Big Digital Energy

0:00 What's up, bros, what's up, dude, we're running short today. We don't have Mark and Sol, which that's where his mark is on the ground. Unlike the, like the one day when we have a big corporate

0:13 merger, somebody's going to need to go through even the multiples. I mean, shit, I don't know any of that. Mark and Sol is the time to shine and he's not here with us today. Exactly. But big

0:24 news, obviously diamondback, quiring, endeavor Huge move for

0:32 shell industry and

0:35 for Midland. What's the, what's the initial take, guys? I mean, I was, I wanted Mark for the official take because this is the CEO of Diamondbacks quote. This combination meets all the required

0:47 criteria for a successful combination, including sound industrial logic with tangible synergies. Half the throat synergies.

0:58 Improved combination capital allocation and significant near and long-term financial accretion.

1:06 I mean, you've got synergies and accretion in one basically quote from the CEO. We've got synergies and we've got accretion. It checks all the boxes. It does. You know what's funny is I just met

1:17 Travis Stice for the last, or for the first time two weeks ago when I was there at their office. He didn't know that they invested in us so

1:36 I had to run him through what did you walk at us and what we do, but great. Great guy. Had a really good conversation with him. I'm excited about this acquisition, 'cause when Pioneer

1:40 got acquired, there's very much a sentiment

1:45 from people in Midland that it's negative from Midland. You know, Pioneer did a ton for the city and for the area And so it's a little bit sad, like a loss for people. But this endeavor deal, I

1:59 think that this is huge for Midland. You know, I think that it's way better than a Chevron or Exxon coming in. Wait a minute, you're saying Exxon's not local, bro? It's the original OG, it's

2:11 the original OG, yeah.

2:15 So back to my point was that I think that Diamondback acquiring endeavors huge for the city of Midland and will be a great long-term move for the city as well So personally, I'm excited about that.

2:28 Well, that's always been historically part of Autry's deal is he wanted to leave it to a Midland company and so kind of not surprising on that front that he'd do that. Yeah. How many lawyers do we

2:44 think right now to Exxon or like busy scouring the breakup provisions of a deal to find out if they get another bite at the apple? Do we get one? Not get one I mean if you look at Permian barrels of

2:58 permanent oil equivalent per day, this new combined entity will produce roughly 816, 000 barrels, which is in comparison, Chevron's about 857,

3:11 000 barrels. And the combined Exxon Pioneer entity is roughly 13 million barrels. So it's actually going to be a pretty damn big. I saw someone tweet that I can't verify the cell phone numbers,

3:25 but I saw someone tweet that the Exxon Pioneer acquisition plus the Diamondback Endeavour acquisition accounts for 50 of all Permian production. That'd be 21 million barrels.

3:47 I bet it's, is it BOE a day? Yeah. BOE a day. Sounds like that's getting close. Getting real close. Yeah. What's interesting in the news, and we'll have Mark unpack this when he's back, but

3:57 they purchase it for under4 million per acre. And earlier when we were talking about Oxys purchase of Crown Rock and Exxon's purchase of Pioneer, they're waiting north of 4 million an acre.

4:10 Location. A location. Not per acre. Not per acre. Per net acre. All right. Yeah, location, you're right. Yeah. Net acre. Good point. Thank you.

4:23 So here's kind of my take from the just big picture looking at it is I always thought that if you won an acquisition, you overpaid, right? Absolutely. You know, the value

4:37 of something, exactly. The value of something is clearly the normal distribution of everyone's opinions. If you're buying, you're over here on the high side. Right. What's interesting when you

4:50 start looking through, What happens, though, is the economics go to a horizontal on one section versus a two-section, and I don't know if they've hit three mile laterals down in the Permian yet,

5:05 like they've been doing in the Bakken, but just the magnitude of that and what it does to the economics, you truly can overpay for something, if you will, if you're stacking up concentrated

5:20 acreage positions. And so when you look at that map and Zach Copeland's got a really good map he put out on Twitter and maybe we'll get

5:31 Jacob to pull that out and post it in here. Peter Soto, Karen's sent me a really good map that's out on Twitter too that we'll pull up. And you just look at the overlay in acreage positions. I

5:44 mean, this is, this is, you know, hand in glove. So yeah, There really might be something here to wear diamond back. plus endeavor equals three, as opposed to one plus one. Yeah, Chuck,

5:60 it's interesting. Have you ever heard of the winner's curse phenomenon in economic theory, actually auction theory? Sure. It was actually addressed in 1971 by three Atlantic Richfield petroleum

6:14 engineers who claim that oil companies suffered unexpectedly low returns year after year after acquiring oil lease. Through auction because whoever won it always overpaid for the asset and so. I

6:29 always find it funny how this literal economic theory and auction theory was - Originally applied to willing gas. Petroleum engineering. Damn right, damn right. The funny thing about that is, we

6:30 used to always

6:44 say around the office, you literally think more about that asset than any other person on the planet.

