Editor-in-Chief of Shale Magazine - Robert Rapier

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix Radio Show. Produced
by the Energy Network Media Group. The Energy Mixed Radio
Show will give you an inside look at the energy
industry and how it affects you by talking with industry leaders, experts,
and government officials on the Energy Mix Radio Show.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back to the nationally syndicated The Energy Mix Radio Show.
I'm your host, Kimbalato, and today we're diving into the
world of oil and gas as well as the future
of hydrogen. Is it a boom or a bust? Plus,
we'll explore geodrmal energy and its potential role in the
energy transition. I'm joined today with my co host, the
ever insightful Robert Raypierd. Robert, Welcome back to the Energy

(00:38):
Mix Radio Show.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thanks for having me again.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Kim, Well, you know, it's kind of strange to say
co host because you're actually a host. It's just I
guess when you and I get together, somebody's got to
be the host, and somebody's got to be the co
host by your host too. So welcome to my show.
Let's get started. How have things been. We have not
seen each other in well since we were in Vegas
at a conference use spoke at. But you live in Arizona.

(01:03):
My son lives in Vegas, and I live in Texas,
and we're all been experiencing strange weather. How's the weather
in Arizona?

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Well, it's so typically, you know, it gets hot in
Arizona about mid April and it cools off about mid October.
We had a record heat spell this year, and it
follows a record heat spell last year. But the temperature's
finally broken this week. I think on Friday our high
is going to be like seventy five. Now. Day before

(01:31):
yesterday it was still one hundred. But now you know,
we woke up this morning it was sixty eight degrees.
So it is finally cooling off some here. So that's
a welcome relief.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, I remember you were disgusting some graphs or something
that was talking about how many seasons we've been in
this heat wave. Can you talk a little bit about
that or we I mean, I know Texas we're experiencing
quite a few storms and some hurricanes barely missed us,
but we've had a heck of a season hurricane season

(02:04):
in Texas and in Florida.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Right, And so I'll tell you what's happened here in Phoenix,
and this has been in the papers and the National
Weather Services has issued statements on this. This year we
set a record for the most days that got to
at least one hundred and ten degrees in Phoenix, and
that was seventy. We had seventy days of at least

(02:28):
one hundred and ten. Now, to put this in perspective,
the previous record was last year when we had fifty
five days, and before that it was twenty twenty was
the record at fifty three. So the top three days
with temperature to at least one hundred and ten have
all happened in the last four years. Back before that,

(02:49):
the number drops substantially. So we go from fifty three
in twenty twenty that's number three, down to thirty three
in twenty eleven. Your records go back to eighteen ninety five, so.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know, it's a lot of data there.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
These these are not you know, just just you know,
recent these go back aways, and so we are experiencing
a lot hotter temperatures here now. One of the reasons
is this We've got an Allino cycle going and al
Nino brings you know, warmer temperatures, but and sometimes I
hear people say, well, it's because it's an Alnino year,

(03:26):
but we always had Alnino years. I mean, we've had
pleny of Alnino cycles over the last hundred years. So
it is truly getting hotter in Phoenix, and I don't
think that's a controversial or debatable point.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Okay, Well, as we're talking about the weather getting hotter,
this is kind of alluding to the topic of climate change,
and you know the reason why we're seeing this whole
energy transition, evolution, expansion. There's so many different people using
so many different words. It's all of them, but climate change.

(04:01):
It's due to climate change, and we're seeing record heat, weather, catastrophes,
all kinds of things are happening. And I think it's
to the point, Robert, that we had a before we
dive into the show, I want to talk about. We
had a very unhappy listener email in which I'm very
happy to get emails from our listeners, and I highly

(04:22):
encourage it. Even if we don't meet the mark with you,
I still want to hear it. But we luckily we
had a listener that actually sent us an email discussing
specifically climate change, and we get a lot of emails,
but this one was very specific to climate change, and
I feel the need to say that. You know, we
changed the show's name from The Oil Patch to the

(04:43):
Energy Mix because we were covering so many different topics
that just didn't apply to the specific energy patch. So
the Energy Mix radio show came to be. But I
want to also say to the listeners, I think you
and I we both are committed to be fair, an
objective and covering energy. For me being outside the energy sector,

