“The climate has always changed, we just showed up recently” - TC.

Tuco’s Child Preface

In Part 1 of “CO₂ Cannot Warm the Earth” we will share, using a simple series of budget-like calculations, that there is not sufficient heat energy, derived from from CO₂ molecules absorption of Earth infrared emissions, to raise the temperature of the atmosphere or Earth in any substantial way

This is because the total heat energy that CO₂ transfers to the surrounding air from the Earth’s black-body radiations registers as little more than a rounding error compared to the entire atmosphere.

This piece is written in the same spirit as a prior article describing why energy is not renewable and there is no such thing as renewable energy. We explained that the concept of renewable energy is in violation of the most basic laws of physics, including the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. That article can be found here:

The Earth Emits Infrared Energy and CO₂ Captures a Fraction

Heat is a familiar manifestation of energy. Heat energy flows spontaneously and irreversibly from hot to cold, whenever a difference in temperature exists, per the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Temperature is a measure of heat energy. Heat energy arises from the oscillations, collisions and electronic excitations of atoms and molecules in gases, liquids and solids. The higher the frequency of these phenomena, the higher the energy is and more heat is generated.

The Sun radiates energy and heats the Earth. The Earth re-emits a portion back out to space in all directions. Some of the heat sent back to the atmosphere from the Earth makes molecules move, rotate, and in certain cases, vibrate. The energy from Earth’s radiation is distributed over many billions of molecules by collisions between each other, at about a billion times per second.

Above: The emission spectrum peak of the hot sun (6000 Kelvin, 0.48 micron peak wavelength) is compared to the longwave infrared radiation from the Earth (288 Kelvin,10 micron peak wavelength). The average surface temperature of Earth is about 15°C (59°F), which is 288 K in Kelvin. Note that the emission maximum (highest energy) is at 10 microns, and that the CO₂ sliver is off to the side at 15 microns.

Please consider the 2 scales in the above graphic - the radiation intensity of the sun is about a million times more than what the Earth radiates back out to the atmosphere and space. A CO₂ molecule does absorb a small amount of energy (a photon) from a small fraction of the Earth’s black-body emissions at the 15 micron wavelength, shown in the graphic above.

CO₂ molecules radiate or emit only a small fraction of photons in most of the troposphere. That is because the air is dense, and the CO₂ molecules transfer their energy by collisions with oxygen and nitrogen (and some water) molecules, which comprise 99 % of all gases.

CO₂ molecules only radiate or emit a substantial photons in the upper reaches of the atmosphere (tens of km +) where the air density is low, and the collision rates become comparable to CO₂ photon radiation rates.

In this sense, CO₂ is actually cooling the atmosphere, by releasing heat energy to outer space that it originally obtained from collisions with warmer gases “down below”.

We also note that at 288 K, only about 7% of CO₂ vibrational energy states are populated and excited and thus actively shuttling energy between its neighbors. This phenomenon is often referred to as “thermalization” by climate scientists, in that CO₂ captures a part of Earth’s infrared emissions and is constantly exchanging that with the rest of the atmosphere's gases.

The Total Kinetic Energy of the Air is a Result of Molecular Motions, Rotations and Vibrations

The total kinetic energy of atmospheric gases and thus temperature is a result of gas molecules motions, rotations and vibrations. Of the common gases found in the atmosphere, only CO₂ and H₂O vibrate at or around 288 K, the average temperature of the Earth’s black-body radiation. Oxygen and nitrogen, making of 99 % of all gases are not vibrationally active at 288 K, and only comprise translational and rotational kinetic energies. The animation below illustrates gas molecules with kinetic energy.

Above: air is mostly nitrogen, oxygen and water. As shown, excluding water, nitrogen and oxygen and some CO₂ molecules (red color) bounce around and collide with each other and exchange their kinetic energy at about 1 billion times per second.

Adding up CO₂ Kinetic Energies for Comparison to the Whole Atmosphere

In the following sections we will describe in a step-wise fashion why total CO₂ energies from absorbing Earth radiation at the 15 micron wavelength are a small fraction of the total, and are unlikely to cause a temperature change on Earth.

As mentioned prior, it is important to note that CO₂ transfers it’s energy primarily by collisions, not photon emissions (radiant). CO₂ infrared radiation (photons) only occurs in the thin upper reaches of the atmosphere where there are fewer molecules to collide with. In the analysis below, we will add up the kinetic energies and ultimately adjust the CO₂ energy output by its actual concentration of 400 ppm (0.0004 fraction).

To start, the kinetic energies (KE) of a gas are scalar, or can be added together, so we will do that, per below:

KE_total = KE_{translational} + KE_rotational + KE_vibrational

Importantly, gas kinetic energies KE_{translational} + KE_rotational arise from their movements and rotations in space - objects in our 3D space have 6 degrees of translational and rotational freedom per the graphic below. This is an important concept in physics and mechanics, and is used to calculate total translational and rotational kinetic energies of a gas.

Above: translational and rotational - an object or air molecule can move along 3 axes and rotate around each axis. This is known as the 6 degrees of freedom. Not shown is the vibrational degrees of freedom (ways it can vibrate).

In addition to translational and rotational energies, we must add the CO₂ vibrational energies (KE_vibrational ) to obtain the sum total of CO₂ kinetic energy. To visualize, we show an animation below of the bending vibration(s) of a CO₂ molecule derived from capturing Earth’s long-wave 15 micron infrared emission.

Above: Shown are the two C=O bending modes that result from the absorption of Earth’s photonic infrared emission at the 15 micron wavelength. The CO₂ bending modes can be thought of as a spring being compressed and then released. CO₂ has 4 distinct ways it can vibrate from capturing Earthly infrared emissions, but the 15 micron wavelength bending mode dominates.

How-to: Calculating CO₂ Energies for Comparison to the Total Atmosphere

First we start with the translational and rotational energies of CO₂: the Kinetic Theory of Gases describes molecules in motion and the physical behaviors of dilute gases, which is a decent approximation of our atmosphere. Most specifically, the theory posits that gas molecules colliding with some velocity and momentum possess kinetic energy (KE = ⁠1/2⁠mv²). This can be related to temperature by the equation below, which includes KE_{translational} + KE_rotational.

