November 15, 2022 • 32 mins
On today's episode, we are talking with our guest, speaker and author, Steve Gorham. Steve is the Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America, and an advisor to the Heartland Institute. This is Part I of our podcast chat with Steve discussing how energy crisis and net zero affects us daily.
On this episode we will talk about:
- What’s the cause of the energy crisis?
- What’s happening in Europe right now.
- The origins of the world’s energy crisis.
- What’s going on with air and water around the world.
- What happened to the ozone layer?
- Global warming is dominated by natural factors, not manmade emissions.
- The three misconception about running out of oil and gas: “We need to switch to renewables”.
To listen to this episode check it out on iTunes + Stitcher or on the website.
About SherWare, Inc.
If you’re enjoying this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and share with a friend! We also love ratings and reviews on Apple podcasts.
SherWare creates software to simplify your accounting needs so you have more time to do the things that matter. We serve independent oil and gas operators, accountants and investors with a platform to manage their distributions and joint-interest billings on a platform — and we’re the only software on the market that can integrate with your QuickBooks company.
Click here to watch a demo of the software in action right now.
About Steve Gorham:
Steve Gorham is the author of three books, including his latest Outside the Green Box, Rethinking Sustainable Development. He has more than 100,000 copies of his books are now in print. Steve holds a BS and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. And 30 years of experience in Fortune 100 and private companies in engineering and executive roles.
To learn more about Steve Gorham or to connect with him:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tom Wireman (00:01):
Hi and welcome to the Oil and Gas Accounting
Podcast. I'm your co host TomWireman executive director of
COPAS, the Council of PetroleumAccountants Societies. I'm here
with my co host Phil Sherwood,owner and founder of Sheware the
provides software for oil andgas operators and accountants.
If you're a CPA, an accountant,a bookkeeper, and office
manager. Or if you're an oil andgas operator during your own
(00:22):
accounting, this podcast is foryou.
Phil Sherwood (00:24):
We're here talking with the experts in
their respective accountingareas to keep you up to speed on
the latest accounting news rulesand data. There is so much
happening in the world today,especially in oil and gas that
affects the accounting functionof a business. Our job on this
podcast is to keep you up todate and help you see more, no
(00:45):
more and do more as anaccounting professional in our
field. Let's get started.
Tom Wireman (00:50):
Well, hello, everyone. It's time again for
another episode of the Oil andGas Accounting podcast. We're
glad that you're here today. I'mTom Wireman. And I'm the co host
with Phil Sherwood. Phil, howare you today?
Phil Sherwood (01:00):
Hey, Tom, I'm happy to be here today with you
for another oil and gasaccounting podcast season. I
hope all as well with you. Andwe've got a great episode today
and I'm happy to introduce ourguests. Our guest is Steve
Gorham. He's a speaker andauthor researcher on
environmental issues. And he'san independent columnist. He's
Executive Director of theClimate Science Coalition of
(01:22):
America, and an advisor to theHeartland Institute. He's the
author of three books, includinghis latest outside the green
box, rethinking sustainabledevelopment, more than 100,000
copies of his books are now inprint. Steve holds a BS and an
MS in Electrical Engineeringfrom the University of Illinois,
and an MBA from the Universityof Chicago. And it's good 30 Or
(01:47):
actually more than 30 years ofexperience in Fortune 100 and
private companies in engineeringand executive roles. Steve,
welcome to the podcast.
Steve Gorham (01:56):
Great to join you today. Guys. Thanks for inviting
me.
Tom Wireman (01:59):
We're glad that you're here as well. Steve, your
topic today is energy crisis andnet zero, the possible futures.
So we have a lot to cover, youwill have a lot to say I'm sure.
So let's get right to it. Firstquestion I have is green energy
is a big discussion topic today.
With that in mind, we seem to bein the midst of an in a world
energy crisis, would you? Wouldyou care to share with us what
(02:21):
the cause of those crisis is?
Steve Gorham (02:24):
We are Yeah, it's a remarkable time. Right now, we
have a crisis around the worldthat is based on a number of
things. First, we had the COVIDdisruptions in 2020 and 2021.
And we've come out of those nowimpacting the supply chain, and
goods all over the world. We'vealso had a rice, a recovery and
(02:48):
a rise in the price of oil. Oilin April of 2020, dropped to
about $20 a barrel. And that wasat that time, it was amazing. In
April, we had us miles driven,dropped to levels that were
lower than 1950. People juststopped driving in the middle of
the crisis. But anyway, we'verecovered from that and the
(03:08):
price of oil has gone up toabout 100. I think it's about
$80 a barrel right now. And thatwas prior to the invasion of
Ukraine. We had the Russiainvading Ukraine on February 24
of 2022, which is really a knockenergy markets around the world.
And then we have green energypolicies that have been going on
for a number of years, not oftenmentioned, but a major factor in
(03:32):
what's going on. And forexample, back in 2010. If you
look at oil and gas explorationand drilling investment, the
front end of the oil and gasindustry, about $500 billion
were spent in 2010. And thatrose to almost 800 billion in
2014. But the investment in inexploration and drilling has
(03:54):
been following it fell all theway down to a little over $300
billion in 2020. And part ofthis is the green impact. Faith
Bureau X, Executive Director ofthe International Energy Agency
in 2021. said if governments areserious about the climate
crisis, there can be no newinvestments in oil, gas and coal
(04:14):
from now from this year. And sothe world is is sort of put
pressure on financialinstitutions are not lending to
oil and gas in many locations.
And then we get this recoveryfrom COVID. And over the last
two decades, we got to talk alittle bit. Well, let me let's
anyway, that's that's sort ofthe basis we have. We've had a
(04:34):
recovery from COVID recovery anddemand, prices are rising for
oil and gas and under investmentover the last at least seven or
eight years in the oil and gasindustry.
Phil Sherwood (04:48):
Okay, you mentioned that the investment
side, you know, going from 20billion to 800 billion down to
300 billion in 2020. Has it gonedown even further since 2020.
Steve Gorham (04:59):
I think it's fair on picking up the US drilling,
Well,the number of rigs out drilling
in the US, for example, had beendeclining for a number of years.
And then in early 2020, theyjust dropped precipitously, I
think it was down to about 300Drilling teams now it's they've
doubled again, and they'reclimbing up. So the world is,
you know, part of this is a lowprices, a problem that we've had
over a number of years, price ofoil price of gas, the price of
(05:23):
gas was under $2 per millionBtus. But those have been
recovering. And now we've got,we've got this crisis, this
Europe centered energy crisis,that's, that's a partial cause
for these high prices. And letme march into that, if I if I
can a little bit. Europe hasbecome very dependent on what I
call weather driven energysources, wind and solar. And
(05:45):
also natural gas over the lasttwo decades or so 23 nations in
Europe announced that they wouldphase out coal by varying dates
2025 2030 2035. and Europe alsohas closed 100 nuclear plants,
nuclear power plants, 30 ofthose in Germany and 34 in the
United Kingdom. And so thecontinent has been very
(06:08):
dependent has become verydependent on wind, solar natural
gas. Another portion of that isit's not, it's not only
dependent on gas, but it's adependence on imported gas. In
2017, European communityidentified about 40 shale fields
in Europe, all over Europe. As amatter of fact, there's one that
(06:29):
stretches all the way from thethe Baltic states on the east
side of the Baltic Sea, all theway to England, the whole top
part of of Europe is one failshale field. But Europe has
decided not to fracture any ofthose fields. And so they
instead have been importing gas.