(05:06):
never working a day in it, and you being a
petroleum chemical engineer, you're in it up to your eyeballs.
But it's a complicated topic for many of us, and
so I want to be clear that we do support
oil and gas and all forms of energy. We are
expanding our coverage to help the general public understand on
how energy affects us in our lives. So, Robert, I

(05:28):
want you to kind of cover for our listeners the
email that was sent to you on climate change and
what made the listener unhappy.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
If you don't mind, sure, let me first say that
you know you can never please everyone.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Correct.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
This particular email was kind of littered with insults, so
it clearly touched a nerve. But he started off calling
me a global worming activist. Now nobody who knows me
would call me that. I mean if I'm a global
warming activist, and so is the CEO of Exon Mobil
and Shell and so forth, because they've all acknowledged climate change.

(06:06):
So you know, he hit The context of the message
that he left was that our show was about climate change.
So I want to put that in context. I mean,
in an hour long show. We were halfway through the
show when you asked me a question. Prior to that,

(06:26):
we had talked about Iran Israel, we talked about OPEC
cheating and their quotas, we talked about the vice presidential debate.
We talked about Biden's energy policies, and we talked about fracking.
And about halfway through the show, you asked me about
the VP debate as it relates to climate change, and
I pointed out that Vance had made a good point

(06:47):
on moving manufacturing back to the US because China. And
this is what I don't know if the guy completely
missed this, but I can talk about climate change and
also talk about the fact that we're kind of powerless
to do anything about rising carbon emissions. Because it's coming
from China. Mainly. China is driving this right now. So

(07:08):
you know, I'm not saying we should shut down our
oil and gas production. I'm not saying we should greatly
curtail because that's not happening. In fact, I've defended the
oil and gas companies many times against charges that they're
responsible for climate change. And I'll point out China's cold
is the primary driver of growing carbon emissions. So in
that show, you ask about that, and I pointed out

(07:29):
the temperature records in Phoenix, and that's that's a fact.
I mean, that's happening. I also pointed out that surface
water temperatures in the Gulf, they as they warm up,
they enable rapid intensification in hurricanes. And the irony is
that was happening even as this guy left that comment,
we were having a hurricane that rapidly intensified, Hurricane Milton,

(07:52):
and that was happening. So none of that stuff I
said was the least bit controversial, but it triggered the guy,
and you know, he told me I should look at
the weather events for the past hundred years. Well, the
numbers I just cited for the temperature records go back
to eighteen ninety five, So I mean that's well over

(08:13):
one hundred years ago, and Phoenix is setting records. Lots
of places are setting records, and you know, there's there's
no question that the COEO two concentration in the atmosphere arising,
those are measured, We see those going up. We know
the CO two is a greenhouse gas. We know how
that works. So there's really was nothing controversial about what

(08:34):
I said. It's not like we had a show on
climate change. It's it's, uh, you know, it's a topic
that all companies have to have to deal with. They
have to address, they have to address questions about it,
they have they hire people to deal with it. So
it's it shouldn't be a controverse thing. It shouldn't be
something that we can't talk about or something it's off limits,

(08:56):
because it is a real thing that they have to
deal with. And the reality is we are having more
and more severe weather events. We're having you know, places
are getting hit, you know, back to back five hundred
year floods that shouldn't be happening. A five hundre year
flood should have only happened once every five hundred years.
We're seeing more and more of these events, and you know,
it's it's related to climate change, and but there can

(09:19):
be the reality of climate change. And also the reality
is the reality that it's being driven by forces outside
our control. And that's something I've repeatedly pointed out that
you know, China and Asia Pacific overall, China and India
and all their coal consumption is really a driving factor here.
And you know, we shouldn't be curtailing our oil and

(09:41):
gas production or hurting our oil and gas production because
of you know, the emissions coming out of China. China
emits now far more than we do. Our emissions in
the US have actually declined more than any other countries
in the last fifteen years, mainly because natural gas has
displaced coal for power production and that's fract and fracting
has caused an immense decrease in our carbon emissions in

(10:04):
the United States. So I think we can talk about
all of that. I don't think any of that's controversial.
But you know, we clearly touched a nerve with somebody
who I guess doesn't want to hear the word climate
change because it was very insulting message. And I won't
engage with those if you want to come respectfully and
say hey, I disagree, and here's why we can have