Above: the Kinetic Theory of Gases teaches that the average kinetic energy of gas molecules is directly related to the absolute temperature of the system. This relationship is expressed by the equation: KE=1.5k_BT, where k_B is the Boltzmann constant, T is temperature in Kelvin. The coefficient can change depending on all the movements or degrees of freedom of a particular molecule.

Next we solve for CO₂ vibrational energy, to get a total CO₂ kinetic energy: we can determine the CO₂ vibrational energy absorbed from a 15 micron photon from the Earth’s black-body radiation. To calculate the gaseous CO₂ vibrational energies, a different equation is needed, as derived from Einstein’s Quantum Oscillator Solid Model.

This sounds complicated, but it can be explained simply in terms of a simulated oscillating spring bounded by certain conditions that include a fixed temperature and thermal equilibrium with neighbor gases. The “vibrational quantum oscillator” equation combines the Boltzmann constant with the Plank-Einstein relation, as shown below:

Above: CO₂ theoretical vibrational energies can be derived from Einstein’s Solid Oscillator model and the equation above. It is important to remember that these are theoretical idealized numbers without attendant losses. There will be losses and waste heat in all collisions or energy transfers.

Part A: Results of the Kinetic Energy Showdown : O₂ and N₂ vs. CO₂

Mano e mano, molecule to molecule, we compare total O₂, N₂ and CO₂ total kinetic energies at 288 K.

RESULTS

• KE_total diatomic O₂ and N₂ (translational + rotational)

  • KE = (5/2)kT ≈ 9.91 × 10⁻²¹ J per molecule.

• KE_total linear triatomic CO₂ (translational + rotational + vibrational)

  • KE = (3/2)kT + 2/2kT + Einstein Oscillator and 2 bending modes ≈ 0.98 × 10⁻²⁰ J per molecule.

Part A: Kinetic Energy Showdown Conclusions

1. The total kinetic energies for nitrogen, oxygen, and CO₂ at 288 K are are very close per Kinetic Theory and Boltzmann and Einstein: ≈ 1.0 × 10⁻²⁰ J per molecule.

2. The CO₂ vibrational energy from the 15 micron absorption does contribute a bit more energy to it’s total kinetic energy, but that is a small amount compared to rest of it’s kinetic energy.

So what is the total % kinetic energy contribution of CO₂ adjusted for it’s 400 ppm concentration ?

Part B. Results of the Kinetic Energy Showdown: 400 ppm CO₂ vs. 99 % N₂ and O₂

CO₂ is a trace gas at about 400 ppm (0.04 %) or 400 molecules in 1,000,000. In the graphic, note the contribution of “human-made” CO₂, orders of magnitude less than “natural” CO₂. For simplicity sake, water is excluded in the graphic.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road, the 0.0004 (0.04 %) Factor. We learned that common atmospheric gases have close to the same kinetic energies at a given temperature. The kinetic energy can vary in subtle ways depending on molecule structure, mass, and the it’s modes of absorbing and giving off energy.

The amount of a given gas in the atmosphere is obviously a critical factor. Given that, lets now calculate how much energy 400 ppm of CO₂ trace gas can add to the atmosphere, which is already 99% N₂ and O₂ with some water thrown in.

We ignore the water kinetic energies contribution only for now - it is substantial, and will swamp out trace CO₂ - a subject to be covered in future articles.

The % Fraction of CO₂ Kinetic Energy in the Entire Atmosphere

Above table shows the CO₂ % fraction of kinetic energy in the entire atmosphere at 288 K. N₂ & O₂ only, water excluded for simplicity. These calculations show that the atmosphere has about 4 powers of 10 greater kinetic energy than CO₂ at 288 K.

Above is a plot of CO₂'s kinetic energy at various temperatures compared to rest of the atmosphere (N₂ & O₂, water excluded for simplicity). As temperature increases, more excited states are populated per Boltzmann. One can see that CO₂’s energy contributions to the atmosphere are vanishingly small, and is more in the realm of a rounding error. If we included water, which has a high heat capacity, the CO₂ numbers would be less.

Part B. Kinetic Energy Showdown Conclusions: 400 ppm CO₂ vs. N₂ and O₂

1. There are too few enough CO₂ molecules for it’s total energy to register as more than a rounding error in the total kinetic energy of the air for temperatures that range from 273 K (0^o centigrade, freezing) to 350 K (77^o centigrade) and beyond.

2. CO₂ kinetic energy in the graph increases at temperature as more vibrational states are populated (coiled springs that release kinetic energy). CO₂ molecules translational and rotational energies track with N₂ and O₂, and only add small amounts of vibrational energy as the temperature increases.

3. Note that the number 0.04 % keeps appearing. This is no mistake. 400 molecules in a million is related to the mole fraction/number of CO₂ molecules in the atmosphere. This is a check on the goodness of the calculations running in the background as well.

Final Conclusions

We have shown in the most simple terms that CO₂ emits a vanishingly small fraction of infrared energy originally captured from the sun. That amount of energy is about 0.04 % of the atmospheres total kinetic energy at 288 K (and the same at higher temperatures at 2 significant figures).

CO₂ absorbs at 15 microns and re-emits at lesser energies due to waste heat losses from inelastic collisions with near neighbors at about a billion times per second.

• Any excited vibrational states of CO₂ are almost instantly depopulated by kinetic energy transfer to neighboring nitrogen and oxygen molecules at about 1 billion collisions per second. The collisional rate is far greater the the excited state lifetime of CO₂ (1 s) so there is a vanishingly small chance that a photon is emitted.

• The CO₂ vibrational energies are thus dissipated into the massive pool of oxygen and nitrogen molecules by imperfect inelastic collisions and collisional losses at a out a billion times per second. At 288 K only about 5-7 % of CO₂ vibrational state are excited by the due to the 15 micron absorption.

• CO₂ molecules mostly radiate or emit photons in the upper reaches of the atmosphere (tens of km +) where the air density is low, and the collision rates become comparable to CO₂ photon radiation rates. In this sense, CO₂ is actually cooling the atmosphere, by releasing heat energy to outer space that it originally obtained from collisions with warm gases “down below”.