And by 2021 63% of their gas wasimported, and 27% from Russia.
(06:54):
Then in the summer of 2021, wehad a very low wind year in
Europe, the wind output inFrance, Germany in the United
Kingdom, was down about 20 or30%, all year long. And so what
Europe did was they burn naturalgas to produce electricity. And
by the end of the year, thestorage levels were very, very
(07:16):
low and gas. And so the pricewent way up. Typically the price
of natural gas, they measured ineuros per megawatt hour, has
been about 15 to 18 euros permegawatt hour, that's what it
was running 2020 2021 First partof 2021. And then when they
burned all this gas in thesummer to replace the wind that
(07:38):
they weren't getting from theirwind turbine, wind, wind
systems, the price of gas wentup by December of 2021 to 80
euros per megawatt hour. So fromabout under 20, up to at about a
about a five times rise. Andthat was three months before the
invasion of the Ukraine. Andthen when Russia invaded
(07:58):
Ukraine, the prices when higherprices doubled, again, they're
down about I think about 175euros per megawatt hour now. But
they have been over 200 forseveral months. And so this is a
factor of 10 natural gas hasgone up by a factor of 10. It's
basically exploded. And alongwith that, electricity prices
(08:18):
have also gone up by a bigamount. The price of electricity
in Europe, throughout 2020 ranabout 35 about 15 to 35 euros
per megawatt hour, or pounds permegawatt hour, roughly the same
British pounds that went up by afactor of six by the end of
2021. And then with f theinvasion of Ukraine. It's now
(08:41):
right the average in in Augustin Germany and France was over
400 euros per megawatt hour. Sothat's also a by a factor of 10.
Just a huge problem that theyhave in Europe. So gas and
electricity prices are up by afactor of 10. And this is really
injuring European industry. Justin September unit PIR in Germany
(09:06):
was nationalized by the Germangovernment. It was the biggest
importer of natural gas inbecause Juniper had all these
long term contracts with Russiaand they lost them. And they
were paying prices that theycouldn't recoup in the market
for this on the spot market. InEngland, they had 30 firms who
(09:27):
were buying gas who went out ofbusiness because the price they
consolidate, which wascontrolled was was lower than
what they could buy it. We haveammonia production and Europe
down 50% nitrogen fertilizerproduction on 33% those
industries are very dependent onnatural gas. And then the metal
(09:48):
smelting groups are very, verymuch in trouble as well. More
than half of the aluminum andzinc production in Europe has
has shut down. So any of thesefirms that don't have long term
contracts at fixed prices arehaving to close down. And so
really a terrible situation inEurope right now. And it's also
(10:13):
it has spread around the worldas well, because in the US what
our natural gas folks have beendoing as they they shifted their
first they're shippingeverything they can to Europe,
because the prices are so high.
And they stopped shipping it toAsian and diverted some of it to
Europe. So the price has beenrising in Asia as well, almost
as fast as in Europe.
Phil Sherwood (10:34):
Okay, can we go back to Europe screen energy
policies? That's where westarted the conversation here.
And could you break that downfor us a little bit? When did
that start? How long ago didthey start on this path?
Steve Gorham (10:49):
Well, it's it's been several decades. You know,
a lot of this came out of theoriginal out of the oil, several
factors in the 20th century. Onewere the oil shocks of 73 and
79. And a lot of groups thataffected the US that caused
inflation in the US it calledcause recessions or gasoline
(11:09):
prices used to be about 20 centsa gallon. And they they
skyrocketed. With with the oilshocks there, we had an
environmental movement duringthe 1950s 60s and 70s. And
rightly so there were air andwater pollution issues that
needed to be solved. And sothere was there was a drive to a
(11:30):
shift from oil and natural gas.
Matter of fact, the USgovernment was promoting coal to
be burned in power plants forfor a number of decades. And
that and still there was a shiftthere to take us away from
dependence on natural gas oroil. And then we had this this
rising theory of manmade globalwarming, which we'll get into a
little bit that sprang up in the80s. And all of these factors,
(11:52):
aimed Europe and other locationstoward trying to substitute wind
and solar. And in some case,biomass is for oil and gas. And
so matter of fact, around theworld we've had, the the green
energy shift that many peopleare proposing is that first you
switch from coal to natural gas.
(12:16):
And then you substitute naturalgas with wind and solar and
storage as you get farther andfarther along. And so we've had
a shift away from coal in manylocations. And right now we have
a situation where natural gaseshas become the crude oil of
today, if you will. This is thefirst world energy crisis. It's
(12:37):
based on natural gas that we'vehad, and the price of natural
gas, but it's similar to the twopast world crises based on
petroleum. There just isn'tenough natural gas around right
now. As I mentioned, a lot ofcountries have been shifting to
shifting out of coal shifting tonatural gas. And so we're really
(12:57):
short of it right now. And withthis resurgence in global
demand, and the the Russia, gascut off to Europe, it has come
full force and forced prices upby a factor of 10.
Phil Sherwood (13:10):
You'd mentioned over 100 nuclear energy plants
had been shut down. Over inEurope.
Steve Gorham (13:18):
I was in that's in Europe. Yes. Yeah. In Europe,
Phil Sherwood (13:21):
that doesn't seem to go along with the green
energy movements. Can you talkon that a little bit?
Steve Gorham (13:28):
Well, it is kind of interesting. Yeah. Matter of
fact, during the 70s, during thethe environmental movement of
the 50s 60s and 70s. A bigportion of that movement was was
anti atomic weapons. Greenpeacewas founded and went out and
looked at testing in the Pacifictesting in the Aleutians and
protested. And so there aremany, many efforts, and many of
(13:51):
the Green parties in Europe,oppose nuclear power and opposed
atomic energy. And then we had anumber of things go on, we had
the three mile near problem inPennsylvania. We had the
Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine,which was a partial meltdown of
a plant. We had the Fukushimaevent in 2011, where they had a
(14:15):
eight on the Richter scale, alevel of earthquake and a huge
tidal wave, which stopped thecooling systems in the planet
Fukushima and caused someradiation there and some
problems there. ChancellorAngela Merkel in Germany said
well, we you know, we're thiswe're now going to embark on
(14:36):
shutting down the nuclear plantsas part of their energy Wendy
program. And so Germany haskilled 30 of them The United
Kingdom has been closing plantsas well. But you're right. From
a greenhouse gas point of viewnuclear plants emit close to
zero greenhouse gases and, andso should be in line with the
supporting the theory of manmadewarming and the reader and
(15:00):
emissions. But they've been alittle bit on the blacklist of
many environmental,environmental movements and
governments for a number ofyears. And nuclear has been
fairly flat since World Nuclear,it's been declining as a
percentage of world electricity.
