Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm very, very pleased to welcome back to Koway my
friend Robert Bryce.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
He is one of the world's leading.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Experts on electricity and pretty much any aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, I'm not going to say he's a physicist, but when.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're talking about how electricity gets generated, how it gets distributed,
how it gets priced, how it gets traded, who has
it and who doesn't, and what's happening in all these markets,
nobody knows more than Robert Bryce. He is a brilliant
substack that you can subscribe to for free. I have
no idea why he's doing that for free. Robert Bryce
(00:35):
dot substack dot com. He's written a whole bunch of
books on this stuff, and we're going to talk.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
About a bunch of energy related things. Robert. Good to
see you with your Austin T shirt on.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
That is an awesome introduction. Ross.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Although I will say, my dad said an experts anybody
from out of town, So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Maybe I'm out of town.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
So today I'll be an expert just because you called
me an expert, all right.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Note that I guess since COVID, a lot of people
don't trust experts anymore, So maybe I shouldn't call you that,
but yes.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well there's that. Yeah, but the dumber reporter, that's what
I like to think of most.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
I report on the energy and the power sectors, and
I consider myself incredibly lucky to do so.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
And man, is there a lot to talk about? Like, oh, gush,
there is.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So you did a short video on substack the other
day where you went to someplace called El Dorado, Texas.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't know just where that is. You can tell
us talking.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
About the staggering scale of hydrogen projects, and well, why don't.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
We talk about that a little bit? And why don't
you tell my.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Listeners why there is a staggering scale of companies chasing
hydrogen projects?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Well, you know I wrote a piece on my substack
and I'm glad you mentioned Robert greystot substack dot com.
And the headline was the H stands for hype. I mean,
we've been hearing the hype about hydrogen now for decades, right.
We heard it during the Nixon years and the post
open after the first air boiling bar. We heard it
during the first the second Bush administration. We've been hearing
(02:04):
this hype forever and ever. But here's the key. Under
the Inflation Reduction Act, there's a subsidy for hydrogenitor with
a forty five ve tax credit three dollars per kilogram.
So I did the simple math. That's the only kind
of math I can do. Ross it amounts to forty
five billion, I'm sorry, twenty five billion dollars per exit dule.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
So that's an SI unit. What does that mean in
real terms?
Speaker 4 (02:26):
It means that the subsidy, that is, the tax credits
from the federal government to produce so called green hydrogen,
is eleven times the market price of natural gas.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
So you show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome.
So you have this.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Massive incentive for corporations including Next Air Energy, APEX, Clean Energy,
and a startup called et Fuels. They're now pushing into
areas in West Texas, west central Texas to build massive
wind and solar projects to produce so called green hydrogen
to turn it into methanol to collect these tax credits.
(03:01):
But the local ranchers are up in arms, and that
was why I was an elder Rata as they pronounce
in Schleicher County, talking about one hundred or two hundred
ranchers about what's really going on here, And it's just
a just a prime example of how these massive federal
this corporate welfare is what it is under the Inflation
Reduction Act, has created these perverse incentives for these companies
(03:22):
to go out into you know, very arid country and
try and buy up a bunch of leases so they
can produce this hydrogen to collect the tax credits. And
it's going to have this massive effect on the groundwater
out there, and the ranchers are very concerned, and well
they should be.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
All right, I want to just make sure I heard
you just correctly, and I want to understand if what
the apples to apples comparison is. Are we talking about
like BTU per btu or something. You said that this
subsidy for hydrogen is eleven times more than the price
of natural gas. So is that per cubic meter per
(03:58):
BTU per per one.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
You pick the denominator you want, the ratio is still
the same. So here's the market price of natural gas today.
I'm looking at the Henry Hub futures. It's about two
dollars and fifteen cents. So compare that to So what
if you if you are producing hydrogen for that same
quantity of energy a million BT is right, that's the
two dollars and fifteen cents. A million BT is one
(04:22):
thousand qv de feet. Then the subsidy would be roughly
twelve times that number. So we were talking about you know,
imagine if natural gas sold for twenty five dollars, right,
that would be the comparable the comparable incentive.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
That's the that's the ratio.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
So, I mean, it's just an in you know, it's
it's a it's an insane number. But then then you
when you plug that in, youder said, well, of course
they're going to chase those subsidies because they're they're so lucrative.