(10:24):
a conversation. But if you call me a bunch of names,
I'm not I mean that says more about the person
leaving the comment than it does me. I'm willing to
have a conversation with anybody, but not if they're not
respectful and you know, intenally having a conversation.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Kind of think though that there are some people that
really get lost in some kind of brain malfunction when
we talk about climate change. And it's just not clear
to me why these people do this, because, as you
mentioned earlier and I mentioned earlier, first of all, energy
a complicated topic and the average person really has a

(11:02):
problem trying to understand it all. This is why we've
been on the show on the air for nine years
trying to break down these topics. And I can also
understand from somebody who is very sensitive to climate change
as we discuss it. But here's the thing that's missing
in my mind is so if we took these one
hundred thousand nonprofits that are all on the bandwagon, you know,

(11:26):
turn it off at the spickett like AOC says, or
keep it in the ground or all these activist groups
and turn their attention to fight finding this solution on
a global scale as opposed to a United States scale.
Think where we could go with this. It's in other words,
demanding that China and other countries come to the table

(11:47):
and start addressing If we're going to have the topic
of climate change, it has to be as a globe,
not you know, state by state. So that needs to happen.
But as I mentioned, these people that' see to get rattled.
You recently wrote an article in Forbes discussing an article
that came out in Cornell University, and we're again we're

(12:10):
talking about climate change. Tell me a little bit about
that article you wrote and why, Robert, let's take a
quick break. When we return, I want to talk about
your recent article in Forbes on climate change and Cornell University.
You're listening to the Energy Mix radio show. We'll be
right back.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
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Speaker 2 (13:02):
And we're back. You're listening to the Energy Mix radio show.
My co host is joining me today, Robert Rapier, Senior
contributor Forbes and editor of Shell Magazine. Robert. We welcome
comments suggestions on how and topics pat to make the
show better and topics that people want to hear about.
So send us an email at radio at shellmag dot com.

(13:24):
Let's talk about you. Recently wrote an article just this
week in Forbes discussing an article from Cornell University, and
specifically the discussion was climate change. So can you talk
to us a little bit about what your article was about?

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Right, So, there are a couple of professors at Cornell
University and they're anti fracking activists, and they have put
out papers for years that argue that natural gas is
dirtier than cold and the effect of that is you know,
environmentalists pick that up and they say, oh, you see,

(14:03):
we should also not be exporting LNG, and we shouldn't
be drilling for natural gas if it's dirtier than cold.
And so one of the professors, Robert Holworth, just put
out a new paper in Energy Science and Engineering, and
he claims that LNG has a thirty three percent larger

(14:23):
carbon emissions footprint than coal over a twenty year period.
So you know, people suddenly say, ah, natural gas is
also dirty and this is important. It's misinformation, and I'll
tell you why it's misinformation. But it hurts if we
are not displacing cold with natural gas, like China for instance,

(14:45):
They're just going to keep burning coal. And if you
cherry pick information to try to make it seem like
natural gas is worse than cold, you're doing a lot
of damage. And so I take this sort of stuff
personally because I think this kind of thing, while they're
trying to stop fracking and stop drilling, actually can be

(15:06):
very harmful in our fight to lower carbon emissions. So
I want to talk about what the guy's assumptions were here.
So first of all, a quick a quick primer on
hydrocarbage and how they contribute to carbon emissions. Hydrocarbonas are
made of carbon and hydrogen, and when those are burned,

(15:27):
it forms carbon dioxide and water. The hydrogen forms water.
So something with more hydrogen, like natural gas, forms more water.
Something with more carbon like coal, forms more CO two.
So you know, coal, when it's burned, forms about I
think twice as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy

(15:47):
as natural gas. So that's why methane natural gas. Methane
is a lot cleaner burning, but methane is also a
very powerful greenhouse gas. It's much more more powerful than
CO two. So if it leaks into the atmosphere, and
this is this is the main assumption here, if it
leaks into the atmosphere, it could be worse than CO

(16:11):
two than the CO two from cold and so this
guy's assumption. He assumed a very high leak rate in
natural gas production, much higher than the accepted elite rate
from the US EPA. He assumes that that if the
leak rates high, it will never be fixed. And he
also limited the timeframe to twenty years. And that's important