But the total output has beenfairly flat since just before
2000. In the US, we get about, Ithink, just about 20% of our
(15:23):
electricity from nuclear, andthat's been flat for many years
as well.
Tom Wireman (15:29):
Steve, you're a little bit critical, maybe as
world efforts to transition torenewable energy is
Steve Gorham (15:35):
sort of a minority report, if you will.
Tom Wireman (15:39):
But But to some degree, don't we need to make
this transition? Well,
Steve Gorham (15:43):
let's talk about energy a little bit. So from my
point of view, there are threebig misconceptions about energy.
The first is that by using anincreasing amount of energy, we
are increasingly polluting theworld. Second is that by using
more and more energy, we're andparticularly hydrocarbon based
energy, we are destroying theclimate. And the third is that
(16:04):
we are running out oftraditional energy, are running
out of oil and gas, the theoryof peak oil, so called resource
depletion, and therefore we mustforce a switch to renewables.
Those three ideas are taught inour universities. They've been
adopted by the news media, andmany, many companies have picked
those up as well. But if youlook a little more closely at
(16:28):
these, you see that these reallyaren't the case. And maybe we
should get into a discussion onthose.
Phil Sherwood (16:37):
Yeah, let's take these one at a time. You know,
it's said that only gasproduction is causing rising
global pollution. That is
Steve Gorham (16:45):
actually a pretty big misconception, what in the
United States, for example, andall developed nations. So we
have, we have cleaner air, wehave declining air, declining
air pollution. My grandfatherhad a coal bin in his basement,
and he would, he does house withcoal truck would come up, dump
(17:08):
it down in the bill and go intothe furnace. And he lived in
Chicago, this was in the 1950sor so. In Chicago, it would snow
and about five days later, youwould see a little bit of a
black film on all the snow. Andpeople used to do spring
cleaning, most of the youngfolks don't know what that is.
But with spring cleaning,literally in April, and May,
(17:29):
they would actually wash thewalls every year to wash the
coal dust off the walls. Butnatural gas came in and replaced
that and made all of our heatingsystems very much cleaner. And
if you look at US Air Qualitytrends, data from the EPA shows
that our combined pollutants,and those are LED carbon
(17:50):
monoxide, military, nitrogendioxide, sulfur dioxide,
particulates, and ozone, aredown at combined about 80%. Now,
relative to what they were in1980. So our air is very, very
clean. If you look around theworld, in all wealthy nations,
you still see a similar thingyou see, Europe has a similar
(18:11):
curve, where their pollution hasbeen declining recently. And
actually, every nation goesthrough a sort of a process
where when they start to whenthey're poor, and they don't
have food and clothing, andhousing, they're interested in
increasing wealth, and they'renot too interested in what's
(18:33):
going on with the water and theair. And so as they get
wealthier, they pollute the airand they pollute the water. And
so environmental damage andpollution goes up. But then at
some point, they reach a thingcalled a turning point income.
And they're, they look aroundand say, Well, hey, we're
wealthier than we were a coupleof decades ago, but our air and
(18:54):
water is not very good. And sothen they start cleaning it up.
And interesting curve at theUniversity of Chicago shows
what's happened to China in justthe last few years with regard
to particulate pollution thatpeaked in in China's air. And
these are small particles thatgo into the air that peaked
about 2012 or 13. And it's beendeclining since so you have kind
(19:18):
of an an inverted U curve wherepollution rises in every nation,
but then after nations getwealthier declines. So the great
news is that as nations getwealthy, they clean up their air
in their water, and we're seeingthat all over the world. Some
people still think globalpollution is rising, and it is
(19:40):
in poor nations. But overall,the good news is that nations
clean up their air and water andwe put scrubbers on our on even
our coal plants, and those, it'sjust a great thing. So pollution
is not rising globally, andwe're going to get all over the
world where we will have eventInitially improving air and
(20:01):
water. You
Phil Sherwood (20:03):
mentioned a couple of things in there, I
want to unpack those. Youmentioned the word ozone, which
we have not heard for a longtime. I can remember that used
to be the big buzzword. Whathappened there? What happened to
the ozone? Are we not concernedabout the ozone layer going away
anymore.
Steve Gorham (20:18):
But the ozone layer is a little different.
What I'm talking about here,this ozone is more ground level
ozone. And it's produced byother things, particulates and
nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, whenthey're emitted from from
factories or power plants, theyreact and they produce ozone and
ozone can be harmful like theseother pollution pollutants. I
mentioned. The ozone layers alittle bit different. That's up
(20:41):
high. And that's
Phil Sherwood (20:44):
the big, the big climate concern was the ozone
layer did it?
Steve Gorham (20:47):
Well, yeah. Well, the Yeah, you're right. And so
in the 70s, the number ofscientists said that people were
damaging the ozone layer, theyfound a hole over Antarctica,
which was a reduced amount ofozone concentration in the high
atmosphere. And they thought andthey postulated that we were
doing that. And then there was atreaty, the Montreal Protocol,
(21:09):
which was signed, I think about79 or so early 80s. Were all the
nations in the world signed upto reducing. And they said
basically, that the way we werekilling it was
chlorofluorocarbons compoundswith with fluorine in them that
we had with fluorine that we hadin our aerosols. And so the the
(21:30):
nations of the world agreed thatwe would get rid of those
compounds. And during the 90s,in the early 2000s, those
basically went to zero aroundthe world. Funny thing, Oh, is
that the, the ozone hole isstill there over Antarctica? So
I'm not sure whether the theoryis correct. Now, scientists say
well, it's going to take a fewmore decades before we see that
(21:52):
change. But it may be that thereare other factors in nature that
are causing the ozone hole upthere, and not necessarily our
chlorofluorocarbons. But that's,that's a bit of an another
topic. For ice ground levelozone.
Phil Sherwood (22:05):
Okay, sorry, I misunderstood you there. The
other thing you mentioned wasabout nations, and when they
become wealthy, they can cleanup, can you speak a little bit
to how nations become wealthy?
Well, you know,
Steve Gorham (22:20):
you know, that's kind of an interesting thing,
especially for the oil and gasindustry, if you I have
sometimes when I present Ishowed two curves together, one
is increasing gross domesticproduct for the world. And this
curve is about from 1950 topresent day. And the other one I
put there is global carbondioxide emissions. And if you
(22:44):
look at them, they are veryhighly correlated. And the
carbon dioxide emissions, thatthat we produce, of course, come
from primarily from burningnatural gas and oil and coal and
wood as well, anyway, but thatthat's a measure of the
industrialization of our modernsociety. And our all of our
(23:05):
transportation, our air flights,our shipping, the electricity we
produce is still dominatedglobally, two thirds of it is
produced by oil and gas. Matterof fact, about 80% of global
energy comes from hydrocarbons,despite the fact that the world
has spent $5 trillion over thelast 15 years or so to promote
wind and solar. And, and that80% is about the same as it was
(23:30):
20 or 25 years ago really hasn'tchanged. So yeah, we have this.