Here's the other thing, the other comparison. Maybe, you know,
let's throw the denominator, that denominator out of the out.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Of the way.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
If you compare the subsidy for hydrogen versus the subsidy
federal subsidy for the energy produced in terms of tax credits,
the subsidy for green hydrogen is nineteen hundred times that
give it to nuclear. So why aren't we building nuclear? Well, hello, duh,
you know there's not enough.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Money in it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Unbelievable. Yeah, so is this it is unbelievable, isn't it.
It's literally unbelievable. It's insane.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It's burdening my children with this leftist utopian boondoggle.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That's just it.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
It's infuriating as a matter of morality as much as
a matter of science.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It's absolutely infuriating.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Well, of course, and and look, I'm not a partisan.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
You know, I might write your name in for president
in November, Ross, just so be prepared.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
And if you win, I want to ride on the helicopter.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
But nevertheless, if you look at the subsidy for hydrogen,
let me give you some more comparison.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So it's twenty five hundred dollars per.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Exit jewel, right, which is an SI unit, which is
a very large number, a very large unit of energy,
equal to our drillion BTUs.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
But let's bring it back to what we know.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
So what is that amount to in terms of an
energy produced basis? It's nine times a subsidy for solar,
forty seven times is subsidy for wind, and eighteen hundred
times larger than these subsidies or tax credits for hydrocarbons.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
So you create these.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Massive incentives, and this is what the Inflation Reduction Act did.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
And remember it was fifty in.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
A a reconciliation measure.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And who is a deciding vote, Kamala Harris.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
So it's just unleashed this torrent of is it rent
seekers and subsidy seekers and subsidy minors. And this example
that I'm pointing out to you in in West Texas,
not only will these companies potentially be able to get
the forty five V tax credit for the hydrogen, they
can also get the tax credits for the wind, the
tax credits for the solar, and tax creads for this,
(06:53):
for this, for this, for the batteries. So out of
an eight hundred million dollar project, they could in theory
get over four hundred million dollars in year one in
tax credits.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
I mean, it's just you know, it's it's just.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Incredible to see how and you have all these NGOs,
including NRDC and the restaurant say, oh, green hydrogen, this
is the way forward, you know, blah blah blah blah blah.
Well it's just a run on the treasury under the
guise of climate change.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, and then you're producing well, you're producing methodol and
then they've got to figure out what to do with that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Or they're going to try to.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Produce hydrogen and use it as hydrogen, which can be
a fuel. But it's not the easiest thing to work with, right,
It's it's explosive for one thing.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I mean, it's just there's just so many problems with this.
All right, let's move on. Let's move on to another one.
Let's move on to another one.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
So I don't know how many of my listeners heard
about what happened on the shores of Nantucket.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Can you please tell us? Sure?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Well, let me be clear, and I've been you know,
I've written about the energy and power sectors for more
than thirty years, and so I'm passingly familiar with what's
going on. I'm a longtime critic of the wind business,
probably so I.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Don't like them.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
I'm sure they don't like me back, and I'm okay
with that. But the only thing dumber than onshore wind
energy is offshore wind energy. And it is incredibly expensive.
Anything you do in saltwater, of course, is insanely expensive.
But I spoke in Nantucket and in Newport. I've been
traveling a lot lately last month, and a few days
after I was in Nantucket, it was in fact, it
was on July thirteenth, one of the blades on one
(08:23):
of the offshore turbines that has already been installed as
part of this Vineyard Wind project. And Vineyard who owns
Vineyard Wind. It's a Danish company and a Spanish company.
These are foreign companies building massive wind projects offshore the
Eastern Seaboard in the middle of known right whale habitat.
But I digress, one of the wind turbine blades disintegrated
in calm weather. It disintegrated and start all this fiberglass
(08:48):
and pieces of debris and pollution started washing washing up
on the beaches in Nantucket in.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
The prime summer season. So of course.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Nantucket, or you know, the people who live there, have
been outraged and there's a huge back flash against this.