(16:33):
because the reason he does that is because methane only
survives in the atmosphere for a dozen years or so,
and then he gets converted into CO two, and the
methane in the atmosphere is only like at two parts
per million versus four hundred and twenty for carbon dioxide,
So there's not that much methane rather than to carbon dioxide.
And it doesn't persist very long, So over a period

(16:56):
longer than twenty years, methanees impact trails way off. But
this guy made a series of worst case assumptions and
then he concludes, oh, natural gas is worse than CO.
But the assumptions are not they're not based in reality.
They are not. I mean he's put put out papers before,
and there are and this is funded by an anti

(17:18):
fracking group. His research is funded by an anti fracking group,
so that suggests a potential motivation and reason for him.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
He's a bias right there.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
He's worst case assumption.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Who writes on assumptions unless it's labeled as fiction. And
here we have a professor from Cornell University being funded
by an anti fracking group. I mean, this thing stinks
to high hell.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
So so leak rates are estimates, and but the EPA
has estimated those. There are EPA estimates available, and this
guy chose to ignore those and to go with much
higher leak real I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
It's on assumptions and something that's not in the fact
based creates an article uses his title, and unfortunately the
university allows this, and now we're in a non fact
based fiction article based on assumptions coming out of Cornella University.
A professor.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
Wow, And you know these guys have outed themselves because
they've attended anti fracking demonstrations and stuff, so that you
cannot say these are neutral objective observers here. These are
guys with an agenda.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
What did you call it earlier when you were saying
about the listener that wrote in, and you said they
have this bias.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
And all like, it's a logical fallacy. It's confirmation bias
where you look for facts that support your beliefs, but
you ignore the facts that contradict your beliefs. And it's
a very common logical fallacy. People do it all the time.
You know. That's why people can maintain really strange beliefs
because no matter I mean, if you believe smoking is

(18:57):
good for you, you can probably find somebody out there
in a position of authority saying this. You know, if
you believe the Earth is flat. You can find somebody
with a credential biased name saying the Earth is flat,
and so that's confirmation biased when people, you know, believe
things that seem like way out there to to the

(19:18):
rest of us. But so you know, I look at.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Now and that sells today, right. It is called influencers,
and they're paid and they lose their credibility for a buck.
That's kind of how I see it. Let's take a
quick break. When we return, we're going to continue on
this topic, talk a little bit about hydrogen and also geode.
There well, you're listening to the Energy Mixed radio show.
Will be right back.

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Speaker 2 (21:22):
And we're back. You're listening to you. The Energy Mix
radio show. My guest today is Robert Rapier, the editor
of Shell magazine and senior contributor of Forbes. Robert, we've
had a lot of discussion for the beginning of the
show on climate change. Let's switch gears and talk about hydrogen.
It's there's a lot of discussion of hydrogen. Government has
invested a lot of money into trying to see if

(21:44):
this is a fuel that works. Can you explain, first
of all for our listeners what the meaning of hydrogen
is in an energy carrier rather than a source of energy,
and why this distinction is significant. So just so our
listeners kind of understand a little bit about hydrogen.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Sure, so hydrogen is the simplest and most abundant element
in the universe, but it's also very reactive. So here
on Earth, to our knowledge, we don't have any abundant
hydrogen reserves. Hydrogen has to be created, and right now
most hydrogen is produced from natural gas, steam methane reforming.

(22:27):
We take natural gas, we react it with steam, and
we produce hydrogen. So hydrogen, whereas you know, oil is
an energy source, we can go pull it out of
the ground and burn it. That's not the case with hydrogen,
hydro has to be produced, so in that case, it's
more like a battery. It's an energy storage device because
we have to put energy into it to produce it.