We have this issue abouteverybody wanting to get rid of
oil and gas and suppress co2emissions. But those things are
an indication of the tremendousprosperity of modern modern day
society.
Tom Wireman (23:48):
Steve, you mentioned seek your second, your
second point, if I recall, wasthe UN, the United Nations
rather, and others would saythat we need to halt oil and gas
production to stop the globalwarming. Right. Yeah. So let's
get to that
Steve Gorham (24:02):
a little bit for us. Yeah, this is this. I mean,
we could do a whole nothersession on this. So I'll try and
be brief. But there's a couplethings people should understand.
The one is, you know, I have hada couple of young ladies from
UCLA call me up and start askingme questions about manmade
warming. So I asked them somequestions. And one of the
questions I asked was, well, howmuch you think global
(24:23):
temperatures have warmed in thelast century or century and a
half, and one said five degreesand other 10. The actual number
is since 1880, globaltemperatures have risen one
degree Celsius in 140 years,about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit,
that's very, very small. We getthat change every day between
(24:46):
nine and 10 o'clock in themorning. So the temperature rise
has been very, very small. Thesecond thing is that we've had
warmer temperatures in the past.
There's a lot of geologicevidence that that says that for
Centuries at a time. We hadtemperatures 1000 years ago,
2000 years ago, 3000 years ago,six to 8000 years ago that were
(25:08):
warmer than Today'stemperatures. And those were due
to natural factors. Those weredue to cycles of the sun. Other
factors that are going on in ouruniverse tilt to the Earth's
axis, a lot of other things. Andso if you look at today's
modern, warm period, there'snothing abnormal about it. We it
(25:28):
has warmed a degree, but we'vebeen coming out of a period
called the Little Ice Age, whenthe Thames River froze solid in
London every year and used tohave a festival called the frost
fest, during the Little Ice Agewhere you haven't been able to
do that for more than a centurybecause the Thames River hasn't
frozen solid at London. Butthese factors are natural
(25:48):
variations in Earth's climateand temperatures. And again,
10,000 years ago, we had at theend of the ice age we had, or
maybe 15 20,000 years ago, wehad a mile of ice on Chicago
sitting on the surface of theearth. These cycles happen
normally. The first point is wehave a very little temperature
(26:09):
rise for many, many years.
Second is it's been naturallywarm in the past. And the third
is when you break down thegreenhouse effect, which is a
natural effect of greenhousegases in the atmosphere like
carbon dioxide or methane dotend to trap energy coming out
causes their molecules vibrate,they reradiated it does tend to
(26:30):
warm surface of the earth. Butmost of the greenhouse effect is
a natural effect. Earth'sdominant greenhouse gas in our
atmosphere is not carbondioxide, it's not methane, it's
water vapor. Somewhere between75 and 90%, of Earth's
greenhouse effect is caused bywater vapor and clouds. And then
(26:51):
if you look at all the naturalcarbon dioxide that that is
exchanged between the oceans andthe atmosphere, every year, it's
huge. We have 50 times as muchcarbon dioxide dissolved in the
oceans as we do in in in theatmosphere. And every day,
nature puts about 20 times asmuch co2 in the atmosphere as
(27:12):
all of Earth's industries, andremoves about the same amount.
So human contributions, if youlook at the the factors is a
very small part of everything.
Probably we're producing one or2%, we have one or 2% effect on
Earth's greenhouse effect very,very small. There'll be on that,
you know, I could go into a lotof different things about
storms. If you look at history,we do not have more and stronger
(27:35):
storms than we had in pastyears. oceans have been rising
about eight inches per century.
But they've been doing thatoceans have been rising for the
last 20,000 years. There aremany, many things that the
bottom line is that globalwarming is dominated by natural
(27:56):
factors, not manmade emissions.
And again, this is a MinorityReport. There are a lot of
people that disagree with this.
And but I'm happy to debate anyof those folks anytime they
would like to. And I thinkwithin a few decades, we might
even have a little bit of goldglobal cooling, we could have a
period of time when thetemperatures are declining,
despite what we're doing withour industry. So that's a real
(28:20):
encapsulation of of acomplicated topic, global
warming and human effects on it.
Phil Sherwood (28:27):
Okay, well, let's switch to your third
misconception about running outof oil and gas. You know, some
people say that we need toswitch to renewables, because
we're not going to have enoughoil and gas, you know, to supply
the world.
Steve Gorham (28:40):
I love to I love to play a clip from a
presentation Jimmy Carter madethat President Jimmy Carter made
to the nation about but 78 orso. And he said, basically, if
we keep using oil at the samerate we are we could run out of
oil by the next decade. And heall of his advisers told him
(29:01):
this. I mean, it wasn'tnecessarily his his sort of
thing. And many global petroleumsupply was going to peak about
2005. But we introduced thefrack the hydraulic fracking
revolution in the United Statesand, and US oil production,
which had fallen to 5 millionbarrels a day in 2008. Went back
(29:25):
up to 12 million barrels a day.
In 2019. It's a little bit lessnow but it's rising again. And
if you look at world oilproduction and reserves in 1980,
we had about 28 years of supply.
The reason the oil reserves are28 years of supply 2019 they
were 45 years of supply. Sowe've been finding reserves
(29:49):
faster than the world has beenconsuming, even though
production of oil has been goingup. So the idea of peak oil and
gas has been proven incorrect atleast in our lifetime. I'm here.
And so there's, there's no realreason to switch out of that
because it's going to bedisappearing. Now on the other
hand, as I mentioned earlier, ifthe world doesn't invest in
(30:10):
exploration and drilling, thenwe're gonna get price rises. And
that's what we're seeing now,particularly natural gas in the
US and sub only a factor abouttwo and a half or three. In
Europe and the rest of theworld, it's up by a price factor
of 10 times what it was twoyears ago. And oil is at a
(30:32):
healthy price about $80 a barrelbut makes our gasoline
expensive. So we need to getback to producing oil and gas
for for the prosperity ofpeople. And oh, by the way, we
have a big portion of the worldthat still needs still needs oil
and gas. In Nigeria, forexample, there's about three
(30:54):
cars per every 100 people. InEurope, it's 50 or 60 cars, per
100 people in the US, it's justabout, I think it's about 100
cars per every 100 people. So asthese nations develop, they're
gonna need the prosperity we'veenjoyed, they're gonna need more
oil and gas. And so the industryneeds to push back a little bit
(31:15):
against the, against the globalwarming narrative.