6:53 How many people are there on the planet these days? 7 million, 8 million, whatever it was. Eight, you think more of it than eight billion people. So, no, but the market loves it. I mean, the

7:07 bottom line today is we're recording this, it caught 145 on Monday, stocks up 10. So. I mean,

7:15 it looks like Diamondback made a really good deal. And this is a unique asset I mean, I don't know if y'all know a lot of Autry Stephen stories, but they're great. I mean, late '70s, he founds

7:27 the company, literally the cheapest person on the planet. Last time I talked with Autry, it was about 10 or 11 years ago, maybe 12 years ago. And he was sitting in a middle seat on a Southwest

7:42 flight next to me. And I was literally like, Come on, Autry, you're worth a billion because you see how much that business slack ticket cost. It's expensive. I was like, okay. You know, it's

7:55 funny is, did y'all ever see the show Black Gold? That was on just every channel? Well, it was a reality TV show about Roughnecks. Yeah. And the first season, it was Big Dog Drilling, which

8:14 is actually his drilling company. And it was like Longhorn and there was like a third, third one. And they're all on a competition, but I don't know if I actually just saw like the marketing

8:24 potential of this or not, but they got rid of the other drilling companies and then just honed in on making it a reality show for Big Dog Drilling. And anyways, I drilled right out next door to him.

8:34 So I would run into the guys all the time at the corner stores, we're heading out to the rig and get this one time. They invited me to a pool party with the production crew, and they wanted to get

8:46 me on the show. It's just funny because - A pool party? Where is this? This is out in midland. Do they have pools in Midland? Dude, we got tons of pools on it. I always use this in the middle

8:55 of a desert. He has got pools. And anyways, they wanted to cast me for the show and always think about how much different my life would have turned out if I was on. Digital wall cars would have

9:06 had a whole new meeting, wouldn't it? It's not like you would have been sitting around on a camera.

9:11 The speed of that show. Blovey aiding about whatever. And now Chuck's over here auditioning for Netflix shows. I did. Before we get there, I have a question As I'm looking at you, Colin, I'm

9:22 wondering, are you really an oil field guy or are you, because you seem to be an office guy. And I'm talking. Somebody called me the other day, a digital dude. Right? I had a digital dude.

9:36 Just let's bring that tweet up. What was that tweet? Because I've had such a kick out of this shit. 'Cause I was wondering, am I, Should I be offended for being a digital dude versus a finance

9:48 person? Well, we need to let our listeners know what's loaded. All right, well, this is what happened. This is what happened. Was there's this lady sharing from North Texas up in Dallas. It's

10:00 always running around with a fleery camera and whatnot. And anyways, she's just not an intellectually honest person or capable of objective thinking. And so we're kind of picking on her a little

10:11 bit and then, uh, railroad, Texas railroad commissioner, candidate, Bill Birch, who build knows me. I know him. Uh, he, he kind of got defensive about something. I said, I can't remember

10:22 what it was and, um, anyways, we started to call them an ass or no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

10:26 no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

10:26 no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we certainly called him an ass. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Never said that. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. No, Bill is like, he said, should

10:35 the oil and gas and does she not be monitoring their methane and yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda. Yeah. And I was like, is that what I said? Because it wasn't what I said. And he is like, oh, I

10:44 didn't read too deep into this. I don't have time to. And so everyone was like laughing, like, how are you making comments without like actually thinking or reading about what you're, what you're

10:52 talking about? Anyways, then he tells Sharon that he makes a comment that he's like, well, digital wallcatters or a bunch of digital guys, they don't work out in the field and doing this. And it

11:02 came off as him talking shit. Bill said on LinkedIn yesterday that that's not what he meant, that we all misinterpreted him. It seemed like he was talking shit through. Dude, this is hot off the

11:12 price Yeah, it seemed like he was talking shit to me. And so, of course, you know, I had to like, you don't talk shit to me on Twitter and not get it back. So, we're going back and forth. If

11:21 Bill, I actually believe Bill, that's not what he - Do we not? I believe - I like Bill. We'll get Bill on the show. That's what I was - Good Bill on the show. I was confused why Bill was coming

11:32 at me 'cause I was like, I know Bill, Bill's a friend of mine. Like, we've talked. And so, this is an open invitation for Bill to come on the show. I love the interview Bill Yeah, and I think,

11:41 you know, I think that he was misinterpreted. But anyways, yeah, I did get offended by the dig that I'm a digital guy and not a field guy, which I'm not a field guy anymore. I don't work out in

11:51 my field. You know, my hands are soft. Sitting here doing fucking podcasts.