• The Earth is an open dynamic system with an atmosphere held in by gravity but with exposure to a very cold outer space and vacuum. The atmosphere has great variations in temperature, pressure, and thermal energies, including those over different types of matter such as water and land, notwithstanding air currents and albedo effects. These phenomena cause great uncertainty in climate models.

• Given the above, it is the opinions of the authors that most climate change models are terminally defective or DOA. CO₂ does play a role in energy capture, but there are far greater forces in play here, such as water, clouds, and air circulation.

Tuco’s Child Note: Calculations performed manually, via Claude.ai and Thermal Energy Calculator. Contact Tuco’s Child for more details on these calculations.

Addendum

A Note about Water

We will present our water data in future articles. We do preview here that water is a substance that drives our climate. We note that water displays three distinct phases at typical Earth temperatures: solid ice, liquid, and gas. The three phases have different heat capacities and each phase plays a unique role in the Earth’s temperature regulation and energy balance.

Further, and in contrast to CO₂, the average water concentration in the atmosphere is far greater, and critically, water has significant infrared absorption bands, the most important at the 6.3 micron wavelength. This strongly suggests that H₂O can absorb and emit substantive heat and may control the heat in and out of the atmosphere.

Air Heat Transfer, The Two Different Types

1) Conduction and convection: the primary way N₂ and O₂ gain kinetic energy, not from CO₂

This is heat transfer that requires matter — atoms or molecules bumping into each other and passing energy along.

• Conduction from the surface: N₂ and O₂ molecules near the ground physically collide with the sun-warmed surface (dirt, rocks, ocean) and pick up kinetic energy directly through molecular collisions.

• Convection: as warm air near the surface rises, N₂ and O₂ molecules are carried along, mixing with cooler air above — this is bulk fluid motion, not molecule-by-molecule energy transfer, but it redistributes the kinetic energy nitrogen has.

Both above require a physical medium or matter to be involved.

2) Radiant energy (radiation)

This is heat transferred via electromagnetic waves — mostly infrared radiation — no matter or substance.

• Any object above absolute zero radiates some infrared energy just by virtue of its temperature — this is how thermal cameras “see” heat.

• When radiant energy hits an object, it gets absorbed and converted into molecular kinetic energy (vibration) — which is why standing near a fire warms you even without touching the flame or the air directly next to it.

Ronald’s Substack

My weekly published articles stimulate 3-Way Conversations about Energy Literacy, with questions and critical thinking among students, teachers, friends, family members, and policymakers, as crude oil and so-called renewables do different things.

By Ronald Stein

GreenNUKE

A Substack focused on the benefits of nuclear power generation

By Gene Nelson, Ph.D.

The Word Merchant

A Stephen Heins Recommendation

By Stephen Heins

Above: 2025 fire at the Chevron Refinery in California.

Tuco’s Child Preface

The Gordon Getty funded political chameleon Gavin Newsom has implemented Net-Zero Carbon policies that have irrecoverably damaged the California economy, as reviewed in the article below:

Along these same lines, Stu Turley, David Blackmon, and Mike Umbro of Californians for Energy and Science, gave us an update entitled: California Energy Crisis Brought to you by Gavin Newsom, also available on YouTube.

Timely podcast from Stu Turley, David Blackmon, and Mike Umbro of Californians for Energy and Science.

Now, in the following article from CalMatters, we present an “on the streets” perspective and review the true human economic costs related to refinery job lay-offs in California due to Gavin Newsom’s war on the fossil fuel industry.

California Oil Refinery Closures Leave Workers Searching for a Job that ‘Just Doesn’t Exist’

by Adam Echelman of CalMatters

Many thousands of oil workers have lost their paychecks because of Gavin Newsom’s war on the oil and gas industry.

For the refinery workers being laid off — most of whom lack a college degree — it’s unlikely they’ll find another job that pays as well, despite recent efforts by the state to help.

Wilfredo Cruz went to the doctor in October of last year to have his brain scanned because he was experiencing vertigo — a dangerous condition when you’re a refinery worker like Cruz and your job entails climbing 200-foot towers and fixing heavy machinery.

While he waited at the doctor’s office, he picked up his phone and felt a moment of panic, seeing 100 unread text messages in the last hour.

The Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles had just said that it was going to close, and Cruz learned in that moment that he would eventually lose his job, along with nearly 1,000 other employees and contractors.

“It was a big shock, a gut punch,” said Cruz, who thinks his last day will be sometime in April. Workers say layoff notices will begin to go out in the next few months.

It’s just one of a handful of refineries that have closed or that intend to close in the coming months. For the workers — most of whom lack a college degree — it’s unlikely they’ll find another job that pays as well, despite recent efforts by the state to help. Though the Trump administration signed legislation creating billions of dollars in tax cuts for oil and gas companies, it’s not going to save these jobs or offer the workers any money to train for new ones.

“You have people earning between $80,000 to $200,000 a year, and almost everyone is a high school graduate and that’s it,” said Cruz. “To go out and look for another job that’s even somewhat comparable, it just doesn’t exist.”

When he isn’t at the refinery, Cruz is wearing a plain black shirt, shorts, and New Balance sneakers — anything that’s easy to clean if his 2-year old son throws food at him, he said. His vertigo is better these days, almost a year after the refinery said it would close, but he now has to find a job so he can support his family and pay his mortgage. The best bet, he said, is to go back to school and start a new career in cybersecurity.

Thousands of jobs lost

California has about 100,000 workers in the fossil fuel industry, according to an August report by the Public Policy Institute of California. That’s about the population of a small city, such as Merced or Redding. As the state continues its transition to renewable energy, many of those jobs may disappear — and some already have.

Refineries have been closing all across the U.S. in recent years, but California has been hit hard, especially in Contra Costa County, Solano County and parts of southern Los Angeles, near Long Beach. First it was the Marathon refinery in Contra Costa County in 2020, which put hundreds of people out of work before the plant converted to renewable fuels with a fraction of the former workforce. Then Phillips 66 began shifting one of its Contra Costa County refineries to renewables and closed an affiliated plant on the Central Coast. A Valero refinery in Solano County is also expected to close in the next few months, leading to more layoffs.

