Big Digital Energy

0:17 A digital wildcatters welcome back to B, D, E Big digital energy calling again is out with the mysterious prostate injury. Oh, that never get old to me back with my partners in crime, Mark Meyer,

0:32 Kirk, Coburn, Real quick. This is going to drop on August Fifteenth, so we kind of have two important dates in history that I want to make sure everyone is aware of August Thirteenth. What's it

0:48 The anniversary of

0:52 nineteen eighty two, The fast times at Ridgemont High Rock. Yeah, shoot exactly favorite line That was your favorite line from it. I think it was probably once Mccauley said I figure this is our

1:07 time, and then you know I'll bring back a better about what are you doing. Jeff learning about Cuba having some food. That's awesome. What was your favorite line in the movie. That was one of

1:20 them. That was one of the other was people on luge should not dry. So my favorite is at the end when he rescues Brooke Shields from drowning and blows through on a hiring Van Halen plays birthday

1:35 party, while the dream sequence at the end that was the dream secrets at the end or the closing. The yet how many are Oscar winners are obviously future Oscar winners. How many Oscar winners were

1:51 actually involved in fast times at Ridgemont I am going to say three. I think it's more than that, so Sean Penn try, of course, and and actually did he get Falcon The snowman. Is that where he

2:04 won his first one random movie, but I thought it was milk that he won his first one, but Whoever that, yeah, Shaun Tan, so jump at which we do need to say here. For him to play Jeff's but Kohli

2:18 following him playing Alex and Taps is just so. What about Sean Hannity? But I mean lying up back -to -back movie roles Two totally different characters. He is a great actor, Okay, So we got Sean

2:32 Penn. We got Forest Whittaker Wright Jefferson, He won the Oscar for the last King of Scotland. He did get. He was that good a bowler, Who's exact camaro got. We've got a Cameron Crowe who wrote

2:47 the thing. He's won an Oscar at some point for a screenplay. I'm not sure which one and then we've got Nicholas Cage. Remember He's in the. He's in the beginning is actually one of spicules vans

3:04 weed smoking buddies. I. That is, that is right, Houses of it, He's obviously won an Oscar, and then I think Amy Hecker Ling who directed at won an Oscar at some point. Great scene. When

3:16 they're rolling out of the van at the prom, the door slides up and there in ties and vans and shorts, and just cloud of smoke comes rolling out of the van. The cheech and Chong asked Yell No shoes,

3:28 No shirt. No one dies. Wow, great movie or get, so the second anniversary, we have to bring up, and this is more Germane. You're talking about August Fifteenth. I was thinking that, but but

3:42 so so August fourteenth, two thousand and one. What happened, God. That's all I said, As I know has something to do with Enron. Because I everytime artist replied right here, so a dark cloud

3:55 flies have used Jeff Skilling resigned and became a fourteen year. Because Mr. Skilling Yeah, were that is going. No way. Yeah. Okay, Let me let me reiterate that martyred at thesis, or that

4:09 conspiracy theory one.

4:13 It's Clever, sometimes awkward commentary, and as I've said, Chuck has the highest awkward threshold of any human being. I've ever met, which is good for 'em a media personality, who who touts

4:25 his appearances on Tmz which led to another victory this weekend. Thanks, Yeah, two, he has time, right time, Therefore your current reign as the business, so, but the reason we know for a

4:42 fact I'm not Mr. Skilling is because O the other one that you cited in support of that was what he despises a

4:55 firm. Oh, yeah, he, he does not despise Kayne Anderson enough and he just like Kevin Mccarthy a little bit at came, but not enough to the Congressmen Speaker of the house. Now I waited. I chuck.