11:57 You had to turn the podcast machine on. So that's what I had to turn the cameras on and the microphone on.

12:06 Damn, dude, that's worth it. So anyways, that's the latest. You get no respect, is the bottom line. I get no respect Because when I used to rough neck, like people told me I didn't look like a

12:14 rough neck. You know, I'm a pretty boy out there. I didn't know how to use a pipe wrench and shit. And then, now, here I am. And it's like, oh, you're going in the field. I'm like, damn it.

12:22 No matter what you do. I'm blowing any road shit. This is my, this is my sob story.

12:29 So anyways, you know, going back, let's cross back over to Twitter in this

12:35 Diamondback deal because there's some speculation that Diamondback is posturing a little bit doing this and defensive. maneuver, becauseOne World Petroleum is on the scene now.

12:51 We gotta talk about this too. We gotta talk aboutOne World Petroleum This is one of my favorite Twitter things that's happening. Dude, this thing's at over a million views. This is crazy. So,

12:60 you know, we're at NAIP

13:04 and NAIP has this, there's this booth right in the middle of a showroom floor. And I mean, this is an expensive booth. Fucking big booth. Big booth, awesome booth, man Like they actually crush

13:13 it on this booth. I had booth envy. This company, One World Petroleum, I have Jacob pull up the picture of it. Were you their booth babe? Chose not the booth babe. All right. So100, 000 booth.

13:22 I was at the digital wildcatters booth, but keep going. Keep going. Chose our booth babe. Got this really nice Fiverr logo, booth babes, and then they're giving away this20, 000 watch. And so

13:35 I started looking into - Which I was trying to figure out this, why a watch of all things, but - Hey, dude, oil guys. Do rough nights where Rolex is out on the patch? Landman, dude. Yeah,

13:46 yeah. You get out to landman. 'Cause that'll rip your arm right off, man. Best watch ever, Law. So I started diving into the company. You know, they got four employees. Two of the guys come

13:56 from residential real estate. One of the guys is a real petroleum engineer, and then they have an executive assistant, and anyways, I pull up the CEO's bio. Y'all want me to read some of these?

14:06 'Cause they're - Oh, hell yeah. It's brilliant. It's funny CEO

14:12 Alex Autowell is his last name, and all of this is pulled verbatim. Once raining over

14:21 the dynamic realm of real estate investment, Alex focused on the flip and fixed space from 2011 to 2022. He single-handedly revolutionized the space with his niche. At his peak, he simultaneously

14:32 managed 15 to 25 mobile home projects, utilizing his own in-house curated renovation teams Such was his prowess. that he earned the esteemed nickname, The King of Trailers.

14:45 Trailers. Well, let me, let me, okay,

14:50 a seasoned Maverick, a relentless innovator, and an influential leader, Alex Autowell continues to break boundaries and redefine the possible. One thing is certain, his journey is just getting

15:01 started and the world can expect many more incredible feats from this 32-year-old unstoppable force I bet they received 50, 000 resumes. They probably did get a shit ton of deals from my post, so I

15:14 make this post, and all I did was take stuff from their website, and this post

15:19 has got 700, 000 views on that, but over a million from some of the retweets, and my inbox is flooded with some of my oil friends contact him to sell off their PDP deals. So one of the single

15:36 greatest moments in my career when I was at Stevens, 'cause everybody knew the Stevens family had money, so they'd call us to try to get us to invest. I get a, I call, and I always, whenever I

15:48 got a business plan and I read it, I would call back and just, even if it's to say no. So I call back, I go, hey, this is Chuck Yates at Stevens. I wanted to follow up with the business plan

15:60 you sent me Swear to God, the guy covers the phone and he goes, hey man, do we send Stevens the oil and gas deal or the internet deal?

16:12 I was like, I was so glad my answer was no there.

16:17 So yeah, Nate was, Nate was fun, lots of activity. I don't wanna get a shout out to Harold Hamm for just being a like chill ass dude. So like he just hanging out with the four seasons bar

16:32 Nate tells me he goes up to the front, grabs his badge like everyone else does. Wait it in line. Yeah. I think that's pretty cool. Like, Nate's got to be the only place where it brings in

16:41 someone like, held him and he just - Dude, he's the man of the people. I mean, that's most oil and gas except the big internationals, you know? Yeah. Well, I mean, the greatest thing about

16:53 our industry, the oil and gas business is at one point everyone's been broke or publicly shamed and humiliated or something You know, whatever you want. Yeah. Nobody's that up. You can walk, you

17:06 can walk up to Harold Ham broke and just say, Harold, what about this? And he's going to help you out because everybody else has been there. Yeah. I always say, and I also think that's why