The Eastern East Coast communities all up and down the
Eastern Seaboard have been opposed.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
But again, what is causing this, Well, it's these massive
tax credits. Up to forty percent of the cost of
these projects, these offshore wind projects can be met through
the investment tax credits. So we have a flood of
foreign companies coming into American waters. And that's mostly foreign
companies that are doing this. VP, shell AV and grid
(09:24):
Equinor are among them there, and who's cheering them on
the climate of NGOs. True, it's just truly incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
We're talking with Robert Bryce, one of the world's true
experts on electricity markets and generation and transportation of electricity,
meaning grids and other ways. So you know, what's kind
of funny, And you mentioned this in passing, but I
guess somebody we're going to set up a nuclear power
plant near the shore somewhere in our DC, and all
(09:54):
of these clowns would complain about how it would negatively
impact the sea life, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
And if somebody were going to set up an oil.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Derrick in a way that would negatively impact the bald eagle,
they would be complaining about that too. But when it
comes to wind and solar which fries birds rather than
quizonarding the birds. But when it comes to these things,
they don't care how many animals die. And it's you know,
(10:29):
I was talking earlier in the show about how there's
no point in remarking on hypocrisy and politics because it's
everywhere all the time.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
To me, this is kind of a different level.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Like they always claim to care about the animals and
now suddenly they don't get mentioned at all.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
In environmentalism in America is dead.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Ross It's dead.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
It's been replaced by climatism and renewable energy fetishism. And
this offshore wind energy is the prime example of that.
And yes, you're right exactly, and I've said this many times.
I pointed it out in Nantucket and Newport where I
spoke to you know, several hundred people in both audiences
in those towns. Imagine if the oil industry at Exon
or Chevron or some other oil and gas in company
(11:12):
was trying to put not just one or two, but
hundreds or even thousands of offshore platforms in the middle
of known North Atlantic right whale habitat, you could hear
the screams from Montauk to Denver. I mean, you know
what these the Sierra Club crab would be going, I'm sorry,
hoop crazy.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I mean, they just would absolutely be losing it. But
then what is happening.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Go look, if you have a chance, the New York
Offshore Wind Alliance, and you can see on their website
that in fact, the Sierra Club, NRDC and National Wildlife
Federation are on their steering committee alongside two oil companies, Equinor,
the Norwegian company, and Attentive Energy, which is a subsidiary
of Totel, the French giant. So not only are they
(11:59):
betraying the and the birds and the you know, the
few sheds.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
They're in bed colluding.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
With oil companies to build off shore wind energy. You know,
it's like you just couldn't make it up Ross. I mean,
it's just the environmental betrayal here just has me. And
I'm a lifelong bird watcher outdoors. It's the environmental betrayal
here just as it's it's it's beyond parody.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Folks, go to Robert Bryce and that's with a Y
in the middle of Bryce Robert Bryce dot substack dot
com and sign up for his free substacks.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Give me a quick answer on this one, then I
want to get to one other topic with you.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Uh, I'm gonna give me a quick answer on two
things that are related to each other. Most people see
these uh windmills from a distance and they look big,
but I think most people don't understand just how big
they are.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So give me a sense.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Now, with that we had this one break up along Nantucket,
just how big is one of these windmills or even
one blade, and I want to work that in also
to the question of these things wear out. And I
understanding is they can't be recycled and they have to
be dumped somewhere. So the size of these things when
they have to be dumped relate. So can you just
(13:08):
briefly cover both of those?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Sure, So let's take the dump first. So I live
in Texas.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I'm in Austin, and last year I was driving back
in fact from Denver and right outside Sweetwater, Texas, on
the west side of the road on Highway Toy seven,
there's a massive dump site with these old wind turbine
blades that have just been dumped there, and the volumes
are enormous.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
And it's not just there.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
There was a piece in Minnesota in the Minnesota newspaper
just the other day about how the wind industry is
just dumping these massive blades that are not being recycled
and they're very difficult to recycle. If they're ever going
to be recycled at all. How they're going to do
it with offshore wind turbine blades, I have no idea.