Mallory Schlabach (31:19):
If you're an oil and gas operator who wants
to simplify and automate the wayyou handle distributions, joint
interest billings, and you useQuickBooks, you'll want to see a
free demo of our software atshareware. Our software was
designed to simplify thedistribution and accounting
processes for operators. Byintegrating directly with your
QuickBooks company. On average,we save our users more than 10
(31:41):
hours each week and $40,000 ayear in payroll costs by
automating the distributionprocess from start to finish.
All you have to do is go toshoware.com backslash demo right
now and book a free walkthroughof the software to see if we can
help speed up yourdistributions. That's all for
this week's episode. We are soglad you're a loyal listener and
(32:02):
spreading the news about thepodcast. Make sure you listen
SUBSCRIBE And leave us a review
Hi and welcome to the Oil and Gas Accounting
Podcast. I'm your co host TomWireman executive director of
COPAS, the Council of PetroleumAccountants Societies. I'm here
with my co host Phil Sherwood,owner and founder of Sheware the
provides software for oil andgas operators and accountants.
If you're a CPA, an accountant,a bookkeeper, and office
manager. Or if you're an oil andgas operator during your own
(00:22):
accounting, this podcast is foryou.
Phil Sherwood (00:24):
We're here talking with the experts in
their respective accountingareas to keep you up to speed on
the latest accounting news rulesand data. There is so much
happening in the world today,especially in oil and gas that
affects the accounting functionof a business. Our job on this
podcast is to keep you up todate and help you see more, no
(00:45):
more and do more as anaccounting professional in our
field. Let's get started.
Tom Wireman (00:50):
Well, hello, everyone. It's time again for
another episode of the Oil andGas Accounting podcast. We're
glad that you're here today. I'mTom Wireman. And I'm the co host
with Phil Sherwood. Phil, howare you today?
Phil Sherwood (01:00):
Hey, Tom, I'm happy to be here today with you
for another oil and gasaccounting podcast season. I
hope all as well with you. Andwe've got a great episode today
and I'm happy to introduce ourguests. Our guest is Steve
Gorham. He's a speaker andauthor researcher on
environmental issues. And he'san independent columnist. He's
Executive Director of theClimate Science Coalition of
(01:22):
America, and an advisor to theHeartland Institute. He's the
author of three books, includinghis latest outside the green
box, rethinking sustainabledevelopment, more than 100,000
copies of his books are now inprint. Steve holds a BS and an
MS in Electrical Engineeringfrom the University of Illinois,
and an MBA from the Universityof Chicago. And it's good 30 Or
(01:47):
actually more than 30 years ofexperience in Fortune 100 and
private companies in engineeringand executive roles. Steve,
welcome to the podcast.
Steve Gorham (01:56):
Great to join you today. Guys. Thanks for inviting
me.
Tom Wireman (01:59):
We're glad that you're here as well. Steve, your
topic today is energy crisis andnet zero, the possible futures.
So we have a lot to cover, youwill have a lot to say I'm sure.
So let's get right to it. Firstquestion I have is green energy
is a big discussion topic today.
With that in mind, we seem to bein the midst of an in a world
energy crisis, would you? Wouldyou care to share with us what
(02:21):
the cause of those crisis is?
Steve Gorham (02:24):
We are Yeah, it's a remarkable time. Right now, we
have a crisis around the worldthat is based on a number of
things. First, we had the COVIDdisruptions in 2020 and 2021.
And we've come out of those nowimpacting the supply chain, and
goods all over the world. We'vealso had a rice, a recovery and
(02:48):
a rise in the price of oil. Oilin April of 2020, dropped to
about $20 a barrel. And that wasat that time, it was amazing. In
April, we had us miles driven,dropped to levels that were
lower than 1950. People juststopped driving in the middle of
the crisis. But anyway, we'verecovered from that and the
(03:08):
price of oil has gone up toabout 100. I think it's about
$80 a barrel right now. And thatwas prior to the invasion of
Ukraine. We had the Russiainvading Ukraine on February 24
of 2022, which is really a knockenergy markets around the world.
And then we have green energypolicies that have been going on
for a number of years, not oftenmentioned, but a major factor in
(03:32):
what's going on. And forexample, back in 2010. If you
look at oil and gas explorationand drilling investment, the
front end of the oil and gasindustry, about $500 billion
were spent in 2010. And thatrose to almost 800 billion in
2014. But the investment in inexploration and drilling has
(03:54):
been following it fell all theway down to a little over $300
billion in 2020. And part ofthis is the green impact. Faith
Bureau X, Executive Director ofthe International Energy Agency
in 2021. said if governments areserious about the climate
crisis, there can be no newinvestments in oil, gas and coal
(04:14):
from now from this year. And sothe world is is sort of put
pressure on financialinstitutions are not lending to
oil and gas in many locations.
And then we get this recoveryfrom COVID. And over the last
two decades, we got to talk alittle bit. Well, let me let's
anyway, that's that's sort ofthe basis we have. We've had a
(04:34):
recovery from COVID recovery anddemand, prices are rising for
oil and gas and under investmentover the last at least seven or
eight years in the oil and gasindustry.
Phil Sherwood (04:48):
Okay, you mentioned that the investment
side, you know, going from 20billion to 800 billion down to
300 billion in 2020. Has it gonedown even further since 2020.
Steve Gorham (04:59):
I think it's fair on picking up the US drilling,
Well,the number of rigs out drilling
in the US, for example, had beendeclining for a number of years.
And then in early 2020, theyjust dropped precipitously, I
think it was down to about 300Drilling teams now it's they've
doubled again, and they'reclimbing up. So the world is,
you know, part of this is a lowprices, a problem that we've had
over a number of years, price ofoil price of gas, the price of
(05:23):
gas was under $2 per millionBtus. But those have been
recovering. And now we've got,we've got this crisis, this
Europe centered energy crisis,that's, that's a partial cause
for these high prices. And letme march into that, if I if I
can a little bit. Europe hasbecome very dependent on what I
call weather driven energysources, wind and solar. And
(05:45):
also natural gas over the lasttwo decades or so 23 nations in
Europe announced that they wouldphase out coal by varying dates
2025 2030 2035. and Europe alsohas closed 100 nuclear plants,
nuclear power plants, 30 ofthose in Germany and 34 in the
United Kingdom. And so thecontinent has been very
(06:08):
dependent has become verydependent on wind, solar natural
gas. Another portion of that isit's not, it's not only
dependent on gas, but it's adependence on imported gas. In
2017, European communityidentified about 40 shale fields
in Europe, all over Europe. As amatter of fact, there's one that
(06:29):
stretches all the way from thethe Baltic states on the east
side of the Baltic Sea, all theway to England, the whole top
part of of Europe is one failshale field. But Europe has
decided not to fracture any ofthose fields. And so they
instead have been importing gas.
And by 2021 63% of their gas wasimported, and 27% from Russia.