5:09 I think part of that is your alter ego. You can't be too harsh on. Because you're already harsh enough publicly know, I'm not the non dispair to an agreement as I did, alright, so Mark you got a

5:22 mystery item item as August fourteenth, so we're kind of playing with the thirteenth fourteenth. Fifteenth year. Is that Yeah, right, so go ahead today is Pakistan Independence Day, I lived in

5:36 Karachi for a couple of years, and then when I was in the States, on the buy -side the analysts at work for me. Her birthday was on eight fourteen. I always wished her a happy Pakistan

5:47 Independence. Nice. I like that. I'll go one more while we're doing this Because it's more appropriate this week. Do you know at August Sixteenth is

5:57 Interstate at school. It is the day Pete Best got fired as the Beatles drummer, and replaced by Clarence, Exactly Rib, replaced by Ringo's star and it's always very awkward because one who would

6:11 want to sit next to that guy in the pub. We can you can have a shitty your day. Pete best had a shit of your day than any of us have had that being said. It's always awkward. Because on August

6:22 fifteenth, Renga star always tweets out Today is the day John and Paul asked me to join them. Yeah, Alright, Let's jump in. What's going on in China. Mark. This is crazy, well, Reuters, and

6:37 the Guardian had a little more. The Guardian had a little more detail, but just a headline about you know. We're worried now about demand, and it's related to crude may be faltering here. A

6:48 little bit. I'd say faltering is down at eighty two and change that at my last look from you know for still summer, so new stores are pretty sporting forty five, and this was really sparked by.

6:59 There's been a lot of discussion that I haven't been able to delve into over the weekend around Chinese banking and liquidity, etc, but the main data point that it looks like created a bit of a.

7:11 Shoot first ask questions later was last months in inflation, print for China was actually deflation. Now that was a core, excluding volatile core, excluding the proverbial, volatile, food and

7:26 energy was actually up, so this was a primarily a function based upon digging a little bit to the Guardian, commentary around mainly food, driving the the the month datapoint on your rear and fly a

7:42 deflation. You know you spend this out into what the? What could this altar ultimately mean? And in a bit of a more dismal scenario is this you know China essentially turning into pant Japan,

7:55 after their asset price bubble burst back in the eighties, right, so Sir Mark word is what's the source of this data.

8:04 The source of the data would have to be one of the official Chinese exact dana publications which. Know like the crude adjustment factor always raises some data quality concerns like my kids. When

8:15 something's broken. Yeah, exactly, and it is a single data point. There's a lot more to unpack here. I'm sure. Will you know Mark Risotto has been adamant for a while on Twitter talking about

8:29 China's over levered. They're not going to have the stimulus spending that everybody's been talking about and he pointed out I think that one lending was down ninety percent in July. And so he's

8:44 been adamant Have Do not hang your hat on China. Stimulus spending to grow that economy That we have real debt. Prob. We have been talking about this literally. For over thirty years. China has

8:59 not really hiccups that much at all, except I mean what two thousand and eight, everyone sorta dept, but we're not seeing like China. Is dependent on the U. S. U. S has been on China for the

9:12 global economy to keep going. I know China has been super active in. As was the belt and road initiative. I can see a dip, but they've got clearly other hidden levers to keep that economy going.

9:25 I don't know, but we've been talking about this literally. Every few years. We talk about China taking it on the chin and they don't and I don't know why. I mean. Maybe you guys have much better

9:35 thoughts on that. Yeah, I think a lotta hit a lot of it has to do with just the opaqueness and ambiguity around trying right hang your hat on any trends worth of data points in in China, and in the

9:49 in the quality of the data reporting itself, but an even in the flesh from reduction act and the chip like you know, people are trying to move manufacturing out of China, because it's more

9:59 expensive to other regions to build chips and even a technology, but that's not happening. We're not seeing that actually, and that could take at least five to

10:12 almost ten years for that to actually come to play. So it's going to be interesting to watch. Well. You have one presidential candidate talking about ultimately winning the U S from dependency on

10:24 China, and you look at some of the intractable things on technology supply chain basis, and even some of the raw materials, like eighty percent of the world's process process, cobalt, refine

10:36 cobalt comes out of right of China, and I don't I forget what the percentage of photovoltaics, For example, if that transitions going to be make made away from or diversified away from, it's going

10:49 to take a really a or a multi -decade period and a lot of political contortions between now and then which is entering. I know we weren't going there chalk, but are we going to talk about? Elon

11:03 musk protection and power, Brighton what we are. We are next, I. I would. I would also point out that with all of this potentially profound shift on the demand side, If you know if this does

11:17 turn into a verifiable trend, you know there, there's been a little bit of shoot First ask questions later, but I just glance at the X. Opiates down a few tens of basis points. You know the

11:28 largest U S company down similarly in Exxon, and then you know croods off a couple of box relative to kind of contemporary. Hi.