(22:50):
The beauty of hydrogen why there's so much hydrogen hype
is hydrogen when it is burned, just forms water as
a product. So there would be a lot of interest
in hydrogen as a fuel. Lots of disadvantages though from hydrogen.
It has a very low energy density, and that means

(23:12):
you know, your car, if you were running on hydrogen combustion,
it would have a you know, not a big range.
If you're running on a fuel cell. The fuel cells
another way they use hydrogen. Those are very expensive, so
you know, hydrogen height goes back to I think George W.
Bush's two thousand and one or two thousand and two

(23:32):
State of the Union address then he talked about hydrogen economy,
and I was debunking that back then. I said, there
are many many barriers for us to have a full
fledged hydrogen economy, but there are times and places hydrogen
works and hydrogen. You know, refineries use hydrogen in massive volumes.
I mean they produce hydrogen from steam reforming and then

(23:53):
Hydrogen is used in all kinds of chemical reactions. It's
used for all kinds of refining processes. So hydrogen is
used massively in this country, just not as transportation fuel.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
What about in light I want to cover an article
of a recent cancelation and delays of nine hydrogen projects
in Europe and the United States. First, what do you
think are the key challenges hindering the success of these projects?
Why are we having such delays when we're talking about
hydrogen projects if the government, especially the United States is

(24:29):
doubling down, tripling down with a lot of resources and
revenue money and the IRA the Inflation Reduction Act to
try to get some other alternative energy sources going.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, I think it's just like many other things that
people get ahead of themselves and then reality starts to
sink in and they start to realize some of the challenges.
And I've seen people jump into projects before without really
doing enough due diligence, and then as you start to
go through the project, you go, wow, you know, I
thought we had one or two hurdles and we've actually
got five or six. And that was my when I

(25:02):
was debunking George Bush's stead of the Union and saying,
you know, we're not about to have a hydrogen economy.
I pointed out, we've got like five or six major
challenges to solve, and if you've got one or two,
then you could say, Okay, that's probably viable. When you've
got five or six and some of them no idea
how you're going to solve those, it becomes really a

(25:23):
big challenge. I think the fact that hydrogen, you know,
it's so clean burning, is the driver behind these projects.
But then you get into the reality of Okay, hydrogen
energy Inncity is low, it's expensive to transport. Liquid hydrogen
is very expensive to produce and cool and transport. So
I think the reality is that there are just many,

(25:44):
many factors that lead to you know, a reality check
over time and people realizing, okay, this is not going
to be exactly what we thought. Having said that, there
are some niche applications, and actually tangled with Robert Bryce recently.
You know, he's been a guest on the show and
he's pretty anti hydrogen. But we went back and forth

(26:05):
on this on a recent TikTok.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
We are going to cover that in the next session,
So let's take a quick break that we can get
all into that in your TikTok Live session with Robert Bryce.
Let's take a quick break. You're listening to the Energy
Mixed radio show. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 (27:22):
And we're back to listening to the Energy Mix radio show.
My guest is the editor in chief of Shell magazine,
Robert Rapier. Robert, We've been discussing hydrogen, the pros and
the cons. A recent article written by one of your
past guests, Robert Bryce talk Sensation. He mentions a new
Harvard study challenging Bill gates claim about sheep green hydrogen

(27:46):
being the Swiss Army knife of decarbonization. So share with
us some insights from the study and its implications for
the future of hydrogen when we talk about energy. What
was in that study?

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah, it just talked about, you know, the challenges were
bigger than I liken it to sort of the silosic
ethanol praise of a decade or fifteen years ago, where
they're going to produce use biomass to produce ethanol and
they're going to produce use biomass produce gasoline, and it
overlooked a lot of challenges and assumed those challenges will

(28:23):
be easily solvable. And I think that's the case here.
I think Bill Gates is not an expert on hydrogen.
And he looks at it and says, okay, there's a
lot of benefits here from hydrogen, and that's true, that
doesn't mean it'll be cheap or easy to produce. Refineris
have been producing hydrogen for a century, and you know,
they're producing it as cheaply as they can, and it's

(28:45):
still not cheap enough to use as transportation fuel on
a massive scale. So I think a lot of these
tech guys, like Bill Gates. I've dealt with vanote Kosla,
who was the co founder of Sun Microsystems. He was
all on the on the saylos ethanol craze. I actually
was interviewed with on sixty Minutes by Leslie Stahl to

(29:07):
counter his arguments that you know, they'd be producing gasoline
from wood chips for a dollar a gallon, and I
went on there and I said, that's absolutely not gonna happen.
I said, the company's going to go bankrupt, and they
did go bankrupt. And I think that's part of the
problem is that there's too many assumptions that challenges will
be resolved. And when you've got a hydrogen's of mature technology,