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Publicly, oil companies have given vague justifications for the closures, though oil industry advocates, such as the Western States Petroleum Association, blame the state’s increased regulation and its renewable energy transition. Environmental groups point to the decrease in oil demand as more Californians turn to electric vehicles.

With thousands of jobs at stake, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-led state Legislature this summer tried to strike a deal with Valero to avoid the closure of its Solano County refinery. Those conversations are still “ongoing,” said Daniel Villaseñor, the deputy director of communications for the governor.

What the state has offered so far is a $30 million pot of money, which refinery workers can use to train for new jobs. The money went out to four different workforce organizations last February, and they have until 2027 to distribute it to workers in various ways, such as through scholarships.

The United Steelworkers union, which represents many of the Phillips 66 refinery workers, received about a third of the money and recruited Cruz to help find eligible workers at his job. Some of his colleagues are trying to become truck drivers, emergency medical technicians, or radiologists, but the state money rarely covers all the training expenses, he said.

In his spare time, Cruz is enrolled in an online, year-long certificate program in cybersecurity at UC San Diego and is using the state money to cover the $4,000 tuition. He said he wants a remote job, something that would allow him to spend more time with his son.

The steelworkers union has pushed Newsom for much more, ideally “hundreds of millions of dollars per year” to help retrain the refinery workers it represents, said Mike Smith, the national bargaining chair for the union. The governor has yet to make any new promises.

Six-figure salary, no degree required

The average work day at a refinery might entail crawling into small spaces, withstanding searing heat, or operating heavy machinery with precision. And it can be dangerous: In 2006, the roof of a storage tank collapsed, killing one person and injuring four others at the Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles, which was then owned by an earlier iteration of the company.

Twelve-hour shifts are the norm, including many night shifts, and overtime is common. Nearby residents complain that the Phillips 66 facilities have a foul smell and that they pump cancer-causing chemicals into the air, creating health risks for the entire community. Workers are required to wear full-body fire retardant uniforms each day because fires are a constant risk, such as last week, when an explosion rocked a Chevron refinery in El Segundo. There was no major damage.

Though the work can be physically demanding, the rewards are plentiful. Union workers at the Phillips 66 refinery complex make about $115,000 a year, plus a pension and an 8% match on 401k contributions, said Smith.

Together, the Phillips 66 refineries in Los Angeles and the Valero refinery in Solano County produce about 17% of the state’s gas. Without these facilities, Californians could see higher prices at the pump, according to an independent analysis by the federal government.

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Laurie Wallace, a self-described artist, never wanted to work in oil and gas, but the money was a big draw, she said. For years, she was working as many as three different jobs, saving up money for punk and ska concerts while flipping burgers at In-N-Out, helping customers at Ace Hardware, or working shifts at a local cafe. Her husband at the time learned about a training program for refinery workers. He said he was going to apply and when she said she was interested, he told her she would never get in.

“I took the test and got the better score,” Wallace said. “I don’t do well with people telling me not to do something.”

In the nearly 18 years since that exam, she’s worked at the Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles, handling the heavy machinery that transports California’s oil and gas. Wallace often earns over $100,000, especially with overtime, allowing her to achieve what many might consider the American Dream: a four-bedroom house in the Long Beach suburbs with an affordable mortgage and family vacations every year, including cruises to Mexico and trips to Las Vegas.

She’ll likely see a pay cut in any future job. In a 2023 study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, UC Irvine professor Virginia Parks helped survey those who had been laid off by the Marathon oil refinery in Contra Costa County in 2020. She found that roughly a quarter were unemployed or no longer looking for work over a year after losing their jobs. Some workers found opportunities at other oil refineries, though they made less money because they lacked seniority or a union. Others found jobs at utility companies or chemical treatment plants, and a few started working in health care or retail.

“I don’t think (refinery workers) need long training programs but they do need some sort of reskilling,” said Parks, who wants the state to provide workers more financial help. She’s especially interested in state grants that give workers income support while they search for a skilled job. “Otherwise they’re just going to find whatever (job) they can.”

Her study found that workers who did find a job after getting laid off made about $38 an hour — $12 less than before.

Lots of experience but few ways to prove it

Since the layoffs at the Phillips 66 refinery complex will happen slowly over the next few months, Wallace still has a job for now. Her department is responsible for receiving and shipping the oil and gas that arrives at the Port of Los Angeles, work that is so essential that she thinks she’ll be one of the last people laid off, potentially in 2027.

Over the years, she’s driven the trains that transport tons of oil and gas, operated cranes to carry pieces of pipelines and climbed on top of the massive fuel storage tanks that line the 110 Freeway. Often, she said she worked six or even seven days in a row.

In April, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and got a modified schedule. Now she works night shifts and only two or three days in a row. After finishing her radiation therapy around 2 p.m., she changes out of her usual attire, a punk T-shirt and jeans, and gets into her work uniform. She then has to get through Los Angeles traffic, bypass the plant’s two layers of security, and travel across the refinery, which takes up multiple city blocks, or about 650 acres. Her shift begins at 4:30 p.m., where she spends 12 hours in a room, alone, under fluorescent lights, actively monitoring 16 different computer screens for changes in pressure or chemistry.

After so many years, staying alert during a night shift is second nature, she said with a laugh. “I’m a little high strung. I have no problem staying awake.”

The stakes are high. If she isn’t paying attention and a machine fails or a tank has the wrong pressure, fuel leaks can occur. In 2014, a hole burst in an underground pipeline near the refinery, pouring 1,200 gallons of oil into a residential street.

Although Wallace has used many cranes over the years, she doesn’t have a crane operator’s license. In fact, all of the training that she’s done happens on-site, and her employer isn’t required to track it or give her any credential, such as a license or certificate, that could transfer to another job. After the Marathon refinery in Contra Costa County closed, former workers struggled to substantiate their skills when looking for new jobs, the UC Berkeley Labor survey found.

Drawing directly on the study, and with support from the steelworkers union, longtime labor activist and state Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, proposed a bill this year that would require employers to provide their workers with proof of any on-the-job training or education. The governor has until Oct. 12 to sign or veto the bill.