(06:54):
Then in the summer of 2021, wehad a very low wind year in
Europe, the wind output inFrance, Germany in the United
Kingdom, was down about 20 or30%, all year long. And so what
Europe did was they burn naturalgas to produce electricity. And
by the end of the year, thestorage levels were very, very
(07:16):
low and gas. And so the pricewent way up. Typically the price
of natural gas, they measured ineuros per megawatt hour, has
been about 15 to 18 euros permegawatt hour, that's what it
was running 2020 2021 First partof 2021. And then when they
burned all this gas in thesummer to replace the wind that
(07:38):
they weren't getting from theirwind turbine, wind, wind
systems, the price of gas wentup by December of 2021 to 80
euros per megawatt hour. So fromabout under 20, up to at about a
about a five times rise. Andthat was three months before the
invasion of the Ukraine. Andthen when Russia invaded
(07:58):
Ukraine, the prices when higherprices doubled, again, they're
down about I think about 175euros per megawatt hour now. But
they have been over 200 forseveral months. And so this is a
factor of 10 natural gas hasgone up by a factor of 10. It's
basically exploded. And alongwith that, electricity prices
(08:18):
have also gone up by a bigamount. The price of electricity
in Europe, throughout 2020 ranabout 35 about 15 to 35 euros
per megawatt hour, or pounds permegawatt hour, roughly the same
British pounds that went up by afactor of six by the end of
2021. And then with f theinvasion of Ukraine. It's now
(08:41):
right the average in in Augustin Germany and France was over
400 euros per megawatt hour. Sothat's also a by a factor of 10.
Just a huge problem that theyhave in Europe. So gas and
electricity prices are up by afactor of 10. And this is really
injuring European industry. Justin September unit PIR in Germany
(09:06):
was nationalized by the Germangovernment. It was the biggest
importer of natural gas inbecause Juniper had all these
long term contracts with Russiaand they lost them. And they
were paying prices that theycouldn't recoup in the market
for this on the spot market. InEngland, they had 30 firms who
(09:27):
were buying gas who went out ofbusiness because the price they
consolidate, which wascontrolled was was lower than
what they could buy it. We haveammonia production and Europe
down 50% nitrogen fertilizerproduction on 33% those
industries are very dependent onnatural gas. And then the metal
(09:48):
smelting groups are very, verymuch in trouble as well. More
than half of the aluminum andzinc production in Europe has
has shut down. So any of thesefirms that don't have long term
contracts at fixed prices arehaving to close down. And so
really a terrible situation inEurope right now. And it's also
(10:13):
it has spread around the worldas well, because in the US what
our natural gas folks have beendoing as they they shifted their
first they're shippingeverything they can to Europe,
because the prices are so high.
And they stopped shipping it toAsian and diverted some of it to
Europe. So the price has beenrising in Asia as well, almost
as fast as in Europe.
Phil Sherwood (10:34):
Okay, can we go back to Europe screen energy
policies? That's where westarted the conversation here.
And could you break that downfor us a little bit? When did
that start? How long ago didthey start on this path?
Steve Gorham (10:49):
Well, it's it's been several decades. You know,
a lot of this came out of theoriginal out of the oil, several
factors in the 20th century. Onewere the oil shocks of 73 and
79. And a lot of groups thataffected the US that caused
inflation in the US it calledcause recessions or gasoline
(11:09):
prices used to be about 20 centsa gallon. And they they
skyrocketed. With with the oilshocks there, we had an
environmental movement duringthe 1950s 60s and 70s. And
rightly so there were air andwater pollution issues that
needed to be solved. And sothere was there was a drive to a
(11:30):
shift from oil and natural gas.
Matter of fact, the USgovernment was promoting coal to
be burned in power plants forfor a number of decades. And
that and still there was a shiftthere to take us away from
dependence on natural gas oroil. And then we had this this
rising theory of manmade globalwarming, which we'll get into a
little bit that sprang up in the80s. And all of these factors,
(11:52):
aimed Europe and other locationstoward trying to substitute wind
and solar. And in some case,biomass is for oil and gas. And
so matter of fact, around theworld we've had, the the green
energy shift that many peopleare proposing is that first you
switch from coal to natural gas.
(12:16):
And then you substitute naturalgas with wind and solar and
storage as you get farther andfarther along. And so we've had
a shift away from coal in manylocations. And right now we have
a situation where natural gaseshas become the crude oil of
today, if you will. This is thefirst world energy crisis. It's
(12:37):
based on natural gas that we'vehad, and the price of natural
gas, but it's similar to the twopast world crises based on
petroleum. There just isn'tenough natural gas around right
now. As I mentioned, a lot ofcountries have been shifting to
shifting out of coal shifting tonatural gas. And so we're really
(12:57):
short of it right now. And withthis resurgence in global
demand, and the the Russia, gascut off to Europe, it has come
full force and forced prices upby a factor of 10.
Phil Sherwood (13:10):
You'd mentioned over 100 nuclear energy plants
had been shut down. Over inEurope.
Steve Gorham (13:18):
I was in that's in Europe. Yes. Yeah. In Europe,
Phil Sherwood (13:21):
that doesn't seem to go along with the green
energy movements. Can you talkon that a little bit?
Steve Gorham (13:28):
Well, it is kind of interesting. Yeah. Matter of
fact, during the 70s, during thethe environmental movement of
the 50s 60s and 70s. A bigportion of that movement was was
anti atomic weapons. Greenpeacewas founded and went out and
looked at testing in the Pacifictesting in the Aleutians and
protested. And so there aremany, many efforts, and many of
(13:51):
the Green parties in Europe,oppose nuclear power and opposed
atomic energy. And then we had anumber of things go on, we had
the three mile near problem inPennsylvania. We had the
Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine,which was a partial meltdown of
a plant. We had the Fukushimaevent in 2011, where they had a
(14:15):
eight on the Richter scale, alevel of earthquake and a huge
tidal wave, which stopped thecooling systems in the planet
Fukushima and caused someradiation there and some
problems there. ChancellorAngela Merkel in Germany said
well, we you know, we're thiswe're now going to embark on
(14:36):
shutting down the nuclear plantsas part of their energy Wendy
program. And so Germany haskilled 30 of them The United
Kingdom has been closing plantsas well. But you're right. From
a greenhouse gas point of viewnuclear plants emit close to
zero greenhouse gases and, andso should be in line with the
supporting the theory of manmadewarming and the reader and
(15:00):
emissions. But they've been alittle bit on the blacklist of
many environmental,environmental movements and
governments for a number ofyears. And nuclear has been
fairly flat since World Nuclear,it's been declining as a
percentage of world electricity.
But the total output has beenfairly flat since just before
2000. In the US, we get about, Ithink, just about 20% of our
(15:23):
electricity from nuclear, andthat's been flat for many years
as well.
Tom Wireman (15:29):
Steve, you're a little bit critical, maybe as
world efforts to transition torenewable energy is
Steve Gorham (15:35):
sort of a minority report, if you will.