It's going to be incredibly expensive, but you know, what
this whole quote green industry is creating, whether it's battery,
(13:51):
solar panels or these wind turbine blades, is going to
be just a incredible quantity of garbage that's going to
have to be landfilled. And we're already starting to see
that with the wind turbine blades, but expected with lithium
ion batteries and solar panels. But so back to the
point about how big are these blades, I mean, it's
really hard to imagine. So this wind turbine blade on
(14:12):
this ge HALEAD thirteen megawatt offshore wind turbine, they're one
hundred and seventy one hundred and seven meters long, so
that's three hundred and fifty one feet, So that's longer
than American football field end zoned end zone. Each one
of the blades weighs seventy tons, So you just think
(14:32):
about the seven thirty seven is about thirty four meters wide.
That's the that's the entire wing span of a seven
thirty seven. So the entire rotor area of this this
wind turbine that they're putting in Vineyard Wind is in
fact six and a half times wider than the wingspan
of a seven thirty seven.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
It's hard to imagine, just boggles of mind how big
they are.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yeah, and it's no surprise that they're failing because they're
so big and so heavy.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Right, And folks, I know if most people have not
quite been close enough to one of these things to
really get a sense of how.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Big it is. And also, the blades are way way.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Way high off the ground, so even if you were
near one, you might not quite get it. But I
just wanted you to understand that these blades on these
largest turbines are over a whole football field long, one blade,
one blade. All right, we got a few minutes left, Robert,
and I want to just talk about this story. I
emailed you sure this morning because you have been a
(15:26):
great source of information and amusement for me when I
read your quarterly reports about how much money Ford loses
in electric vehicles.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I love those stories.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I don't hate Ford, by the way, I just I
think play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Right, that's my
mindset with this all in on EV's And there's a
headline from the Detroit Free Press four shifts EV Strategy
drops all electric three row SUV and delays their electric pickup.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
What do we need to know.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
That the stupidity of corporate America is sometimes just flat unfathomable.
That's what you need to know. I Ford in the
second quarter I reported on this is just a few
weeks ago. They lost I think it was forty seven
thousand dollars for EV they sold during the second quarter.
Last year, they lost about sixty three thousand dollars for
(16:21):
every EV they sold, lost over four point five billion.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
They're going to lose about five billion dollars this year
on their EV business.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
And now they've just announced, as you point out, that
they're going to delay the rollout of this new SUV,
this electric vehicle, which is not surprising, and they're going
to take a one point nine billion dollar right down
just on that one vehicle.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
But it's just astonishing ross.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
I mean, I'm a long admirer of Henry Ford, and
you know what the innovations that he brought about. But
did this Ford Motor Company is a sophisticated outfit. Did
they not do their market research? I mean, you've got
a corporation worth billions, tens of billions of dollars. Did
you not understand how many potential buyers there are or
are not, and now they're admitting, in fact, there isn't
(17:05):
enough consumer poll that's that's in fact Ford's own people said, well,
the you know, you read through the lines and they say, well,
they're just not people aren't.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Buying enough of them.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
The well duh, I mean, I hate to get too technical,
but dun uh.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
That's why we are the highbrow intellectual show.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
One of Robert Bryce's many excellent books on energy is
called A Question of Power, Electricity and the Wealth of Nations.
Well worth your reads. Subscribed to his substack. It's absolutely free.
Robert Bryce dot substack dot com. Always great to talk
to you, my friend. We made some radio magic again.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Always happy to be with your ross.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Don't forget Juice Series dot com my new five part
docu series.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
You saw it when I was in Denver in January,
So check that out. Juice Series dot com. Did I
mention Juice Series dot com?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Juice the Series dot com?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
You got?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, it is fantastic. Sorry I didn't uh myself at folks.