(29:30):
I mean, it's been around for a long time, and
you suddenly assume that it's going to operate like, you know,
the Moor's Law curve of computer chips, and that's what
a lot of these guys do. They assume, well, we'll
double the innovation every you know, two years until you
know it's too cheap to measure. And that's what they do.
And that's what these guys do.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Interesting, well, you know you you mentioned earlier in the
last segment of the show that you were having a
discussion on TikTok with Robert Bryce. So you went live
with him and at Randolph and you were kind of
challenging Bryce on some of his hydrogen comments. Can you
share more about the discussion and the points of your debate,
which I can tell that the listeners now are figuring

(30:10):
out that you will debate your position. I believe me
you've got usually you're in the right position. What was
that about, right, But you had a lot of likes
on that TikTok.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, I also listen to people. I listen and absorb
and think about the information. And so Robert Bryce has
a solid foundation of saying this hype has gotten out
of control and and that was the basis of his argument. So, yeah,
we did a TikTok live. It was Matt Randolph mister Global,

(30:47):
who's been a guest couple of times, and Robert Bryce
and myself. Yeah, we were on for two full hours
and we had one hundred and sixty one hundred and
seventy thousand likes in that two hours, so we had
a lot of engagement. People ask us a lot of questions.
But you know, Robert said, you know, the hydrogen hype

(31:08):
is going to go bust, and you know hydrogen is
not viable. And what I said was, you know, we
already produced a lot of hydrogen on a large scale.
So hydrogen is not a bit myth or a bust
or anything like that. It exists on a large scale.
I said. It has niche applications and energy. And I'll

(31:29):
give you a good example, my favorite example. There are
places where you know, there are solar panels on most
of the homes and out in Hawaii, you know they
they've those solar panels when I lived in Hawaii, We're
going just about every home out there, and any place
where electricity is expensive, more and more solar panels are
going up. Well at the peak of the day, often

(31:52):
more electricity is being used, is being produced than can
be used. And what do you do with that access electricity, Well,
if you've got a battery, you charge the batteries up.
Or another place you can dump excess electricity is into water.
And if you put excess electricity into salt water, it

(32:12):
has to be it has to have a conductor in there.
It will produce hydrogen and oxygen. So you could dump
excess solar power into hydrogen production, which could be stored
and then later used in either a hydrogen fuel cell
or for combustion. So that was my point. My counterpoint

(32:32):
to Robert Rice is, look, there are times when hydrogen
might be good. Because he pointed out, and this is accurate,
it takes more energy to produce hydrogen. Then you can
get back out of the hydrogen. And that's a point
that I've made many times, and that's important because you know,
if you don't want to produce, you don't want to

(32:53):
use more energy to prod something, then you get back
out of it unless the energy is free or energy
is really really cheap, and the energy you're using is
in a form the energy you're producing is in a
more useful form than the energy that you used to
produce it. So there are some cases, and that was
my primary pushback to him is that, you know, there

(33:14):
are cases where hydrogen does make sense. But do I
think we'll have a hydrogen economy and all the cars
running on hydrogen, the airplanes running on hydrogen. No, I
do not think that will be the case.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Well, it'll be interesting to see if they can work
through the challenges of hydrogen. Right. Well, Robert, with ISAs
and Kerb now reviewing it's third three point three billion
dollar hydrogen plans for producing green steel, what impacts do
you think we'll have on the broader goal of decarbonization
when we talk about heavy industries.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Well, I think it's a wake up call for you
know people. I mean, if they had gone through with
this and it was successful and it made them money,
then obviously.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Others wouldn't be rethinking it.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
Right exactly. So I think we've looked at this and
they said, Okay, this is more challenging than we thought,
and it's going to take longer than we thought and
cost more than we thought. I think a lot of
other industries will go, wait a second, maybe there are
other ways to decarbonize.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Exactly, And so in our last sight when we come
back from break I recently attended at luncheon in Houston
where Commissioner Buckingham, who is the Commissioner of the General
Land Office, was a speaker. And I have to tell
you she is incredible, incredibly bright, dynamic MD doctor, but
she is also just a powerhouse and the stuff she