Tom Wireman (15:39):
But But to some degree, don't we need to make
this transition? Well,
Steve Gorham (15:43):
let's talk about energy a little bit. So from my
point of view, there are threebig misconceptions about energy.
The first is that by using anincreasing amount of energy, we
are increasingly polluting theworld. Second is that by using
more and more energy, we're andparticularly hydrocarbon based
energy, we are destroying theclimate. And the third is that
(16:04):
we are running out oftraditional energy, are running
out of oil and gas, the theoryof peak oil, so called resource
depletion, and therefore we mustforce a switch to renewables.
Those three ideas are taught inour universities. They've been
adopted by the news media, andmany, many companies have picked
those up as well. But if youlook a little more closely at
(16:28):
these, you see that these reallyaren't the case. And maybe we
should get into a discussion onthose.
Phil Sherwood (16:37):
Yeah, let's take these one at a time. You know,
it's said that only gasproduction is causing rising
global pollution. That is
Steve Gorham (16:45):
actually a pretty big misconception, what in the
United States, for example, andall developed nations. So we
have, we have cleaner air, wehave declining air, declining
air pollution. My grandfatherhad a coal bin in his basement,
and he would, he does house withcoal truck would come up, dump
(17:08):
it down in the bill and go intothe furnace. And he lived in
Chicago, this was in the 1950sor so. In Chicago, it would snow
and about five days later, youwould see a little bit of a
black film on all the snow. Andpeople used to do spring
cleaning, most of the youngfolks don't know what that is.
But with spring cleaning,literally in April, and May,
(17:29):
they would actually wash thewalls every year to wash the
coal dust off the walls. Butnatural gas came in and replaced
that and made all of our heatingsystems very much cleaner. And
if you look at US Air Qualitytrends, data from the EPA shows
that our combined pollutants,and those are LED carbon
(17:50):
monoxide, military, nitrogendioxide, sulfur dioxide,
particulates, and ozone, aredown at combined about 80%. Now,
relative to what they were in1980. So our air is very, very
clean. If you look around theworld, in all wealthy nations,
you still see a similar thingyou see, Europe has a similar
(18:11):
curve, where their pollution hasbeen declining recently. And
actually, every nation goesthrough a sort of a process
where when they start to whenthey're poor, and they don't
have food and clothing, andhousing, they're interested in
increasing wealth, and they'renot too interested in what's
(18:33):
going on with the water and theair. And so as they get
wealthier, they pollute the airand they pollute the water. And
so environmental damage andpollution goes up. But then at
some point, they reach a thingcalled a turning point income.
And they're, they look aroundand say, Well, hey, we're
wealthier than we were a coupleof decades ago, but our air and
(18:54):
water is not very good. And sothen they start cleaning it up.
And interesting curve at theUniversity of Chicago shows
what's happened to China in justthe last few years with regard
to particulate pollution thatpeaked in in China's air. And
these are small particles thatgo into the air that peaked
about 2012 or 13. And it's beendeclining since so you have kind
(19:18):
of an an inverted U curve wherepollution rises in every nation,
but then after nations getwealthier declines. So the great
news is that as nations getwealthy, they clean up their air
in their water, and we're seeingthat all over the world. Some
people still think globalpollution is rising, and it is
(19:40):
in poor nations. But overall,the good news is that nations
clean up their air and water andwe put scrubbers on our on even
our coal plants, and those, it'sjust a great thing. So pollution
is not rising globally, andwe're going to get all over the
world where we will have eventInitially improving air and
(20:01):
water. You
Phil Sherwood (20:03):
mentioned a couple of things in there, I
want to unpack those. Youmentioned the word ozone, which
we have not heard for a longtime. I can remember that used
to be the big buzzword. Whathappened there? What happened to
the ozone? Are we not concernedabout the ozone layer going away
anymore.
Steve Gorham (20:18):
But the ozone layer is a little different.
What I'm talking about here,this ozone is more ground level
ozone. And it's produced byother things, particulates and
nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, whenthey're emitted from from
factories or power plants, theyreact and they produce ozone and
ozone can be harmful like theseother pollution pollutants. I
mentioned. The ozone layers alittle bit different. That's up
(20:41):
high. And that's
Phil Sherwood (20:44):
the big, the big climate concern was the ozone
layer did it?
Steve Gorham (20:47):
Well, yeah. Well, the Yeah, you're right. And so
in the 70s, the number ofscientists said that people were
damaging the ozone layer, theyfound a hole over Antarctica,
which was a reduced amount ofozone concentration in the high
atmosphere. And they thought andthey postulated that we were
doing that. And then there was atreaty, the Montreal Protocol,
(21:09):
which was signed, I think about79 or so early 80s. Were all the
nations in the world signed upto reducing. And they said
basically, that the way we werekilling it was
chlorofluorocarbons compoundswith with fluorine in them that
we had with fluorine that we hadin our aerosols. And so the the
(21:30):
nations of the world agreed thatwe would get rid of those
compounds. And during the 90s,in the early 2000s, those
basically went to zero aroundthe world. Funny thing, Oh, is
that the, the ozone hole isstill there over Antarctica? So
I'm not sure whether the theoryis correct. Now, scientists say
well, it's going to take a fewmore decades before we see that
(21:52):
change. But it may be that thereare other factors in nature that
are causing the ozone hole upthere, and not necessarily our
chlorofluorocarbons. But that's,that's a bit of an another
topic. For ice ground levelozone.
Phil Sherwood (22:05):
Okay, sorry, I misunderstood you there. The
other thing you mentioned wasabout nations, and when they
become wealthy, they can cleanup, can you speak a little bit
to how nations become wealthy?
Well, you know,
Steve Gorham (22:20):
you know, that's kind of an interesting thing,
especially for the oil and gasindustry, if you I have
sometimes when I present Ishowed two curves together, one
is increasing gross domesticproduct for the world. And this
curve is about from 1950 topresent day. And the other one I
put there is global carbondioxide emissions. And if you
(22:44):
look at them, they are veryhighly correlated. And the
carbon dioxide emissions, thatthat we produce, of course, come
from primarily from burningnatural gas and oil and coal and
wood as well, anyway, but thatthat's a measure of the
industrialization of our modernsociety. And our all of our
(23:05):
transportation, our air flights,our shipping, the electricity we
produce is still dominatedglobally, two thirds of it is
produced by oil and gas. Matterof fact, about 80% of global
energy comes from hydrocarbons,despite the fact that the world
has spent $5 trillion over thelast 15 years or so to promote
wind and solar. And, and that80% is about the same as it was
(23:30):
20 or 25 years ago really hasn'tchanged. So yeah, we have this.
We have this issue abouteverybody wanting to get rid of
oil and gas and suppress co2emissions. But those things are
an indication of the tremendousprosperity of modern modern day
society.