It’s only “a first step” though, said Parks, a co-author of the study. Long-term, she said refinery workers should have the option to acquire independent certificates or credentials, such as a crane operator license, that prove their skills and don’t rely on an employer at all.

“It’s not ideal but it’s temporary”

So far, only a fraction of the oil and gas workers who are eligible for state support have actually received it.

“We just started enrolling members,” said Rosi Romo, who coordinates the grant program on behalf of the steelworkers union.

Though the steelworkers union received the money last March, only about 100 people have participated so far, said Romo, most of them in Southern California. She said the program can fund 650 scholarships, offering up to $15,000 in tuition for each worker

In Kern County, where the oil industry is a major employer, the local job centers received over $11 million from the state, which they’ve used to help nearly 370 former oil and gas workers retrain in new careers, including trucking and nursing. The job centers have enough money to serve around 750 people, said Danette Williams, who works in marketing for the centers, known as the Employers’ Training Resource.

Unlike the steelworkers union, which is only giving out scholarships, Williams said the Employers’ Training Resource is also offering to reimburse 50% of wages during the first 480 hours of the workers’ new jobs. Romo said she wasn’t aware that was possible under the union’s contract with the state, but if it is, she said she’d try to offer the same benefit.

The other organizations who received the grant money did not respond to CalMatters’ questions.

Romo, along with other representatives from the steelworkers union, said the work schedule at the Phillips 66 refinery complex is one reason why workers have yet to use most of the money. As of August, about a quarter of union employees have already left the facility for other opportunities, said Smith, the national bargaining chair for the union. The remaining employees are left working overtime.

Once layoffs begin in the coming months, Romo and Smith said they expect an uptick in the number of workers taking advantage of the scholarship money.

Phillips 66 did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its overtime policies or other ways it may be supporting workers’ job transitions.

Cruz said he’s working six days a week now, 12 hours each day. To make progress on his cybersecurity course at UC San Diego, he tries to listen to lectures and audiobooks during his commute or while eating lunch or dinner during his two, 30-minute breaks. After he puts his son to sleep around 9 p.m., he has a few hours to study, though he has to wake up at 5 a.m. to make it to his shift on time. “It’s not ideal but it’s temporary,” he said.

Wallace has a slight advantage, since she started taking online classes in 2020 to complete her associate degree. She’s still one class short, but she hasn’t had the time to finish it. Between her radiation therapy and the 12-hour night shifts, she said it’s unlikely she’ll be able to study for at least another year while she works with the skeleton crew that’s closing the refinery.

If she had time, she said she would finish her associate degree and use the state training grant to help offset the cost of a bachelor’s degree. But because the state tuition grants expire in 2027, it’s quite possible she won’t be able to use the tuition money at all.

More Media of Interest

Tuco’s Child Preface

We recently reported on the German government admission that shutting down their nuclear power plants was a mistake. Prior to closures, in 2011, Germany had a nuclear fleet of 17 reactors, generating over 33% of the country’s electricity.

Since then, nuclear power has been replaced by coal, imported natural gas, and wood pellets, leading to an increase in “greenhouse gas” emissions, air pollution, and an increased reliance on foreign energy sources.

Here we examine the cost in human lives, money, and carbon caused by Germany’s “Atomausstieg”, or nuclear phase-out. From 2011 to 2023, Germany shut down 17 reactors, and thus removed 800 TWh of safe and clean low-carbon electricity — equivalent to about two years of national demand.

By phasing out nuclear in the name of “safety”, Germany has exposed its population to far greater health risks from coal and wood pellet burning, and an increase in electricity prices of almost 25 %.

The phase out of nuclear power and increased CO₂ emissions has also distorted the price of carbon credits on the European Carbon Trading System. Germany must now purchase approximately €57 billion in additional carbon credits due to the increased emissions.

We further note that Germany is exceptionally dependent on Russian natural gas imports. This revenue has enrichened Putin and Russia, and has helped fund the war in Ukraine, as explained below:

Above: checkmate Germany.

Reprise: Nuclear Power Phase-out Results in Devastating Health and Environmental Costs

Adapted from: The Germany Nuclear Phase-Out

Key points:

1. Germany’s nuclear replacement energy: almost entirely fossil fuels (98% coal, 2% gas).

2. Nearly 20,000 deaths attributable to air pollution from Germany’s nuclear exit. This is five times higher than even the most pessimistic estimates of the death toll from Chernobyl. By phasing out nuclear in the name of safety, Germany inadvertently exposed its population to far greater risks from coal.

3. Health impact: increased coal burning estimates are 19,200 premature deaths and 177,000 serious illnesses from air pollution, based on WHO health impact factors. This equates to approximately 12 billion Euro in additional health costs for Germany.

4. Toxic pollutants: increased coal burning adds tonnes of mercury, cadmium, and lead to the wider environment, in addition to other toxic metals.

5. CO₂ emissions goal defeated: this substitution caused an additional 730 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions — more than all of Germany’s 2024 annual greenhouse gas emissions.

6. Carbon trading: Germany’s increased CO₂ emissions has disrupted the EU’s main emissions trading system (EU ETS) and market, which has trickled down and increased electricity costs for the average German. The additional carbon allowances that must now be purchased represent resources diverted away from investment in infrastructure, social benefits, or industrial innovation. European carbon prices have risen notably in late 2025, reaching €83.79 per tonne on December 15, up 3% monthly and 30% year-over-year. The price of carbon permits in the EU’s main emissions trading system (EU ETS) recently hit multi-month highs.

7. Germany’s estimated additional carbon ETS costs are an estimated at a whopping €57 billion.

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Above: increased emissions from lost nuclear power production, Germany 2011-2023. The increase in CO₂ emissions shown above does not include sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, or heavy metals.

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Above: HEALTH IMPACTS FROM ADDITIONAL COAL AND GAS POWER, 2011–2023.

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Above: It is estimated that the nuclear exit has already caused five times more deaths than Chernobyl by driving continued coal combustion, and this number stands to rise even further in the coming years. The justification for the nuclear phase-out rested heavily on concerns about safety and health risks. Nuclear’s risks are minimal compared to those of coal.

Above: fear, politics and money has left Germany in decline as a result of the nuclear phase-out or Atomausstieg.