Go go to Juice the Series dot com. Great multi
part YouTube series. You will learn a lot. Thanks Robert,
talk to you soon. Thanks Ross, Bye bye,
I'm very, very pleased to welcome back to Koway my
friend Robert Bryce.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
He is one of the world's leading.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Experts on electricity and pretty much any aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, I'm not going to say he's a physicist, but when.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're talking about how electricity gets generated, how it gets distributed,
how it gets priced, how it gets traded, who has
it and who doesn't, and what's happening in all these markets,
nobody knows more than Robert Bryce. He is a brilliant
substack that you can subscribe to for free. I have
no idea why he's doing that for free. Robert Bryce
(00:35):
dot substack dot com. He's written a whole bunch of
books on this stuff, and we're going to talk.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
About a bunch of energy related things. Robert. Good to
see you with your Austin T shirt on.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
That is an awesome introduction. Ross.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Although I will say, my dad said an experts anybody
from out of town, So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Maybe I'm out of town.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
So today I'll be an expert just because you called
me an expert, all right.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Note that I guess since COVID, a lot of people
don't trust experts anymore, So maybe I shouldn't call you that,
but yes.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well there's that. Yeah, but the dumber reporter, that's what
I like to think of most.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
I report on the energy and the power sectors, and
I consider myself incredibly lucky to do so.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
And man, is there a lot to talk about? Like, oh, gush,
there is.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So you did a short video on substack the other
day where you went to someplace called El Dorado, Texas.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't know just where that is. You can tell
us talking.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
About the staggering scale of hydrogen projects, and well, why don't.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
We talk about that a little bit? And why don't
you tell my.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Listeners why there is a staggering scale of companies chasing
hydrogen projects?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Well, you know I wrote a piece on my substack
and I'm glad you mentioned Robert greystot substack dot com.
And the headline was the H stands for hype. I mean,
we've been hearing the hype about hydrogen now for decades, right.
We heard it during the Nixon years and the post
open after the first air boiling bar. We heard it
during the first the second Bush administration. We've been hearing
(02:04):
this hype forever and ever. But here's the key. Under
the Inflation Reduction Act, there's a subsidy for hydrogenitor with
a forty five ve tax credit three dollars per kilogram.
So I did the simple math. That's the only kind
of math I can do. Ross it amounts to forty
five billion, I'm sorry, twenty five billion dollars per exit dule.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
So that's an SI unit. What does that mean in
real terms?
Speaker 4 (02:26):
It means that the subsidy, that is, the tax credits
from the federal government to produce so called green hydrogen,
is eleven times the market price of natural gas.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
So you show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome.
So you have this.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Massive incentive for corporations including Next Air Energy, APEX, Clean Energy,
and a startup called et Fuels. They're now pushing into
areas in West Texas, west central Texas to build massive
wind and solar projects to produce so called green hydrogen
to turn it into methanol to collect these tax credits.
(03:01):
But the local ranchers are up in arms, and that
was why I was an elder Rata as they pronounce
in Schleicher County, talking about one hundred or two hundred
ranchers about what's really going on here, And it's just
a just a prime example of how these massive federal
this corporate welfare is what it is under the Inflation
Reduction Act, has created these perverse incentives for these companies
(03:22):
to go out into you know, very arid country and
try and buy up a bunch of leases so they
can produce this hydrogen to collect the tax credits. And
it's going to have this massive effect on the groundwater
out there, and the ranchers are very concerned, and well
they should be.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
All right, I want to just make sure I heard
you just correctly, and I want to understand if what
the apples to apples comparison is. Are we talking about
like BTU per btu or something. You said that this
subsidy for hydrogen is eleven times more than the price
of natural gas. So is that per cubic meter per
(03:58):
BTU per per one.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
You pick the denominator you want, the ratio is still
the same. So here's the market price of natural gas today.
I'm looking at the Henry Hub futures. It's about two
dollars and fifteen cents. So compare that to So what
if you if you are producing hydrogen for that same
quantity of energy a million BT is right, that's the
two dollars and fifteen cents. A million BT is one
(04:22):
thousand qv de feet. Then the subsidy would be roughly
twelve times that number. So we were talking about you know,
imagine if natural gas sold for twenty five dollars, right,
that would be the comparable the comparable incentive.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
That's the that's the ratio.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
So, I mean, it's just an in you know, it's
it's a it's an insane number. But then then you
when you plug that in, youder said, well, of course
they're going to chase those subsidies because they're they're so lucrative.