Tom Wireman (23:48):
Steve, you mentioned seek your second, your
second point, if I recall, wasthe UN, the United Nations
rather, and others would saythat we need to halt oil and gas
production to stop the globalwarming. Right. Yeah. So let's
get to that
Steve Gorham (24:02):
a little bit for us. Yeah, this is this. I mean,
we could do a whole nothersession on this. So I'll try and
be brief. But there's a couplethings people should understand.
The one is, you know, I have hada couple of young ladies from
UCLA call me up and start askingme questions about manmade
warming. So I asked them somequestions. And one of the
questions I asked was, well, howmuch you think global
(24:23):
temperatures have warmed in thelast century or century and a
half, and one said five degreesand other 10. The actual number
is since 1880, globaltemperatures have risen one
degree Celsius in 140 years,about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit,
that's very, very small. We getthat change every day between
(24:46):
nine and 10 o'clock in themorning. So the temperature rise
has been very, very small. Thesecond thing is that we've had
warmer temperatures in the past.
There's a lot of geologicevidence that that says that for
Centuries at a time. We hadtemperatures 1000 years ago,
2000 years ago, 3000 years ago,six to 8000 years ago that were
(25:08):
warmer than Today'stemperatures. And those were due
to natural factors. Those weredue to cycles of the sun. Other
factors that are going on in ouruniverse tilt to the Earth's
axis, a lot of other things. Andso if you look at today's
modern, warm period, there'snothing abnormal about it. We it
(25:28):
has warmed a degree, but we'vebeen coming out of a period
called the Little Ice Age, whenthe Thames River froze solid in
London every year and used tohave a festival called the frost
fest, during the Little Ice Agewhere you haven't been able to
do that for more than a centurybecause the Thames River hasn't
frozen solid at London. Butthese factors are natural
(25:48):
variations in Earth's climateand temperatures. And again,
10,000 years ago, we had at theend of the ice age we had, or
maybe 15 20,000 years ago, wehad a mile of ice on Chicago
sitting on the surface of theearth. These cycles happen
normally. The first point is wehave a very little temperature
(26:09):
rise for many, many years.
Second is it's been naturallywarm in the past. And the third
is when you break down thegreenhouse effect, which is a
natural effect of greenhousegases in the atmosphere like
carbon dioxide or methane dotend to trap energy coming out
causes their molecules vibrate,they reradiated it does tend to
(26:30):
warm surface of the earth. Butmost of the greenhouse effect is
a natural effect. Earth'sdominant greenhouse gas in our
atmosphere is not carbondioxide, it's not methane, it's
water vapor. Somewhere between75 and 90%, of Earth's
greenhouse effect is caused bywater vapor and clouds. And then
(26:51):
if you look at all the naturalcarbon dioxide that that is
exchanged between the oceans andthe atmosphere, every year, it's
huge. We have 50 times as muchcarbon dioxide dissolved in the
oceans as we do in in in theatmosphere. And every day,
nature puts about 20 times asmuch co2 in the atmosphere as
(27:12):
all of Earth's industries, andremoves about the same amount.
So human contributions, if youlook at the the factors is a
very small part of everything.
Probably we're producing one or2%, we have one or 2% effect on
Earth's greenhouse effect very,very small. There'll be on that,
you know, I could go into a lotof different things about
storms. If you look at history,we do not have more and stronger
(27:35):
storms than we had in pastyears. oceans have been rising
about eight inches per century.
But they've been doing thatoceans have been rising for the
last 20,000 years. There aremany, many things that the
bottom line is that globalwarming is dominated by natural
(27:56):
factors, not manmade emissions.
And again, this is a MinorityReport. There are a lot of
people that disagree with this.
And but I'm happy to debate anyof those folks anytime they
would like to. And I thinkwithin a few decades, we might
even have a little bit of goldglobal cooling, we could have a
period of time when thetemperatures are declining,
despite what we're doing withour industry. So that's a real
(28:20):
encapsulation of of acomplicated topic, global
warming and human effects on it.
Phil Sherwood (28:27):
Okay, well, let's switch to your third
misconception about running outof oil and gas. You know, some
people say that we need toswitch to renewables, because
we're not going to have enoughoil and gas, you know, to supply
the world.
Steve Gorham (28:40):
I love to I love to play a clip from a
presentation Jimmy Carter madethat President Jimmy Carter made
to the nation about but 78 orso. And he said, basically, if
we keep using oil at the samerate we are we could run out of
oil by the next decade. And heall of his advisers told him
(29:01):
this. I mean, it wasn'tnecessarily his his sort of
thing. And many global petroleumsupply was going to peak about
2005. But we introduced thefrack the hydraulic fracking
revolution in the United Statesand, and US oil production,
which had fallen to 5 millionbarrels a day in 2008. Went back
(29:25):
up to 12 million barrels a day.
In 2019. It's a little bit lessnow but it's rising again. And
if you look at world oilproduction and reserves in 1980,
we had about 28 years of supply.
The reason the oil reserves are28 years of supply 2019 they
were 45 years of supply. Sowe've been finding reserves
(29:49):
faster than the world has beenconsuming, even though
production of oil has been goingup. So the idea of peak oil and
gas has been proven incorrect atleast in our lifetime. I'm here.
And so there's, there's no realreason to switch out of that
because it's going to bedisappearing. Now on the other
hand, as I mentioned earlier, ifthe world doesn't invest in
(30:10):
exploration and drilling, thenwe're gonna get price rises. And
that's what we're seeing now,particularly natural gas in the
US and sub only a factor abouttwo and a half or three. In
Europe and the rest of theworld, it's up by a price factor
of 10 times what it was twoyears ago. And oil is at a
(30:32):
healthy price about $80 a barrelbut makes our gasoline
expensive. So we need to getback to producing oil and gas
for for the prosperity ofpeople. And oh, by the way, we
have a big portion of the worldthat still needs still needs oil
and gas. In Nigeria, forexample, there's about three
(30:54):
cars per every 100 people. InEurope, it's 50 or 60 cars, per
100 people in the US, it's justabout, I think it's about 100
cars per every 100 people. So asthese nations develop, they're
gonna need the prosperity we'veenjoyed, they're gonna need more
oil and gas. And so the industryneeds to push back a little bit
(31:15):
against the, against the globalwarming narrative.
Mallory Schlabach (31:19):
If you're an oil and gas operator who wants
to simplify and automate the wayyou handle distributions, joint
interest billings, and you useQuickBooks, you'll want to see a
free demo of our software atshareware. Our software was
designed to simplify thedistribution and accounting
processes for operators. Byintegrating directly with your
QuickBooks company. On average,we save our users more than 10
(31:41):
hours each week and $40,000 ayear in payroll costs by
automating the distributionprocess from start to finish.
All you have to do is go toshoware.com backslash demo right
now and book a free walkthroughof the software to see if we can
help speed up yourdistributions. That's all for
this week's episode. We are soglad you're a loyal listener and
(32:02):
spreading the news about thepodcast. Make sure you listen
SUBSCRIBE And leave us a review
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.