Above: Angela, you were my best operative, fluent in Russian too!

The German Trifecta of Failure

Above: nuclear fuels have the highest energy density of any known material by many orders of magnitude.

Energy Density: a Critical Concept that Governs our Energy Use

Energy density is a critical concept in the fields of energy and thermodynamics. It may be defined as the energy content of an element, material or device by unit mass or volume. The units of energy density are usefully expressed in the units of Megajoules/kilogram. Below is a chart of the energy densities of common combustible materials.

Energy density chart: a lithium battery (device) has the lowest energy density, while hydrogen is the highest.

Regarding the energy density of hydrogen, hydrogen gas is costly to produce, purify, compress and transport. It takes more energy to isolate 1 kg of hydrogen than the 1 kg of hydrogen contains (142MJ/kg). Hydrogen is typically produced from stripping hydrocarbons, but could be more efficiently produced by electrolysis of water using electricity derived from nuclear power.

Above: back-up plan

Energy Density: an EV Cannot Overcome an ICE Vehicle in Overall Efficiency

Yes Martha, an electric motor is extremely efficient, but….The energy density of a lithium battery is very low, and to charge, remote power plants are required to pump electricity over distances with great attendant losses (waste heat, V=IR). Forcing electrons into batteries at a remote charging station consumes additional energy and generates more waste heat.

Importantly, despite ICE vehicles having engines with only about 30 % thermodynamic efficiency, ICE wins overall because the ICE vehicles carry a high energy density fuel onboard, namely petrol or diesel (45 MJ/kg).

The Highest Energy Density by Many Orders of Magnitude: Uranium and other Fissionable Elements

Compare the uranium energy density of uranium (79,390,000 MJ/kg) to hydrogen (142MJ/kg) for example.

Per fission below: E=mc^2, U-235 : 79,390,000 MJ/kg or 7.9 x 10^7 MJ/kg

Given the high energy density of nuclear fuels, one can see that nuclear energy can provide a large fraction of our energy needs. For example, a 10 gram uranium fuel pellet produces as much energy as 1 ton of coal.

Nuclear power plant efficiency may be as high as 33–37% in light water reactors, and most importantly, they operate at a high 92-93% capacity factor or uptime.

Conclusions: Energy is Not Renewable, Energy Density and Efficiency Rule

Energy density is a critical concept in the fields of energy and thermodynamics. The greater the energy density, the more useful a material or device is for energy transformation. Energy is not renewable and there is no such thing as renewable energy. We can only be more efficient.

The Law of Conservation of Energy, which is also known as the First Law of Thermodynamics, states:

• Energy cannot created or destroyed (or renewed), but rather only transformed from one form to another.

We can only be more efficient because change in energy in a system is the sum of heat and work: ∆E = Q + W.

The Second Law teaches us that processes tend towards disorder (increasing entropy) and that most processes are irreversible. Entropy and waste heat are unfulfilled work.

Above: like Sisyphus, we push the ball uphill to create things in our modern world. This involves doing work and creating waste heat along the way. This is achieved using fossil fuels and other energy sources.

Preface and Paradox: Chasing Windmills in Germany and Spain

The negative health consequences of Europe’s Ill-fated Net-zero Carbon Quest have increasingly come to light, with much focus on the increased mortality and respiratory illnesses amongst German citizens. These health phenomena are a result of the increased air pollution from burning dirty carbon based fuels such as lignite and wood pellets to generate electricity and to stay warm.

The large increase in dirty carbon fuel combustion is due to the German Energy Transition which includes shutting down clean and safe nuclear power plants. We recently described this cold clime Northern Europe health crisis in the article below:

The Net-Zero Mortality Paradox: wherever the region is on the Earth, the media and politicians have promoted the “human-made” climate agenda for many years now. It has been espoused that bad weather from “human-made climate change” such as floods, cold, and extreme heat have increased deaths amongst the weak, infirm, and the impoverished.

Paradoxically, the “renewables” solutions for “human-made climate change” such as intermittent electricity from wind turbines and solar panels also results in increased mortality amongst the weak, infirm, and the impoverished.

In the article below, we will show that warmer Mediterranean climes are not immune from the health and safety issues resulting from the Net-Zero climate change crusade. It has been found that replacing reliable nuclear and fossil fuels with intermittent and expensive wind and solar has a negative impact in the warmer Mediterranean areas due to heat related deaths and the loss of power used to operate life sustaining equipment.

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Spain chasing windmills (again).

Net-zero Death Sentence for the Elderly: The Spanish-Iberian Grid Failure

A friend in Spain and I recently had a WhatsApp conversation about Spain’s massive buildout of “renewable” electricity contraptions, such as wind turbines, which now contribute an inordinate amount of electricity to the greater Iberian Peninsula.

My Spanish friend sadly shared that there were significantly more deaths than publicly reported due to the wind dependent grid failure in April 2025. The Spaniard also suggested that political and monetary powers were in play, as evidenced by the Spanish government consistently downplaying the catastrophic grid failure and instability as a temporary one-off event.

The Truth is Out There and Terror Too: anecdotally, amongst the Spanish locals (yep, real people), it was widely noted that many of the grid failure deaths were due to heart attacks and heat stroke, some resulting from a terrifying combination of fear and anxiety from being stuck in an stiflingly hot elevator for countless hours during the outage. Other cases of grid failure mortality included the debilitated and infirm imprisoned in their hot and stifling apartments with no way out, and non-functional life sustaining medical equipment.

Despite the macabre nature of this subject, we thought it would be important to illuminate and further discuss the human life and health costs resulting from Europe’s Ill-fated Net-zero Carbon Quest.

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Analysis of the Increased Mortality Due to the Spanish Grid Failure by Gene Nelson

Nuclear physicist Dr. Gene Nelson of GreenNuke has written extensively on nuclear power and the Spanish grid failure, per the article below:

GreenNUKE

The Spanish Version of the 'Duck Curve' is a real killer

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a year ago · 48 likes · 24 comments · Gene Nelson, Ph.D.