(34:32):
discussed here in Texas about her supporting the oil and
gas industry. But I also didn't realize that the GLO,
the General Land Office, also regulates geothermal energy, and that's
been coming up on my radar. Is is this a
potential energy source that's viable for the future. When we

(34:53):
get back from break, I want to talk about geothermal
and get your thoughts on is this viable source of energy?
Take a quick break, you're listening to the Energy Mix
radio show. Who'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 (36:09):
Find and we're back here listening to the Energy Mix
radio show. My guest is Robert Rapier, the editor in
chief of show magazine Robert Geothermal. I did an interview
recently on the show in which I had a young
lady on who studies energy in the future and what
are some really good energy sources, and she talked very
highly about geothermal energy. Can you explain to us what

(36:32):
it is and how does it work?

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Okay, So, geothermal uses the Earth's heat to produce steam
and to spin a turbine, and historically in places like Iceland,
in Whi close to where I used to live in
the Geysers Project in California, there are shallow volcanic hotspots
and so they will send water down on those hotspots

(36:56):
and that produces steam which comes back up through a
different way and is run through a turbine and produces electricity.
So this is historically the kind of geothermal that we've
been talking about. Some of the disadvantages of that are
that sometimes these hot spots move. Sometimes because it's a
volcanic hotspot, you have an eruption and that kind of

(37:17):
wacked out the plant that in in Hawaii, close to
where I was living, they had an eruption there and
it wiped out a big chunk of the plant because
you are on a volcanic hotspot and those can be
very unpredictable. So that has historically been the kind of
geothermal And you know, the challenge is those hot spots
can move around. You know, if a hotsp, if you

(37:38):
drill the well and that hot spot moves, then you know,
suddenly you may your production may fall off rapidly. But
for the most part, it's a stable firm source of power.
You're producing power twenty four to seven. And that's the
beauty of geothermal. Now, the interest for the future is
something different. This is an enhanced geothermal system. And this

(38:00):
is different because you could do this just about anywhere.
It requires much deeper drilling. You know, as you penetrate
into the earth, it gets warmer and warmer as you
go down further. And oil companies know how to drill
really deep wells, and so they enhanced geothermal system will
have a well and it'll have a well next to it,

(38:20):
and you'll send water down one well and you know,
this can go down, you know, four five miles into
the ground. You can send this water down and it
gets converted into steam, comes up the other well and
runs through a turbine and creates electricity. Now, this is
more expensive than currently wind and solar, but it's also
firm power where they are not firm power, and by

(38:42):
that I mean they're intermittent. You know, the sun can
stop shining, the wind can stop blowing. But these geothermal
systems produce energy twenty four to seven. And that's the
real advantage there, and the fact that they could be
done just about anywhere.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
So how do you I mean, you explain that this
potentially could be the future. The Land Commissioner Buckingham all
so kind of discussed that they like and are studying
it as well here in Texas. But how do you
compare it to traditional fossil fuels, Like, is this an
opportunity for us to also really invest in this and
kurtail ourselves off of fossil fuels potentially by using geodorough.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Well, so it's electricity production, so there's that. So it's
not going to replace you.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Know, not yeah, crew, but natural gas potentially.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Yeah, some natural gas it could replace in uh, you know,
in electricity production. But yeah, it's not going to replace
you know, gasoline. It's not gonna it's not gonna fuel
airplanes or anything like that. But you know, it can
use the driller, the expertise of the old drillers, I mean,
because you have to drill wells. That's that's what this
is all about. You're drilling wells. And I guess the

(39:43):
important point is fairly unproven. It's been done on uh,
you know, some pilot projects and so forth. And the
real I think, the real long term question is if
you're sending water down a well, do you cool off
the area around that? Over time? Does your does your
production tail off? I mean we don't have decades enhanced
geothermal to know, you know, whether or not this is

(40:03):
sustainable for you know, for decades or long enough to
pay off the well. I guess that's the important thing.
You know, oil well itself is doesn't produce forever, but
as long as it produces enough to pay for the
well and to pay for return from the investors, that's
what you want. And so that's what you're looking for
for these You want to be sure that you know
it can it can pay off you know, the investors,