Here's the other thing, the other comparison. Maybe, you know,
let's throw the denominator, that denominator out of the out.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Of the way.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
If you compare the subsidy for hydrogen versus the subsidy
federal subsidy for the energy produced in terms of tax credits,
the subsidy for green hydrogen is nineteen hundred times that
give it to nuclear. So why aren't we building nuclear? Well, hello, duh,
you know there's not enough.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Money in it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Unbelievable. Yeah, so is this it is unbelievable, isn't it.
It's literally unbelievable. It's insane.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It's burdening my children with this leftist utopian boondoggle.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That's just it.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
It's infuriating as a matter of morality as much as
a matter of science.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It's absolutely infuriating.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Well, of course, and and look, I'm not a partisan.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
You know, I might write your name in for president
in November, Ross, just so be prepared.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
And if you win, I want to ride on the helicopter.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
But nevertheless, if you look at the subsidy for hydrogen,
let me give you some more comparison.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So it's twenty five hundred dollars per.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Exit jewel, right, which is an SI unit, which is
a very large number, a very large unit of energy,
equal to our drillion BTUs.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
But let's bring it back to what we know.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
So what is that amount to in terms of an
energy produced basis? It's nine times a subsidy for solar,
forty seven times is subsidy for wind, and eighteen hundred
times larger than these subsidies or tax credits for hydrocarbons.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
So you create these.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Massive incentives, and this is what the Inflation Reduction Act did.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
And remember it was fifty in.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
A a reconciliation measure.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And who is a deciding vote, Kamala Harris.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
So it's just unleashed this torrent of is it rent
seekers and subsidy seekers and subsidy minors. And this example
that I'm pointing out to you in in West Texas,
not only will these companies potentially be able to get
the forty five V tax credit for the hydrogen, they
can also get the tax credits for the wind, the
tax credits for the solar, and tax creads for this,
(06:53):
for this, for this, for the batteries. So out of
an eight hundred million dollar project, they could in theory
get over four hundred million dollars in year one in
tax credits.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
I mean, it's just you know, it's it's just.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Incredible to see how and you have all these NGOs,
including NRDC and the restaurant say, oh, green hydrogen, this
is the way forward, you know, blah blah blah blah blah.
Well it's just a run on the treasury under the
guise of climate change.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, and then you're producing well, you're producing methodol and
then they've got to figure out what to do with that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Or they're going to try to.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Produce hydrogen and use it as hydrogen, which can be
a fuel. But it's not the easiest thing to work with, right,
It's it's explosive for one thing.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I mean, it's just there's just so many problems with this.
All right, let's move on. Let's move on to another one.
Let's move on to another one.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
So I don't know how many of my listeners heard
about what happened on the shores of Nantucket.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Can you please tell us? Sure?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Well, let me be clear, and I've been you know,
I've written about the energy and power sectors for more
than thirty years, and so I'm passingly familiar with what's
going on. I'm a longtime critic of the wind business,
probably so I.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Don't like them.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
I'm sure they don't like me back, and I'm okay
with that. But the only thing dumber than onshore wind
energy is offshore wind energy. And it is incredibly expensive.
Anything you do in saltwater, of course, is insanely expensive.
But I spoke in Nantucket and in Newport. I've been
traveling a lot lately last month, and a few days
after I was in Nantucket, it was in fact, it
was on July thirteenth, one of the blades on one
(08:23):
of the offshore turbines that has already been installed as
part of this Vineyard Wind project. And Vineyard who owns
Vineyard Wind. It's a Danish company and a Spanish company.
These are foreign companies building massive wind projects offshore the
Eastern Seaboard in the middle of known right whale habitat.
But I digress, one of the wind turbine blades disintegrated
in calm weather. It disintegrated and start all this fiberglass
(08:48):
and pieces of debris and pollution started washing washing up
on the beaches in Nantucket in.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
The prime summer season. So of course.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Nantucket, or you know, the people who live there, have
been outraged and there's a huge back flash against this.