Gene and I were recently directed to an article reporting on the increased mortality observed amongst the elderly due to the 2025 Spanish Renewable Grid Failure, as linked below with a short intro:

Exploring all-cause mortality surveillance during the Iberian Peninsula power outage, Spain, 28 April 2025

An unprecedented general power outage affected the Iberian Peninsula from 12:33 p.m. Central European Time on Monday 28 April 2025 and lasted for ca 10 hours. It mainly affected mainland Spain, mainland Portugal, and Andorra, as well as, to a lesser extent, parts of southern France. More than 50 million people were affected as a result. The outage caused the discontinuation or severe disruption of communications, transport and other essential services. After a gradual recovery process that began in the afternoon, electricity was restored completely in the early hours of 29 April [1,2]. The aim of this study is to examine whether all-cause mortality increased in the days including and following the power outage.

Instead of reading the entire article, and for our readers convenience, we present data and a brief analysis below.

Data adapted by Gene Nelson highlighting increased mortality amongst older people due to the grid failure.

From Dr. Nelson: I believe there is a significant signal contained in the Table showing Elderly (Age > 65) 3-day cumulative mortality. It is the sum of 94+32 = 126. I would expect the elderly population to be less-resilient than the population younger than 65 to the stressors that resulted from this large-scale societal disruption. The excess 3-day cumulative mortality of 126 for people greater than 65 years of age is far greater than the 10 deaths attributed to the blackout in Spain.

Conclusions

The media, politicians, and some academics have promoted the notion of human-made climate change for many years now. It has been espoused that bad weather, such as floods, extreme cold, and extreme heat are a result, and have led to to increased deaths amongst the weak, infirm, and the impoverished.

Paradoxically, the supposed “renewables” solutions for human-made climate change such as intermittent wind and solar power will also result in increased mortality amongst the elderly and infirm due to grid instability and failure.

We suggest that a stable power grid and infrastructure comprising reliable and clean energy sources such as natural gas and nuclear power would be a better choice(s) to maintain good human health and reduce risks.

In terms of our lifetime, the sun’s energy might appear renewable, but technically it is not. The sun is an inefficient fusion reactor, operating at about 0.7 % conversion, per 𝐸=𝑚𝑐² .

Renewable Energy Does Not Exist

Dear Readers, energy is not renewable and there is no such thing as renewable energy. This is due to Law of Conservation of Energy, which is also known as the First Law of Thermodynamics. When energy is transformed (ex. burn a gallon of gas) one hopefully does some useful work and waste heat is generated. We can only be more efficient as we try to overcome friction and gravity.

Importantly, electricity generating devices such as wind turbines, solar panels, hydro, and other human-made contraptions are not renewable energy sources, and cannot be due to the Law’s of Physics.

Above: Like windmills and solar panels, Rube Goldberg created many amusing inefficient contraptions, like this toothpaste dispenser, but for cheap.

Energy is not Renewable

The Law of Conservation of Energy, which is also known as the First Law of Thermodynamics, states:

• Energy cannot created or destroyed (or renewed), but rather only transformed from one form to another.

• Change in energy in a system is the sum of heat and work: ∆E = Q + W

In terms of our lifetime and millions of years before and after us, the sun's energy might appear self-sustaining or renewable, but it is not. The energy released from the sun is derived from a highly inefficient process called nuclear fusion, in which hydrogen atoms are fused into helium at only 0.7 % conversion efficiency. This mass to energy conversion is described by Einstein's equation:

The sun’s fusion mass to energy conversion is illustrated below:

Above: two hydrogen isotopes fuse and then spit out helium, a neutron, and energy per 𝐸=𝑚𝑐²

The low efficiency of the sun's fusion reaction is overcome by the high rate of fusion and the huge mass of the sun. The immense mass and gravitational field of the sun forces hydrogen nuclei close together so they fuse, defeating their otherwise repulsive forces.

• The gravity on the Sun is approximately 28 times greater than gravity on Earth.

• The composition of the sun is 71% hydrogen, 27.1% helium and less than 2% of all other elements. The excess hydrogen helps drive the fusion reaction and is still yet only 0.7 % efficient.

• The sun releases energy at a rate of about 4.26 million metric tons per second, which produces the equivalent of 384.6 septillion watts (3.846 × 10²⁶ W).

• To put that in perspective, a good nuclear plant puts out about 1.0 x 10⁹ W (J/s).

Above: the gravity of the sun bends space-time and is about 28 times greater than gravity on Earth.

Above: make-believe “renewables” are a blight on the planet and a massive waste of money and resources.

Renewable Energy Sources Do Not Exist

The Fallacy: people claim that solar panels and wind turbines represent “renewable energy” or “renewable energy sources” but they can't be because of the aforementioned Law of Conservation of Energy.

In fact, so called “renewable energy” sources such as wind and solar exemplify high inefficiency. This is because of they require enormous resources to manufacture, are intermittent, and must be disposed of. The grand result of most processes, especially in our modern world, is waste heat and disorder (Second Law of Thermodynamics).

Above: like Sisyphus, we push the ball uphill to create things in our modern world. This involves doing work and creating waste heat along the way.

We do know that the sun drives everything on the planet, and without it, all matter mostly stops moving, vibrating and then freezes. We can also invoke the Third Law of Thermodynamics, which teaches us that without the sun, entropy and thermal energy trends to zero (The Big Freezing A).

Above: Entropy versus temperature plot for a single substance shows that colder temperatures decrease disorder as materials change from gas to liquid to solid (phase change). As substances thermal energy decreases, they eventually freeze into a solid or solid crystal with low disorder.

Fun Gedanken Experiments

1. The sun radiates energy upon a solar panel on a day without clouds. Solar panels are maybe 20-25 % efficient at first and then must be discarded after about 20 years. Not so renewable, right?

2. Wind turbines depend on wind which is caused by the heating and cooling of the earth by the sun. Wind turbines are maybe 30 % efficient (capacity factor) and must be discarded after about 15-20 years. Not so renewable, either.

One More Quick Thought Experiment and Question

1. Product artifacts such as paper and plastic garbage were created per ∆E = Q + W.

2. Garbage is derived from a change in energy and waste heat is generated.

3. Garbage still contains potential energy, which can be put to work if combusted.

• The Efficiency Question: instead of recycling garbage, the process of which uses even more energy and creates more waste heat (∆E = Q + W), why not just burn the garbage and generate more electricity directly?