11:38 I think sorting through some of this stuff, and and maybe we're a little bit distracted, Margaret wise by what's going on in in Lahaina with. We'll talk about that. Yeah, Yeah, so, yeah, and

11:52 enter the thing, stating the obvious here with an air of discovery, but you know the deal with China. I mean a slight alteration and trajectories. Big freakin number. That is so bad that being

12:06 said one of my favorite Jerry Seinfeld jokes, and no one ever laughs at this, so I'll just go ahead and tell it to our whole audience and just own it. What is the traditional greeting in the

12:16 Chinese army general. I enjoy your chicken and I years. That's funny. That's funny. Genius. Yeah, exactly, I. That's already funny, so Kirk. Let's get to your power issue thing you know,

12:32 Elon Musk says we're going to need three Xc electricity demand by twenty forty five, P. Genie says it's only going to be up seventy percent. Mackenzie says it's up to X. By twenty. Forty five of

12:49 you know we're seeing all sorts of rising a wait times for connecting to the grids. I think the backlog I heard the directional. This will be right. But the numbers will be wrong. I think I heard

13:01 it's gone from three years to eight years. I mean it's that magnitude of kind of backlog. Well. We fucking buildings that we've talked about the Transformers in particular to try and find them

13:12 fright, but we were saying a total clean power installations were down nineteen per cent year over year, in the first half of two thousand and twenty three, so Elon Musk came out and said that that

13:24 he believes that that energy demand will triple by twenty forty five, as disgust. I think he, and in some ways it's not forecasting. It's planning. I worked for an executive that always said we

13:37 don't forecast. We plan. I think he's planning. Because if you take sort of what's happening in China, we take that were all the materials are coming from Elon, saying something on the demand

13:48 side is saying that this tripling of of electricity, Man's primarily being driven to easy adoption. I think that's real interesting, but the problem is we can't catch up like we're not. Only seven

14:00 percent of a car's sold last year were were Ii vs. I've got a stat on the car side, but there's not enough materials. There's not enough projects being actually ret greenlighted to build out this

14:14 tripling of the man. So to me, it's maybe Elon going out on a limb saying. Hey, I think Mackenzie and Pg any and all these experts are wrong, as can be much greater than that, but I'm having a

14:26 hard time seeing how the math gets there and turn will just actual will want one my stack, Cause I had Tim Cramer on the Podcast about three or four weeks ago and he's created the only E t F out

14:39 there that allow were mutual fund that allows you to get direct power price exposure Right in his whole point. Is you know by by this and put it in the in the closet for ten years and thank me later,

14:52 but we've been talking a lot and this is a crazy stat. I mean just to run a Google search and I run one hundred of them a day. Is one what to run an Ai driven search is actually five lots, and to

15:06 train the Ai language model to be able to run that one search. It's anywhere from one hundred to one thousand watts. So I guarantee you that's not baked than the number and Ai is going to be

15:18 embedded in everything on the planet or in the in the initial training run to connect it to emissions and climate. The initial training run of the typical Ai model emits as much as your average

15:31 American vehicle over five lived over five lifetimes, five, x the lifetime of the franchise fee, and we are we. We do need to have someone on the show to talk through this, but like data centers,

15:42 like you know, the biggest data center providers are running out of space and they can't build them fast enough. The problem is you can't build them because there's no power. They don't have enough

15:53 power to actually power these data center. So there's a, so we're getting increasingly out of sync if. We've narrowed the choice for new generation. We're not addressing what we've talked about.

16:04 Which is really the. It's always back to the grid. It's always about the grid. Stupid. We're narrowing the choice of generation in in in Pascha as we've talked about what's going on with things

16:16 like offshore wind timelines are getting pushed out because of the reset on things like beds because of you know regulatory or tax uncertainty, and more importantly what's going on with the inflation

16:28 aspect of all of this build out, so I, I happen to believe that the numbers that you've cited on the multiple multiplier of electricity demand related strictly day. I are pretty severely that came

16:42 directly from a senior executive at one of the largest data center providers. I guess what I'm saying is I'll take the over on that well and let let's let's you know, Bet on the over even more cause