17:17 Houston, Texas has the greatest people on the planet because we've all been broke. Always say the CEO of the oil and gas company when times are good, 100 oil flying around in the private plane with

17:28 his best friend, who's the janitor. of the oil and gas company, and then when times are crappy, the CEO is sleeping on the janitor's couch, and they talk about how much fun it was when they were

17:38 flying around on the plane. Yeah, I just wish I knew you when you're rich. Oh, it is fun. I'll be the janitor. Oh, it was baller. We had some good stories at NAIP. So ranking NAIP kind of,

17:54 and I went to NAIP first time back in like '94, '95 Oh, yeah, I've been in New Year at all. You could probably play a 65-year-old on Netflix. That

18:07 just hurts coming from y'all too. So everyone that's listening, Chuck is auditioning for this role. I won't see what show, I don't know if it's private or not, but most season two. Yeah, so

18:17 most season two. Mo Amir, the Houston comedian. Yeah, funny, and most season two. Most season one's great. Yeah, first season was great, but they want Chuck to play a mid 60-year-old dude and

18:29 says feelings are a little hurt. Yes, although I did get, I did get asked to audition, so I will say that. But, so my - They've seen you on TMZ so many times, like, oh shit, we got a

18:39 superstar. I actually sent in the footage of me doing standup on stage with Whitney Cummings. So that was, I did do that. But to get back to Nate, I kind of felt enthusiasm, kind of like vibe,

18:57 you know, are we back? I'm gonna say, you know, peak natural gas, beginning of Shales, like '05 '06,, in there, were the craziest kind of Nate vibes. I felt this was kind of like a five to a

19:15 six. So definitely better than average, but at the same time, not just buzzing of we're back, we're taking over the world. Jake and I were talking about this 'cause this year seemed. a lot

19:30 higher energy in the city. Especially those, that one world energy. Yeah, they brought it. Yeah, that's just who brought it. But I think a couple of things happen over the last, the last

19:43 couple of years. One, each last year and the year before, there were winter storms that kept people from getting down here. Okay. And someone brought that up. I was like, oh yeah, you're right.

19:51 That's true. Yeah, because I was like, man, it just seems like there's more people in town and the energy's high. So that probably played into it. But Jake and I were talking a little bit about,

19:60 some of us should be concerned about the weather in general. It's getting crazy. There's weather events.

20:08 Anyways, sorry, keep going.

20:11 Leave it to Kirk to throw in some snarky remote there. What was I saying? But Jake and I were talking, 'cause the first,

20:21 we didn't get to go to Nape in the 90s, 'cause we were only like five. But,

20:28 Pete, Pete Nape was like shale, you know, 2000, like 12, 13, and it's just probably never going to have that buzz to it again. You know, I mean, that that was just a question. Let me ask you

20:39 a question. I think you got to reset. Since you're a digital bro now, and you don't really have, you have no more Midland crowd, you just are an office digital guy

20:51 Let me ask you, has Nate's sort of

20:56 grassroots vibe gotten stronger? So all these like the meetup parties that were more grassroots versus the big parties that everyone knows are going to go to. I felt like there were more, there was

21:09 a lot of, a lot of parties, but a lot more grassroots connections through like social media, through different connections. Yeah. What do you think about that? ice party was great and that

21:20 wasn't a big blown out. Parting on those, yeah, just a hundred people from Twitter, went to a lot of team really connected people in a way that was more organic or through social than it was

21:34 through big-name company Acstron Party. What do you think? Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think part of that's just the times, right? It is the times. You know, we're kind of, let's say

21:46 we got a whack two or three years out just for COVID, you know? So it may be in starker contrast than it would have been kind of gradually had we done that all through COVID. But - Yeah, I think

21:58 there was a lot of grassroots, but also I think there's a time and place like opportunities party was badass, like you have - Bag it always was a great party. Yeah, bottled girls hanging from the,

22:10 what do they call them? Not streamers, but they're like - They're like - They're like stripper poles? No, they're doing like, aerial yoga

22:16 Aerial yoga

22:18 hanging from the ceiling, pouring drinks, like that's over the top, cool, cool shit.

22:24 Which is interesting because a couple of my opportune guys didn't invite me. Ooh. I mean, I got invite during the circuitous way 'cause I knew that was gonna be a good party. But like, what's up

22:36 about that? Yeah, Dask. I'm gonna Dask. I did it. My assistant asked for me, which is me. But no, I've kind of noticed the parties. I've gotten kicked off the list of VE that didn't invite me

22:49 anymore. I still got that one But my uncle was a partner there too for 30 years. I think you're more of a liability. Probably. Chuck. Who you got? Big liability 'cause Kirkland was still wanting

23:02 me there. Go on in. Kirkland was a great part. They had over 3000 people at their Nate party. That's crazy. They had the 713 venue. Oh, I saw that. Where we'll have them power coming up. And

