, or something might not work in
the studio. But have we abandoned the buildings? Some would
say we already have.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, yeah, Okay.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
I was just curious because I just I just jumped
during the break to go to the bathroom and take
a leak. And we need to put a marker on
that one urinal days broken. I know we're already like
days and days and days into it, but we ought
to start counting how many times.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
I'm starting to get a little worried about that one
urinal two because the water has evaporated from it, so
pretty soon we're going to get some of that sewer smell,
unless you know, pour like a glass of water great. Yeah,
it's been broken for so long that the water has
evaporated from the urinal. That's your day's thing, doesn't doesn't
matter anymore.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
That's try today's thing does no matter anymore.

Speaker 5 (15:00):
So.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
But but if this building were abandoned, eventually, know the
green areas all around us, you know, the trees and
the weeds and everything would start going up. Any crack
out in the asphalt in the parking lot, that would
start to grow weeds, and pretty soon it would be overtaken.
I think the same thing would happen. We're not going
to change mother Nature. We're not going to destroy Mother Nature.
We're not going to destroy the physics of nature. We're

(15:22):
not going to destroy the physics of how the planets
revolve around the sun. We're not going to do that.
And then you think about the countries that went full bore.
In Germany, I'm looking at you in particular, but others too.
The April twenty eight, twenty twenty five Iberian Peninsula blackout,

(15:45):
remember that Spain and Portugal, that was Europe's poster child
for renewable leaderships. Slightly more than half wind and solar
and electricity on good days, and they suffered the Europe's
largest blackout in decades. Wasn't a storm, There wasn't he waiting,
no clber attack, just too much intermittent generation and not

(16:07):
enough inertia and grid operators lost control in seconds, millions
in the dark, airport shot, hospitals and generators, train stop.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
It was fascinating.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
You know, I've seen what it's like in major cities
when there's blackouts. Were you in New York in the
last blackout? Were you in the Orleans during Katrina? No
power whatsoever, none at all, and society begins to fall apart.

(16:40):
It's time that we recognize, and in Colorado in particular,
I want us to move beyond this. I don't want
an all electric home, and I don't want my electricity
to come from someplace other than reliable, dependable natural gas

(17:03):
or coal. I don't want it to come from wind
or solar. It's not reliable, it's not dependable, it's not
going to always be on. And I quite frankly like
to go over and turn a light switch on and
know that, oh it's it's going to turn the lights on.
I like to know that when I get up in
the morning and shower to come into work, that the
water heater downstairs, not the hot water heater that bugs me,

(17:26):
the water heater downstairs, that that pilot light's going to
come on when I start trying to draw hot water
out of the water heater. I think we've deserved that.
I think we've earned that. And for politicians like Jared
Polis and the Democrats of the Colorado polit Bureau and
the unelected bureaucrats of the Public Utilities Commission to start

(17:49):
demanding that we just electrify everything without having a reliable,
dependable source to create that electricity is utter insanity. It's
it's truly insanity. And at some point I think we
are I think we're beginning to.

Speaker 5 (18:05):
Recognize that I just got my iHeart rewind statistics. I
guess I've left nine and twenty seven talkbacks, and my
most favorite show is The Situation with Michael Brown. Oh,
how could that be weird?

Speaker 2 (18:22):
We evenipulate the algorithm. It's as simple as that.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
We control the horizontal, we control the vertical.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
That's right, What a great catch. We control the horizontal,
we control the vertical.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
I grew up and the reason I spend a lot
of time talking about energy is because I grew up
in oil and gas country. I practiced oil and gas
law for a while. We were very fortunate to own
property that had mineral rights, and so the family benefited

(18:59):
from oil and gas production. And I grew up an
era where you were taught basic economics in high school,
and you were also taught by your physics teachers and
others about how energy.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Was at the core of everything that.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Makes modern life possible, and the energy that's required to
make everything in modern life possible has to be dependable
and reliable.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
It can't be. And do we have any today?