16:53 Mark you made this point and a while ago in the show, they are a. Came out and didn't say. Hey. We want lower emissions market. Go figured out. It came out and said we want electric vehicles

17:03 period, and we've talked about that and my tinfoil hat conspiracy On that. I mean bitcoin mining's real. You know. You may not believe that, whatever, but it is real, and it uses a lot of the

17:15 experts almost like guilty, talking about bitcoin mining without Colin and his eyes light. Well, He had his brain starts mining. When we're talking, He had an not to go off on a tangent here,

17:26 but he did have an an interesting entrepreneurial idea on the drive up to Oklahoma, where he thought about you know using flare gas for bitcoin? Why don't you call it locate a crematorium. Yeah,

17:39 right and I was why he was asking for names of the business, so the basement of the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver actually housed a crematorium for years, and I kid you, not, they are made the

17:53 Melba toast in the In the. Immaterial, she, whatever the devices that burns people, But that's why the Brown Palace had the best Melba toast. Forever. It was incredibly Chris, Cause they could

18:06 get it so harsh, and I used to make a quarterly trip and stay at the Brown Palace for a long ago. Board rotation. Do you remember The? What's the? What's the older tavern On Lawrence. Hardships?

18:20 No ships, other ships tavern, and there's also Churchill's. The. There was. There was a waiter in one of those in the older of the two, An apology, apologize to

18:34 Denver preservationists and historians, but there was a waiter. This was back ten years ago, who had been working there since nineteen sixty four, Which is that's a long time longer than we. Than

18:49 than all three of us combined have ever held a job, if if if if if walls could talk. That's a living talking wall right there, so anyway, the Ah interesting, so another data point, So I came,

19:01 I've come off the the Mountain top experience from Nantucket down to the Valley kid, and I'm glad he didn't mention my Mississippi mud flap, or would you call it earlier, The Kentucky waterfall,

19:12 The Tennessee Top hat, the Mullahs business, up front party, In the back, the hockey hair, the ten ninety, the achy, breaky, big mistake, he eu. But it's hot down here and is at is Is it too

19:26 bright, Hers Is your future so bright. You gotta wear shades. I just figured my wife said you know what we're giving a mullet for the show. I've gotten feedback for herself. She Ha. That's

19:39 awesome. It's awesome. She's great. She gives that, but but I've had feedback welcome back Mark. Because first people complain last show to me specifically that we miss that Mark guy I'm like.

19:50 Did you one of my good friends were like? Yeah, we missed that Mark guy was my girlfriend was complaining Arc. I'm in the. I'm in the market for a new car. I am tired. I have a massive range

20:04 anxiety, and my luxury eevee and mullets don't go together, so I've been looking at cars. There's a lack of inventory know, but if you want to evie, I don't care what manufacturer. But I'm

20:19 looking at sort of taught high end. He Vs. They are gluttonous. There are so many Ii is available. I see a crash coming, or there's so many movies at a flooded, but people aren't buying, and

20:32 maybe it's because of the the inflation. Maybe there's fierce, but I'm like there's something really wrong here with the demand supply premium here, and it has to do with energy has to lack of

20:45 infrastructure, Mark my words, I think. As penance you're going to need to drive my twenty thirteen, six point two liter raptor for at least a year. I've been trying to convince my wife that I

20:59 want a caddy and one of those old fleet woods, but as I just can't get that, What are you trading out of what what are you trading out of? When? What? What's what's the? What's the? What's the

21:11 source of your range anxiety? It's two hundred miles tiny. Okay, that was clearly. I'm not. You're not trading into another eevee or even a hybrid. Oh, I'm going into. I'm going back to fuel

21:25 where you fill it up and you can find a fuel station. Every you know to pay. If you're in a city. Find them every one hundred yards, but the girl on the road. I can make it from one fuels stopped.

21:37 Saw Saw Toyota is coming back with a new iteration on the land cruiser with more of an F J form factor or body style. Yeah, I was. I was still kind of. On the fence about dessert like that, well,

21:53 you know I did drive the Tesla X for six years, and it was a ways this. When you had your jet. This is back when I had my gosh. Yeah, The irony we have one of them. Is you I had a jet. I had a

22:06 hummer H two, and I had a Tesla X didn't matter what investor I was talking to you, But anyway, Mark's heard this story, but you'll have to sit there, Kirk, so one day I forget to plug in my car

22:20 and I live down in Richmond. Twenty five miles out of downtown. I get in my car. I'm heading to work. I got a hang on. Hang on. Yet You live in the Richmond house. I live in the Richmond house.