23:14 they're giving out cowboy hits. Yeah, for years

23:19 I used to have Robert Earl King pay it Now, the last few years of head Ryan Bingham, Bingham. Yeah, the Yellowstone guy, yeah, he was really good. Well, what else happened in the world of

23:29 energy? I mean, we got a big Permian deal. We had nape, people recovering, what's happening in the rest of the world? One last quick nape story just while we're here. So I don't know, do you

23:42 all know John Linker? No. John Linker was a long time first reserve, oil and gas investor, and John could take a complicated messed up situation and make it a sentence. You know, he was just

23:54 that guy, he could summarize. And back there in kind of '05, '06, '07, peak crazy nape. He was walking out, I was walking in and go, John, what's going on in there, Ian? He goes, It's so

24:07 great. Even the bankrupt companies have two booths.

24:14 Oh, there you go. Well, I've got some a couple across the pond stories that are interesting. One is, this is great. And we do have Taiwan to talk about - We do have Taiwan. We do have Taiwan

24:25 stuff, so we'll close with that. This is interesting. So France has total energy, huge energy company. Their long-serving CEO says, warns government because there's a risk of misselling the

24:43 energy transition. States must acknowledge the shift to less polluting system will lead to higher energy costs. So this is a company that's been pushing the boundaries of energy transition. And now

24:59 they're going public with warning of the CEO is that by pushing the energy transition is just gonna increase energy costs and everyone needs to understand that. But why, if renewables are so much

25:13 cheaper than fossil fuels, that's what I always, I mean, that's what everyone's preaching on Twitter. And in the world that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, if that's true, then why do

25:25 energy prices go up in an energy transition? Absolutely. Why are people, you know, the other day we're talking about LNG. And we're talking about LNG use and Africa and some guy was like, well,

25:42 why would we get them on LNG when we have cheaper renewables? I'm like, hey, if there's cheaper renewables, why does that prevent them from using renewables? So they'll choose renewables over LNG

25:55 and like, no one can ever answer that question of if renewables are cheaper, then why does LNG

26:02 stop renewables from being adopted? Why do you see electricity prices in places like Germany go up with increased

26:12 renewable energy, even in Texas, it's happened Overlay that with companies that are supposedly really greedy, right? and just care about money. You know, we hear that all the time. They're

26:22 greedy energy companies. Why aren't they choosing the lowest cost? That's it. I mean, oil and gas companies are capitalists. If it were cheaper, China would be doing nothing but renewables.

26:35 That there is a dictatorship that's very smart, very sophisticated, uses a lot of energy, understands a lot of energy, and the fact that they're just plowing the world full of coal plants to the

26:49 site. I wish they are building lots of renewable energy, but at two points like that's - Well, they're ruining the supply chain, too. I mean, that's the point. Here's a trivia question for you.

26:58 Do you remember the name of Denmark's state oil company?

27:03 No. It was called Dong Energy.

27:07 Nice. They rebranded, they were in the rebranded - I remember meeting one of the executives of Dong Energy, and what she told me, I'm with Dong Energy, excuse me, excuse me. Dong Energy's

27:20 Denmark State Oil Company. They rebranded and Denmark being enlightened. They're like, we're going away from oil and gas. So they became a wind company. They're now called Orsted. Okay. So

27:36 Orsted, one of the leaders of renewables, they just announced that cutting costs, they're firing 600, 800 people They're pausing their dividend payments, they're selling assets, and refocusing

27:53 their business priorities, because they've been getting killed in the wind business. They've been getting killed on offshore wind. Absolutely. So when government stops subsidizing renewables, so

28:08 this was actually a well-run oil and gas company, they just got woke and figured out that, hey, let's go to renewables and be first,

28:16 But they're paying the price. So they're actually in pretty, they're, they're having a hard time. I wonder who Orsted sells off assets too, just because, I mean, you're the big dog in offshore

28:26 wind. Doesn't seem like there's very much liquidity there compared to like an oil and gas company where you can spin off and you got a thousand different companies to sell something to. Who's your,

28:36 who's your balance sheet repair? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah We're exiting markets and offshore markets, Norway, Spain, Portugal, deep prioritizing Japan and planning for leaner development costs,

28:50 including floating offshore wind projects. So they're trying to figure out ways to make money, which is interesting. So you're hearing total, you're hearing Siemens, you're hearing Orsted now

29:01 saying like, whoa, hold the brakes because, you know, the subsidies aren't coming through. Yeah Supply chain costs are getting more expensive.