The Eastern East Coast communities all up and down the
Eastern Seaboard have been opposed.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
But again, what is causing this, Well, it's these massive
tax credits. Up to forty percent of the cost of
these projects, these offshore wind projects can be met through
the investment tax credits. So we have a flood of
foreign companies coming into American waters. And that's mostly foreign
companies that are doing this. VP, shell AV and grid
(09:24):
Equinor are among them there, and who's cheering them on
the climate of NGOs. True, it's just truly incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
We're talking with Robert Bryce, one of the world's true
experts on electricity markets and generation and transportation of electricity,
meaning grids and other ways. So you know, what's kind
of funny, And you mentioned this in passing, but I
guess somebody we're going to set up a nuclear power
plant near the shore somewhere in our DC, and all
(09:54):
of these clowns would complain about how it would negatively
impact the sea life, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
And if somebody were going to set up an oil.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Derrick in a way that would negatively impact the bald eagle,
they would be complaining about that too. But when it
comes to wind and solar which fries birds rather than
quizonarding the birds. But when it comes to these things,
they don't care how many animals die. And it's you know,
(10:29):
I was talking earlier in the show about how there's
no point in remarking on hypocrisy and politics because it's
everywhere all the time.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
To me, this is kind of a different level.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Like they always claim to care about the animals and
now suddenly they don't get mentioned at all.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
In environmentalism in America is dead.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Ross It's dead.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
It's been replaced by climatism and renewable energy fetishism. And
this offshore wind energy is the prime example of that.
And yes, you're right exactly, and I've said this many times.
I pointed it out in Nantucket and Newport where I
spoke to you know, several hundred people in both audiences
in those towns. Imagine if the oil industry at Exon
or Chevron or some other oil and gas in company
(11:12):
was trying to put not just one or two, but
hundreds or even thousands of offshore platforms in the middle
of known North Atlantic right whale habitat, you could hear
the screams from Montauk to Denver. I mean, you know
what these the Sierra Club crab would be going, I'm sorry,
hoop crazy.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I mean, they just would absolutely be losing it. But
then what is happening.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Go look, if you have a chance, the New York
Offshore Wind Alliance, and you can see on their website
that in fact, the Sierra Club, NRDC and National Wildlife
Federation are on their steering committee alongside two oil companies, Equinor,
the Norwegian company, and Attentive Energy, which is a subsidiary
of Totel, the French giant. So not only are they
(11:59):
betraying the and the birds and the you know, the
few sheds.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
They're in bed colluding.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
With oil companies to build off shore wind energy. You know,
it's like you just couldn't make it up Ross. I mean,
it's just the environmental betrayal here just has me. And
I'm a lifelong bird watcher outdoors. It's the environmental betrayal
here just as it's it's it's beyond parody.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Folks, go to Robert Bryce and that's with a Y
in the middle of Bryce Robert Bryce dot substack dot
com and sign up for his free substacks.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Give me a quick answer on this one, then I
want to get to one other topic with you.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Uh, I'm gonna give me a quick answer on two
things that are related to each other. Most people see
these uh windmills from a distance and they look big,
but I think most people don't understand just how big
they are.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So give me a sense.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Now, with that we had this one break up along Nantucket,
just how big is one of these windmills or even
one blade, and I want to work that in also
to the question of these things wear out. And I
understanding is they can't be recycled and they have to
be dumped somewhere. So the size of these things when
they have to be dumped relate. So can you just
(13:08):
briefly cover both of those?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Sure, So let's take the dump first. So I live
in Texas.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I'm in Austin, and last year I was driving back
in fact from Denver and right outside Sweetwater, Texas, on
the west side of the road on Highway Toy seven,
there's a massive dump site with these old wind turbine
blades that have just been dumped there, and the volumes
are enormous.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
And it's not just there.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
There was a piece in Minnesota in the Minnesota newspaper
just the other day about how the wind industry is
just dumping these massive blades that are not being recycled
and they're very difficult to recycle. If they're ever going
to be recycled at all. How they're going to do
it with offshore wind turbine blades, I have no idea.