22:30 So if you say Richman. You're you're the map. Is your house. He's the man. It It was it was actually a fine dining restaurant back in the sixties named the Richmond House and the Trout Lines did

22:42 not believe in paying income taxes, so like if you were a waiter, and they withheld from your paycheck. They didn't send that in. So the federal government wants my honey, laundering and

22:51 restaurants from about seventy two to seventy four, literally chain around my house with a big old padlock on, So anyway I get in my car. Tesla. It was white. He'd had the. It had the back to

23:05 the future. When the X did you drive down the road with those things up or what nah. I would. Not. You could actually would not let or not let our target. So anyway I'm driving. It's I've got

23:17 eighty eight miles of range. I have a meeting in the woodlands that day, etc Ect and I am gone through all the iterations in my mind of what to do. Do. I stop at a whole foods may be charge. I

23:29 don't really have time. I had an apartment at the time more towards downtown. They had a charger. I couldn't really figure that out. I finally just drove into the office. I walked in. I said to

23:40 my assistant Stacy. I'm really sorry, but you're just going to have to take my car drive five miles north of town, charge it and bring it back. Me and I've got to leave in two and a half hours and

23:51 she looked at me and she has chuck. You've officially become a prek. Yeah, so range anxiety is real, alright, Last the last item we've got. What's going on in Hawaii.

24:05 Well, I mean go ahead you, I mean serve it to you, You see the devastating impact of the line of fires in this really ties in a bit to our. Which thoughts and prayers for everyone involved, Yeah,

24:19 absolutely

24:21 horrific. There are a number I. I was listening as I always do on the way over from my long drive with no range anxiety from the woodlands, Shane Victorino is a retired Mlb player is a native of

24:34 Maui and Liner, and there are a number of sports figures I saw in him a fighter who have set up Bj Penn, No, no female and set up a. Yeah, there's a lot of direct donation type of alternatives.

24:52 People are on the ground really trying to make things happen, and you know, unfortunately, the last data point I saw in about two to three percent with only two to three percent of the burned

25:04 buildings I searched and confirm they've found like ninety three people, So it's it's a. It's a devastating situation, and there are multiple avenues set up to provide help. I'm sure they want

25:21 disaster tourists to stay away right to to be able to conduct the recovery operations, and and so I, it seems like it's all in in in in the midst of this chaos. It's you got a lot of you got a lot

25:37 of high profile sport that is helping get things organized pretty quickly, but I've been digging and I've been digging into this jacket and Mark and Hawaiian electric industries. Or stock dropped

25:47 nearly forty percent on Monday, because up till which is today, but we are we are releasing tomorrow, So act like, but it starts way down. There are concerns that the The Wapo even mention report

26:03 questioning if wind electric took adequate safety measures, because there are warnings about these potentially dangerous fire conditions due to high gas, like the high, with seventy five dollar

26:14 winds, would would knock down these polls, and and la Hina also like there's a lot of brush. I've we've talked about this about wildfires in California and the Pacific Northwest being cause.

26:27 Because the forests in the in in the area have not been adequately manage, so that there's all this brush fire so that when fire hits you get when you get a lot of brush fire like it's a. It's a

26:41 time bomb and there's also lawsuits that have already popped up. This cause the failure because they failed to shut off the power during high periods and what's interesting is one of their executives

26:53 mentioned. We don't quote. We don't have an established shut off protocol and that precautionary shut offs require coordination with first responders so Hawaiian electric Psalms admitting that we

27:04 didn't have any like real safety protocols, and a lot of people are starting to point the finger that this is a preventable issue here and clearly. What what do you guys think I read? I read a

27:16 story. Don't know if this is true, and you know we should let facts come out, but certainly before lawsuits, and probably before even commenting first to break a lot of things here that is true,

27:28 but there was actually talk that early in the fire it was contained, and then the fire trucks kind of and first responders sort of stepped back and said Oh, we've got it contained knowing that there