(40:25):
and produce enough energy to make it worthwhile.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
The other thing that's worth mentioning is I sent you
an article from MPR David Condos, and he wrote an
article discussing how petroleum drilling technology is being adapted for
geo thermal energy and how the implications for that are
looking like it can be used as a carbon free power.
This is the energy industry, as we mentioned, and it
seems to me as though as I see the you know,

(40:49):
exploration companies and production companies switching gears and trying to
take advantage of lowering their carbon footprint, lowering their carbon
footprint by investing and using technologies that are gret you're
such as solar and geodermal to try to reduce their
carbon footprint. What did you get from that article as
far as how the energy companies are adapting and using

(41:10):
geothermal energy.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Yeah, So one thing I point out is that for
the longest time, Chevron ran the Guysers projects in California.
That was their project, and that's that was maybe the
largest or was the largest geothermal project in the world.
But I think they since sold that. I think they've
sort of gotten out of the geothermal space. I think
that the oil drillers will be the ones whose expertise

(41:33):
are needed here. And so I don't know that as Chevron,
for instance, who's you know, they make natural gas and
they make oil. I don't know if that's going to
be a business for them because they I mean, they
did get rid of their geothermal. But for you know, Halliburton,
you know, somebody that drills, this could be a very
big business. I mean, that could be a big drilling
business because that's going to be you know, the the

(41:54):
technology it's needed is drilling, and you know, creating wells
to be able to send the water down honest and
bring it back up esteem and you know, the Haliburtons
and chop ERGEs of the world know how to do that.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
It certainly would be welcome considering how a lot of
states are really dealing with not having enough power and
how they're going to continue to power this huge demand
of electricity. And you know, Robert, that might be another
show for us to talk about is how these large
companies Google and Amazon are trying to source their energy

(42:26):
source for the future as well, and looking at what
type of technologies are they investing into secure that they
have enough energy to power Google and Amazon and some
of these massive you know, power grabbers, if you will,
grabbing and needing a huge amount of energy. So, Robert,
my question is geothermal, there's solar, there's win, there's hydrogen nuclear.

(42:52):
Another article I read recently as we close out the
show is how these large companies Google, Amazon, we already
have a shortage with just providing an electric enough electricity
for residents. Some states are having rolling blackouts, so we
have to face that challenge and find a solution. But
then there's also these huge companies that are just massive,

(43:12):
massive power grabbers, aggregator of power, and they need it.
And one of them was an article I read on
how Amazon and Google are investing in nuclear as a
source for their powering their companies for the future. Can
you tell me a little bit about your thoughts on that.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Yeah, so a lot of them are looking at small
modular reactors, so small scale nuclear, and there is a
lot of reason to think about that and to do
that nuclear power. I mean, we should be going all
in on nuclear power anyway. And if China they China's
building a lot of nuclear plants, if they build more,
and if they shut down their cold plants, it would
go a long way to arresting the growth of carbon

(43:49):
emissions around the world. So they're looking at you know,
they need firm power. And when I say firm power,
I mean power that's available on demand. And that's different
from wind and solar, which are not of a long demand.
So that's the beauty of small scale nuclear. It's clean
power on demand, which is also like geothermally we talked
about before. That's clean power on demand, and that's why

(44:12):
there's so much interest in small scale nuclear and in
nuclear in general. I mean nuclear in general doesn't produce
carbon emissions as it's producing electricity, and that's why there's
so much interest in that. We just got to make
sure that the public is comfortable that, you know, the
challenges have been addressed and we're not going to have
a Fukushima or a Chernobyl melt down in a city

(44:32):
near you.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Yeah, so those are the smaller reactors. As you mentioned,
you know, one of the gentlemen that we had on
the show a couple of years back was Michael Schellenberger,
a huge fan of nuclear. Be interesting to see maybe
we get them on the show. It's going to talk
about nuclear. But Robert, that is all the time we
have for this show. Thank you for coming in and
talking to us about all things and energy, and I

(44:53):
look forward to having you back as a guest.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
You bet.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
The Energy Mixed Radio Show is where we explore topics
that affect us.

Speaker 4 (44:59):
All in the old and gas industry.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Every week, our host will interview the movers and shakers
in this fast paced industry. You'll hear from industry experts,
elected officials, and many more on the Energy Mix Radio
Show