29:12 It's interesting to see how the tide's turning. Um,

29:20 I think it's interesting because if you go back to the thought that renewable energy is the cheapest source of energy, that always doesn't doesn't seem to align with making money either. Right. And

29:35 so I actually posted something the other day. I don't know if y'all saw this, but I think it's with the lieutenant governor of Texas had posted that

29:45 Texas was going to build natural gas plants. Did y'all see this? Yeah. Dan Patrick came out and said something to the effect of energy companies can build base load natural gas or we're going to do

29:59 it. Yeah. And so I tweeted out, I had this tweet that popped off. Hold on. I'm looking for it right now. Oh, I use how y'all seen this meme where it's like Norman Rockwell painting of the guy

30:11 standing.

30:13 I said, if Texas is going to central plant and subsidized energy, it should be nuclear. And that tweet ended up taking off doing well because I do think that there is a case that, you know, if

30:24 you were to invest, if the state was to invest in energy and secure, reliable, and affordable energy, GDP would grow, right? And so it's like, hey, if nuclear doesn't make sense on an economic

30:39 basis for private companies to do it, it could make sense for governments to do it. Governments to do it, yeah. And I think that the same could be said for, you know, renewables as well. But I

30:51 always think about this when people like renewables are the cheapest source of electricity. It's like, it's great. But how do you make money as a, as a company doing that? And I think, I think

31:01 going back to that remark, the other thing to think about too, what you've talked about on the show a million times. So this is beating a dead horse But you can't just look at the price of an

31:10 electron on the asset level, you have to think about. battery storage, backup generation, transmission. There's a lot of costs that go on to that from end to end. Well, I mean, you basically

31:22 have to start off with,

31:26 'cause I actually, back in the day, was for the energy-only market, an energy-only market being electricity's produced, thrown on the grid, you get paid for it, right? Well, then all the

31:37 federal subsidies came in for renewables So in effect, they would get built for free through tax credits and the like, and then boom, they'd make money whenever they put electricity on the grid.

31:53 And it's just gotten us to the point where we've teetered on the brink, like Winter Storm Yuri and various other summer events we have when it gets too hot. I think you're gonna have to do something

32:08 to tweak the market for a capacity payment some sort, meaning. Okay, wind and solar, if you don't deliver, you pay a penalty. Yeah. 'Cause to your point, somebody's got to finance the backup.

32:21 Well, the grid has to take it when they're generating anyway, by the way, when there's excess. So that's why prices in West Texas sometimes go negative. So there is grid, the grid, not only are

32:34 there times when they're not producing, when Texas needs it, especially when it's cold AF, and the wind's not blowing, the sun's not shining, but also when there's excess, the grid still has to

32:44 take that electricity, which is an issue. Yeah. They have to send it somewhere. I think it's funny 'cause, you know, when we started the Empower Bitcoin Mining Conference a couple of years ago,

32:55 like you'd hear these people that were mining Bitcoin off of stranded renewable assets. And I was like, if you actually take time to think about that, like a stranded renewable asset, yeah. It's

33:05 like, why is there even such thing as a stranded renewable asset yet? Like, you have stranded gas because gas is, you know. associated with oil production and so you're producing oil and you

33:16 don't have takeaway capacity for the gas, that makes sense. But a stranded wind farm, it's like, how was it economic for someone to build that and not have transmission or takeaway capacity? It's

33:29 because it was subsidized, they got paid for just just for building it. And so one of our great oil tycoons did build a bunch of renewable assets in Texas. Because T-Man. Yeah. I mean, T-Man was

33:43 big ranch with a lot of spots for wind turbines. So here's a funny question as the story just came out. And this is going to hit home to digital wildcatters. A bunch of yoga instructors are really

33:58 upset with lululemon because their supply chain is, as they grow, their supply chain is increasing their emissions. So they're really, people are quitting and like, I'm lost. 'cause Lululemon is

34:13 not who I thought what they stood for because they are, their corporate pillars are be human, be well, be planet. Be planet. If they're not 100 renewable, people are quitting and pushing back.

34:26 So their customers, their ambassadors are pushing back on the company because their supply chain emissions are growing as the company grows. Well, you know, there's this, the problem with, yeah

34:39 The problem with these brands, and I see like clothing brands that are trying to be started that are sustainable clothing brands, and I'm like, there's nothing, you just, by the very definition,

34:53 you can't manufacture something in China and ship it over on a boat to

34:56 the United States and think that you don't have - Emissions. Emissions in a carbon footprint, right? And so.

35:04 You're gonna have to buy offsets, which is what most consumers don't understand what that means.