27:43 were going to be high winds later in the. The moon. I mean you're right, Hawaii is known for the trade winds that run through, and so others at. There's also Ben. Conspiracy stuff out that the

27:55 federal government has trying to be trying to reclaim some land, Eminent domain, Eminent domain for foreign De Silva, Foreign people, unlike okay, maybe so so, but you know we, we. We saw this

28:09 with P in A in California with brush fires, The same thing the stocks got beat up in advance of thinking through potential lawsuits, and in my gumbo has tweeted about this issue of of forest

28:24 management practices and allowing you know the layers of dead growth to accumulate without any active management, or with with minimal active management, which is a big shift from the way you know

28:40 things happen, but if I'm a warming, tinfoil hat guy. I am saying this is the oil and gas industry doing this, because if you think about if everything is dependent upon the grid, renewables,

28:54 our power comes from the grid. If the grid goes down, we're not going to be able to go anywhere, because our cars don't have any battery power. Laughed. We've run out of batteries were kind of

29:03 screwed right so you need more oil and gas. We need other forms of fuel. Will you do? You do get to the point with kind of a conspiracy folks and the and the leftists leaning environmentalists Of

29:17 why aren't you burying power lines know? I'm absolutely just

29:24 as greedy utilities that won't just bury the lines and I mean we've already spent nine hundred dollars per person. By that means the three of us here in the room. It actually pay federal taxes on

29:34 the war in Ukraine, think about what it'll cost to bury power lines across the United States. That infrastructure would bury us. There's no way we can afford it. Yeah, and we're going to have to

29:44 spend every available dollar going forward just adding to the grid much as I. I will say that in in, maybe there's a connection in terms of the anxiety that this causes for these types of of

29:58 potential, long term outages and and and grid stress, and we're certainly living a lot of that day to day for the last seemingly six weeks in Houston and I, I will admit going on Generac website

30:12 last night and putting putting in all the particulars in terms of of getting an estimate for a whole home solution, and this is this is This is fifteen years after in the immediate aftermath of

30:25 Hurricane Ike when we lost power for three and a half days that I'm darn sure going to we. That officially known as old man Porn is going to Generac website. Customize out your your your ideal

30:39 environment. I dunno. I'll have to ask an old man. I sometimes, I fill out the forms twice in one day, I promise, though he do, but in all seriousness, thoughts and prayers for the folks in

30:52 Hawaii, because that's just horrific, and and hopefully we can have a thoughtful when the facts come out a thoughtful discussion of how we handle these issues, because as with previous segment,

31:03 just talking about the more power we are going to use. That's more lines. That's more transmission and let's go less technology improves Is going to. Everything's going to run hotter as well, so I

31:13 mean there's a lot of things to think about Sickert. Vlad was really upset last week. The marquee, Mrs. So last week, Vlad, our biggest fan. I see him in the coffee shop. He says Chuck. I've

31:28 got a bone to pick with you, said As Mark. Well, Yes, exactly, sad, Yeah, jacket now. It was really upset. We hadn't done a finger of the week in a wireless of lad will bring it back. Don't

31:40 have one this week, but we'll bring it back. We have a finger of the week. I actually made the video, so we're going to run the video right now, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all that

31:49 Kirk. What's finger of the week the finger the week is?

32:09 Nestle Toll house cookies have been recalled and you're like. Why can they be recalled? What could possibly be The problem is Kido the cookie dough Because they found wood chips inside of it and I

32:24 eat that stuff raw. I mean. I like I've been known. Do we get stacks of it in the fridge? Yeah, weird. Where does the would come from like Who the hell does that? That's just wrong Kids eat.

32:36 This winter's awesome. Because people are like I love. The would like extra one. It's There's so much ratio is going on. Right now. It's hilarious at the. So. Anyway, so Nestle. That's just

32:47 wrong. The toll house Cookie. Cutting corners on the toll house Cookie were extra filler. Snatch. Horrible. I had everybody you enjoyed this week's show, and I have no idea why you would have,

33:01 but if you enjoyed this week's show. Tell your friends about it. Subscribe to it. Hit us up on Twitter, linked in all social media and join us next week when we'll be back and will sibling drag

33:12 Colin back from his prostate injury.