Speaker 5 (19:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Okay, well we can't make any widgets today. Or you're
in the middle of manufacturing your widget and suddenly the
voltage or the wattage or whatever it is, because I
don't understand that part just begins to drop off, and
now you can't properly manufacture your widget. During this marathon
cabinet meeting, many of which Trump loves to hold, which

(19:56):
I think are fantastic, you know, I think can may
I had a footnote here for just a moment.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
I know these cabinet meetings are primarily pr meetings. I
don't have a problem with that because compared to the
previous four years. Wouldn't you rather see them talking about
what they're doing, telling Trump about how great he is.
Whether you believe that or not, I don't care. But
at least they're on record of here are our priorities,

(20:29):
here's what we're focused on. And if they happen to
add in and by the way, thank you, mister President
for allowing us to do blah blah blah blah blah, then.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
So be it.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Who gives a rats ass? So what if I were to,
uh once today I would never do. But what if
I were to once today say, you know, dragon, thank
you for being such a great producer, or thank you
iHeart management for giving me this opportunity.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
I was sick, right, Yeah, this is that's that's weird.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, that would that would make you like call the
people and put me in the drag straight jacket exactly. Okay, Yeah,
Now the people down the hallway, managements, you know, the
suits down the hallway.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Have you ever seen the tever wear a suit?

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Speaking of suits, I don't think I've ever seen any
of our so called managers.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
In a suit CBA stuff. I think they were they
were dressed more nicely. I'm not sure if he. I
really didn't because because Tepper's got like this hippie kind
of vibe to him.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
I'm just thinking you just said, well they dressed more nicely. Yeah,
it's accurate. Okay, whatever.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
They dressed nice or not, that's for sure. Right now.
Well we're on their we don't care exactly. So yeah,
seeing them at like the CBA's, yeah, they were there.
I think there was a jacket worn. Okay. I think
Jojo had a tie on.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
A clip on tyke. I really don't know, huh.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Anyway, So if I were to come in here and
kiss their butts every day, you'd think that I was nuts,
well every time, But if we had, if we had
our management meetings on air, of course, I guess they're butts.
And quite frankly, if you're sitting in the cabinet room
with the president and you're talking about the priorities, you

(22:26):
want the president to know that you appreciate the opportunity
to go implement those priorities because you actually believe it
as agenda. But I just I saw a bunch of
editorial cartoons and a bunch of other stuff. They were
just like, oh, this is just this is disgusting, And
I'm like, well, you don't live in the real world,
and you don't live in that world either. You've never
been there, have you ever? Have you ever been in

(22:46):
a cabinet meeting? Well, guess what I have.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
And you haven't.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
So there anyway, during this last meeting, the Energy Secretary
Chris Wright, he as I'm a fanboy. I've di admit it,
he made when he told Trump this quote, the biggest
determinant of the price of energy is politicians, political leaders,

(23:09):
and policies. That's what drives energy prices. Now he's right
about that, and it is why the back and forth
struggle over federal energy and climate policy play such a
key role in our economy. In fact, I think it's
an oversized role. Just ten months into Trump two point zero,

(23:29):
his his policies are already having a profound impact both
here and abroad. With when you got this rapid expansion
of AI data centers over the past year, being blamed
for a lot of people for driving up electric cost
power bills, Well, guess what, they were skyrocketing long before

(23:49):
that big tech boom even began, driven in large part
by the policies of the Obama and Biden administration that
were designed specifically to regulate and subize an energy transition
into reality, and as I pointed out in the past,
driving up the cost of all forms of energy to
try to encourage conservation is a primary objective of the

(24:14):
climate alarm driven transition, and that part of the green
agenda has been highly effective increasing the costs. Why would
they want to do that, because one it gives them control,
and two, at some point you give up and say, Okay,
I'll put a wind mill of my backyard. Okay, I'll

(24:34):
put solar panels on. But you got to subsidize them.
And then they fund their friends that have solar panel
companies or solar panel manufacturers, and then they get the
benefit of the subsidies. So it's a win win for
all of them. Accept it to loss loss for US.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
So Trump right.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
And people like Interior Secretary Doug Bergham, and of course
EPI can't forget EPA administrator Leezel. I'm a fanboy of
him too. They have moved more aggressively throughout twenty twenty
five to repeal much of that onerous regulatory burden, and
the Republican congressional majorities succeeded in phasing out Biden's costly

(25:18):
green energy subsidies as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill.
So as the federal regulatory structure begins to ease off
and the subsidy costs begin to diminish, it is perfectly
reasonable for you and me to expect a gradual easing
of electricity and other energy prices.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
But probably in a place like Colorado is.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
While the overall prices ought to be receding and kind
of easing up a little bit, dufases like Jared Polis
and the useful idiots that kiss his butt out of
the Colorado POLP Bureau are doing just the opposite, absolutely
the opposite. Climate focused conflict groups which rely on public