35:12 eliminating greenhouse gases. What they're doing is they're buying some wind farm that has excess-stranded excess capacities. And, hey, somewhere in Iowa, the wind's blowing really hard, it's

35:23 excess. Well, I saw some. I'm gonna buy credits against that. I saw some. And still have mine. And still should be a barge. I saw some headline that the Super Bowl, hold on. Let me, let me

35:33 find this. Let me Google this real quick. But the headline was, this Super Bowl is the first Super Bowl ever powered 100 by solar energy. And. At night. Thank you. Thank you. You already knew

35:47 where I was going with this. But yeah, Super Bowl 58 to be the first fully powered by renewable energy. And so I thought that was funny 'cause yeah, in the evening, at nighttime. And so what

36:01 does that actually mean? And you know, I hate. They bought offsets. And not only do they buy offsets, they bought cheap offsets because they're voluntary permitted. So going back to something

36:13 you were talking about, Chuck, with a carbon tax or capacity markets where you're penalized if you don't participate, et cetera. It's interesting. A lot of funny math out there. Yeah. I think

36:28 that there's so much grift that can't be uncovered. My mom used to say, if it's bad, don't do it. Period.

36:38 Who was it? There was some time last year. There was a story of some company had like hundreds of millions of dollars of junk offsets sitting on their balance sheet that they had bought. And it

36:51 turned out like they weren't actually, you know, good offsets that have been verified. And so all of a sudden they just had all these offsets that they bought and weren't even, weren't even viable.

37:01 And so companies like that are even supposed to know if what you're buying is quality offsets in the in the first place. Yeah, I mean, there will be standardization there. And so the vast majority

37:15 will get at some point to where they're what people are agreeing to. We can all then sit on the sidelines and go, Well, that's just total bullshit, because you kind of made up the fact that your

37:26 plant was gonna do 100 million tons of this and you decided to do less. The world's a better place, man. Well, I don't know. Well, because COVID hit and our manufacturing plant and it didn't run

37:38 for you guys. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was gonna be gaming of that system. Because that's some Vida Day. And I was listening to someone talk and they're talking about - Moji. Yeah, with Moji.

37:48 Moji's a good friend of mine. And anyway, someone was talking about - He started some Vida in my building. Oh, really? Yeah, well, that's cool. That's cool. He's a sister. Some Vida is a

37:59 fucking awesome - He's smart. Dude, they're so smart. Great friend of mine too. But someone was talking about, and they just made a comment about. putting a price on carbon. And this is

38:10 something I've been thinking about a lot lately because

38:14 there's a subset of people out there that want a carbon tax, and they want to put a price on carbon and tax oil and gas companies. I don't know if y'all saw this video from Elon Musk about a week or

38:24 two ago, but he had this really long video talking about how there needs to be a carbon

38:31 tax. And anyways, always think about, OK, if we're going to tax carbon and I kind of call it a phantom phantom accounting, and it sees externalities that, yeah, you can measure, but it's a

38:45 little bit of a gray area. Then you think about, OK, well, shouldn't there be a price on reliable base load energy as well? And kind of your point that you made earlier, Chuck, of, hey, if

38:57 you say that you have this much capacity and you do not deliver that, then you need to pay for it. Because there should also be a tax and a penalty Yeah, not Having reliable and consistent energy

39:09 and so that's like we can talk about a carbon tax and all these things, but let's also Tax the other inefficiencies in the system. That's a good point So I don't think that you know it can just be

39:21 one and not the other. I think you have to have a fair playing field Probably so probably so All right Close with Taiwan. Yeah back to our recurring series on this is the year of the election 2

39:36 billion people are going to vote Seven out of the 10 largest democracies in the world are voting Geopolitically strategic folks are voting and we had one of those in January with Taiwan So just real

39:50 quick to level set on Taiwan for everyone. You got a multi-party democracy You do direct elections of the president and the vice president legislature has a single body 113 members So on January 13th,

40:06 I haven't checked to see if that was a Friday or not, but on January 13th, Lychin T, who

40:14 won an unprecedented third straight term as president, he's with the Democratic Progressive Party, the DPP. He got 40 of the vote. The opposition party, KMT got about 33 their candidate did And

40:32 then the Taiwan's people party, TPP, their candidate got 26 of the vote. What was interesting though, is the KMT party got 52 seats in the legislature. DPP has 51 seats. The TPP have eight seats.

40:51 I don't know who the other two seats are. Very much divided government, obviously very strict. strategic right semiconductor industry 50 of the world's container ships pass through the Taiwan

41:06 Straits and kind of where this impacts us and the reason to talk about it for just a second is the DPP are the most anti-Chinese of the parties. So China has not come out and publicly bashed the

41:25 elections. They have frowned upon people like the United States, France, saying congratulations on the the election. So this kind of sets up the tension, if you will, because if you think about

41:41 it, they're the kid and the United States and China or mom and dad going through a divorce, if you will. And Taiwan's kind of sitting there in the middle There are there are electronic components

41:53 that we absolutely only buy and can only buy. from Taiwan. So it is a very strategic island for the United States. And if China cut it off, we'd be and we'd be screwed. So it's just a big issue,