It's going to be incredibly expensive, but you know, what
this whole quote green industry is creating, whether it's battery,
(13:51):
solar panels or these wind turbine blades, is going to
be just a incredible quantity of garbage that's going to
have to be landfilled. And we're already starting to see
that with the wind turbine blades, but expected with lithium
ion batteries and solar panels. But so back to the
point about how big are these blades, I mean, it's
really hard to imagine. So this wind turbine blade on
(14:12):
this ge HALEAD thirteen megawatt offshore wind turbine, they're one
hundred and seventy one hundred and seven meters long, so
that's three hundred and fifty one feet, So that's longer
than American football field end zoned end zone. Each one
of the blades weighs seventy tons, So you just think
(14:32):
about the seven thirty seven is about thirty four meters wide.
That's the that's the entire wing span of a seven
thirty seven. So the entire rotor area of this this
wind turbine that they're putting in Vineyard Wind is in
fact six and a half times wider than the wingspan
of a seven thirty seven.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
It's hard to imagine, just boggles of mind how big
they are.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yeah, and it's no surprise that they're failing because they're
so big and so heavy.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Right, And folks, I know if most people have not
quite been close enough to one of these things to
really get a sense of how.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Big it is. And also, the blades are way way.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Way high off the ground, so even if you were
near one, you might not quite get it. But I
just wanted you to understand that these blades on these
largest turbines are over a whole football field long, one blade,
one blade. All right, we got a few minutes left, Robert,
and I want to just talk about this story. I
emailed you sure this morning because you have been a
(15:26):
great source of information and amusement for me when I
read your quarterly reports about how much money Ford loses
in electric vehicles.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I love those stories.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I don't hate Ford, by the way, I just I
think play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Right, that's my
mindset with this all in on EV's And there's a
headline from the Detroit Free Press four shifts EV Strategy
drops all electric three row SUV and delays their electric pickup.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
What do we need to know.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
That the stupidity of corporate America is sometimes just flat unfathomable.
That's what you need to know. I Ford in the
second quarter I reported on this is just a few
weeks ago. They lost I think it was forty seven
thousand dollars for EV they sold during the second quarter.
Last year, they lost about sixty three thousand dollars for
(16:21):
every EV they sold, lost over four point five billion.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
They're going to lose about five billion dollars this year
on their EV business.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
And now they've just announced, as you point out, that
they're going to delay the rollout of this new SUV,
this electric vehicle, which is not surprising, and they're going
to take a one point nine billion dollar right down
just on that one vehicle.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
But it's just astonishing ross.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
I mean, I'm a long admirer of Henry Ford, and
you know what the innovations that he brought about. But
did this Ford Motor Company is a sophisticated outfit. Did
they not do their market research? I mean, you've got
a corporation worth billions, tens of billions of dollars. Did
you not understand how many potential buyers there are or
are not, and now they're admitting, in fact, there isn't
(17:05):
enough consumer poll that's that's in fact Ford's own people said, well,
the you know, you read through the lines and they say, well,
they're just not people aren't.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Buying enough of them.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
The well duh, I mean, I hate to get too technical,
but dun uh.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
That's why we are the highbrow intellectual show.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
One of Robert Bryce's many excellent books on energy is
called A Question of Power, Electricity and the Wealth of Nations.
Well worth your reads. Subscribed to his substack. It's absolutely free.
Robert Bryce dot substack dot com. Always great to talk
to you, my friend. We made some radio magic again.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Always happy to be with your ross.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Don't forget Juice Series dot com my new five part
docu series.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
You saw it when I was in Denver in January,
So check that out. Juice Series dot com. Did I
mention Juice Series dot com?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Juice the Series dot com?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
You got?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, it is fantastic. Sorry I didn't uh myself at folks.
Go go to Juice the Series dot com. Great multi
part YouTube series. You will learn a lot. Thanks Robert,
talk to you soon. Thanks Ross, Bye bye,
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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