(26:07):
fears to drive donations are falling on hard time. Even
The New York Times reports that the Sierra Club has
lost sixty percent of its membership that it had first
reported back in twenty nineteen. So you go back to
twenty nineteen to today, the Sierra Club has lost sixty
percent of their membership and the group's management team has

(26:29):
fallen into Now they're infighting among themselves over what their
agenda ought to be greenpeace. They're struggling just to stay
afloat no pun intended there. About Greenpeace, they lost a
huge court judgment for defaming pipeline company Energy Transfer when
they were trying to stop the building of the Dakota
Access Pipeline. Three fifty dot Org that's another advocacy group

(26:52):
founded by Bill mckibbon, a prominent climate fearmongerer, shut down
their operations last month. Why their funding is disappearing? That
force planned twenty five percent budget cuts for twenty five
and twenty twenty six, so at some point they just

(27:12):
gave up. The fading of the climate fears in turn
caused the environmental social and the ESG management and all
that fad to also fall out of favor, and that
led to athletic companies backtracking on green investments in climate commitments.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
In October, two.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
Months ago, the Net Zero Banking Alliance completely disbanded after
most of America's big banks like Goldman, Sachs, JP, Morgan
City Group, even well the Wells Largo, they all chose
to drop out of membership. And now look at the
ev industry struggling, dying on the vine, and now I'll

(27:52):
break dragon. I just wanted to thank you for being
such a good producer.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
You're welcome.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Oh yeah, any other day that he leaves a talk back,
you mock him, you make fun of him, you laugh
at him, you do everything. But today he satirically leaves
you a compliment, and you're just like, oh, you're just
a gogga.

Speaker 6 (28:21):
Genuine that laugh makes me laugh.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
It's really good. I told you that.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
So we were talking about the EV industry before I
was interrupted by my producer. They're struggling too, and I
don't like to see any business uh die off. But
I don't mind when a business is failing or not
doing well because they're offering a product that is so

(28:58):
heavily subsidized that without it, it wouldn't exist, because I'm
opposed to subsidies. And two that the marketplaces.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
There's no demand for it.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
So as the Trump White House really begins to repeal
these Biden era auto mileage requirements, Ford is going to
shut down production of its sponted F one fifty Lightning
electric pickup and stillantes I e g. They've now canceled
plans to roll out a full size.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
EV truck of their own. Do you know the EV sales.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
In this country have collapsed between October and November following
the repeal of Oh here's a good economics lesson, there
was a seventy five hundred dollars per vehicle inflation reduction Act. Now,
how can you have an inflation reduction act that says, hey, driving,
if you go out and buy an EV, we'll make

(29:51):
Michael Brown and all of his listeners subsidize you're a
person of that to the tune of seven five hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
And then when it.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Goes away, suddenly people are like, oh, well, you know what,
I'm not sure I want an EV anymore. So your piety,
your absolute arrogance that you wanted to drive an EV
to save the planet. Oh, when it actually costs you
to fake and pretend like you're saving the planet, then

(30:20):
suddenly you don't want to save the planet anymore. This
administration's policy actions have already ended any new leasing for
costly and unneeded offshore wind projects.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Well and I should specify in federal waters.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
And it's forced the suspension or at least the abandonment
of quite a few of these projects which we're already
moving ahead. But capital continues to flow into the solar
industry even though that industry's ability to expand is probably
going to fade once the federal subsidies are fully repealed

(31:01):
at the end of twenty twenty seven. So truly public
policy matters when it comes to energy. It drives corporate decisions,
It drives corporate strategies, it drives capital investments, it drives
resource development and the movement of resources, and ultimately influences
the cost of energy in all of its forms and

(31:23):
its products. So I want you to think about energy
this way. I want you to look at anything anything
right now, a piece of clothing you're wearing, a car
you're driving, a computer you're using, even I'm holding right now,
I took off my microphone, condom, my mic sock, even

(31:44):
in every single thing, I want you to look at
it differently. I want you look at it this way.
The energy involved in the development, the manufacturing, the distribution,
the perch and the use of that product. And then
you'll realize just how important this topic is.