42:09 you know, China goes through a weaker economy is that maybe a flex something they want to push. What happens if Trump gets back elected versus the way Biden's played it? I mean, we could dig all

42:22 day into Biden versus Trump on China. And to Biden's credit, you could make a case that Biden's actually been tougher on China with some of the embargoes he's put in place. I mean, Trump was

42:35 certainly louder about bashing China, particularly in public. So, you know, that kind of the ghosts of Hong Kong sitting there, this is this is kind of one to watch because it's a bit of a powder

42:48 keg there. Yeah, and I have much to add to it because because I don't know much about it. Yeah Um While we're talking about foreign policy and affairs, did y'all watch the Putin and Tucker Carlson

43:01 interview? I watched a little bit of it. I haven't watched the whole thing yet. I'm like an hour in, so I just got past the history lesson at the pitch. Which is actually quite phenomenal. It

43:11 was actually really fucking good. Everyone's bashing him for it, but - He gave it off the top of his head too. That's what I was like. It's actually terrifying to watch Putin talk and then watch

43:20 Biden talk. Right It's like -

43:25 He cares about his history. Yeah, he does for sure. And so anyways, I found it pretty fascinating, but yeah, I'm about halfway through it. So, it took me two. I fell asleep halfway through

43:36 the first time and second time I made it through, but it's interesting to one. I love that Tucker did that. Did you all see the AOC video where when he got deep platform from Fox News, AOC made

43:51 this video celebrating it? And she's like, it couldn't have happened to a better guy. key platforming works, his career is dead, yadda yadda yadda yadda. And then Tucker, which I'm not a huge

44:01 fan of, Tucker, but rises from the ashes. I mean, he's got more followers and fucking crushing it and, yeah, Trump, no pun intended Fox News. I mean, he's gone crushing it. That's the lyric.

44:13 I love to see him and Elon getting some views and wins over on. Yeah. I mean, they're talking, talking a hundred million, two hundred million type views on this thing were on a good night on Fox

44:25 News. He got four million. Yeah. Exactly. I'm going to make a request moving forward, maybe every week, but we're going to give an update on one world petroleum because I just extended an

44:39 invitation. The CEO. Hey, if he's listening, Alex, I want to talk to him. Alex, I pinged you on Instagram to come on the

44:49 podcast. He says it's bold. He knows he didn't start never had any oil and gas experience. One of his hashtags is marketing ninja. So,

45:03 I mean,

45:05 all that is the battle, or let's update it. If he's successful, we're gonna applaud, right? But that was the biggest, boldest move anyone has ever made. Congrats. You crash and burns. You

45:18 know, we're gonna say wow. And let's just be clear, you know, I don't think that he's fraudulent or anything like that. I just think that he's gonna get his ass handed to him and oiling gas,

45:25 like it's much harder than mobile homes. Either that or he buys it the right time, winds up at150 oil and talks about what a shrewd investment it all does. So God bless him along. Yeah commodity

45:31 prices can either make you the hero

45:40 or the zero-person. Just one last thing to close on Taiwan with is sitting there watching, it's really important. You were talking all those components that are essential we need for life.

45:54 It goes without saying, but let's say it anyway for the energy transition to happen. It doesn't happen without Taiwan This is true. You know, I mean those those those critical component type

46:05 pieces are coming through there. So Absolutely speaking of there's a great TV show Netflix about the Taiwan mafia I Think it's call if we get the name of it. I'll bring it up next week, but it's

46:20 hilarious They they one of the brothers has never been raised in the mafia He doesn't know he's part of it. The mom escapes Taiwan to raise him in LA and then then Then things shit happens But the

46:36 older brothers the assassin and sort of the man in line To be the next mafia boss of one of the big family crime families And then his little brother is kind of a loser I mean smart, but he's like

46:49 knows nothing about how to fight has no he's too nice and it's hilarious to see it's it funny

46:55 Funny show. I thought this was like a real documentary, but it sounds like it's a. I thought we were going back to most season one. It's not that far off. Check to check to go audition. If

47:05 anyone see it, we're gonna get some Twitter's action on that, but I'll go with it. Well, good show. We'll be back next week. Is Mark and Sal with us next week? So Mark is back with us, but

47:15 you're gone? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm in for worse next week. So your boy is gonna have to. Anything to promote? Marketing Ninja? Yeah, you know, I'm just doing marketing All about Claude

47:25 Pro, baby. Yeah, I hear it's flying, man. It is, man. It's taken off, so it's been fun. Congratulations, Bob. We'll start working with Nate soon. It sounds like I'm actually meeting with

47:35 Nate Ben for worse. Yeah. Get to talk to that team up there. So, all right, we will be back next week. Appreciate everyone tuning into the show.