Conclusions

The Laws of Physics can be interpreted in simple useful ways and one does not need advanced calculus or algebra to understand these concepts.

Energy is not renewable and there is no such thing as renewable energy. The Law of Conservation of Energy, which is also known as the First Law of Thermodynamics, states:

• Energy cannot created or destroyed (or renewed), but rather only transformed from one form to another.

Moreover, electricity sources such as wind turbines, solar panels, hydro, and other human-made contraptions are not renewable energy sources either.

We can only be more efficient because change in energy in a system is the sum of heat and work: ∆E = Q + W, and the Second Law, which teaches us that processes tend towards disorder. Entropy may also be interpreted as unfulfilled work.

Renewable energy and renewable energy contraptions are derived from the delusions and imaginations of sales and marketing departments (and profiteers).

GreenNUKE

A Substack focused on the benefits of nuclear power generation

By Gene Nelson, Ph.D.

Kilovar’s Substack

My personal Substack

By Kilovar 1959

Co-authors Comments Section

Dr. Gene Nelson on Sun and Uranium

Gene is involved in nuclear power advocacy and writes in a Substack about nuclear power, science and electrical infrastructure.

1. The Sun is a small star. Apparently, at the end of its life in about five billion years, the Sun will first expand then contract without undergoing a supernova explosion. As a consequence of its modest size, the fusion in the Sun only produces elements up to iron (Z=26.) [Z is the atomic number which is equal to the number of protons in the nucleus.]

2. Uranium is produced in extremely large stars during supernova explosions which produce the intense neutron fluxes and huge gravitational fields necessary to produce heavy elements such as uranium (Z=92.) Another possible source is large neutron star collisions. Nuclear reactors on earth allow a controlled release the energy captured by those ancient supernova explosions, estimated to be about 6 billion years ago.

3. As a consequence of very unique geochemical processes here on Earth which require the planet have water, uranium is significantly concentrated in the crust of the Earth. (The presence of water on Earth is related to the fact that Earth has the highest density of any planet in the solar system. The deep gravitational well of Earth attracted many icy comets during the past 4.3 billion years).

4. Earth has a molten core as a consequence of the decay heat being released in the planet's core. Radioactive decay contributes about half of the heat energy required to keep the core molten. A molten core with a large quantity of iron and nickel creates a planetary magnetic field which shields the Earth's atmosphere and oceans from being stripped away during 4.3 billion years of solar wind bombardment. (Mars does not have a molten core. Its atmosphere has been largely stripped away by the solar wind, one of the arguments against attempting colonization of Mars). - Gene Nelson, Ph.D.

Kilovar1959 on “Renewable Energy”

Kilovar1959 is a retired electric energy professional who writes extensively on his Substack.

One of the largest claims of the renewable energy community is that the “fuel” to drive, solar, wind, and tidal generation is free, but is it? Tuco’s Child has made a strong case that all energy in our home originates from the sun.

There is a reason we call the environment an ecosystem, it is indeed a natural order of systems that occur that makes life possible. Not the least of those cycles is the CO₂ – O₂ cycle of photosynthesis. Without CO₂ the generation of life giving O₂ is not possible. The point of this article isn’t to argue the point that fossil fuels or traditional hydro have no impact on the ecosystem, those impacts are well documented, but the claim that renewable energy has none.

For renewable energy to work, it must insert itself in a series with a natural process and remove energy from that process. The impact of removing energy from those natural processes remains largely unstudied, but it is certain that it has an impact. For example, solar interrupts the process of photosynthesis, it absorbs solar energy before it can be used to replenish atmospheric O₂^. Plant life is also a major component in the food chain for which all living things depend. There have been a number of left-leaning articles claiming that land shared with solar can produce different crops or be used for grazing. What is not discussed is the massive reduction in food yield per acre both in crops and in animal feed when the solar energy is restricted. Solar projects often call for massive deforestation to provide solar admittance, even though deforestation is a major cause of O₂ depletion in our atmosphere.

Wind is what creates weather that moves moisture and regulates the temperature of the planet. Without wind the planet would be small slices of habitable zones with wide swaths of desert. Wind turbines quite literally steal energy of the Earth’s air circulation system. The assumption that the energy in wind is free for the taking with zero effect on the ecosystem would seem misguided at best. Again, the impact of their practices remains largely unstudied because negative press is extremely unpopular.

The removal of energy from the movement of tides has been well studied and it is known that it has an impact on the rotational speed of the planet. What is interesting is the studies that discussed these impacts no longer seem to be accessible.

TC and I are in agreement that there is no free lunch when it comes to energy. The popular belief that renewable energy is a panacea for all our energy woes is very much misplaced. It is the next cool thing that the in crowd wants to do, until we figure out it gives the planet cancer.

Bonus Content

Above: the vast Midway-Sunset oil field is the largest in California and the third largest in the United States. This oil field has produced over 3 billion barrels of oil and retains more than 500 million barrels in reserve.

Preface

Dear Readers, we recently published an article “California’s Massive Crude Oil Reserves” linked below:

That article described how California’s “black gold” remains untapped while refineries process imported oil, mostly from the Middle East and South America. In the following article, we explore how California’s oil reserves may exceed Texas proven oil reserves.

California Oil Reserves May Exceed Texas Oil Reserves

Above: massive oil deposits could make California a world-class oil producer. Unfortunately, Gavin Newsom’s misguided Net-zero Policies have demolished California’s energy production potential.

Stranger than Fiction: California Has More Oil Reserves than Texas

Yes dear, California could be energy independent and possibly a net exporter of energy. The trouble is, California “green” regulations dating back to the late ‘80s have stymied oil production and development in California. To Put it in Crude Terms: due to anti-oil and gas industry policies, California oil consumption now comprises almost 65 % of imported foreign oil.

California is also rapidly losing refinery capacity, and oil companies are leaving the state, including:

• Chevron, relocating from San Ramon, California, to Houston, Texas.

• Chevron is now considering closing the Richmond refinery.

• Phillips 66 ceased operations at its Los Angeles-area refinery in 2025.

• Valero shut down its Benicia refinery in 2025.

• GAF Energy last year closed its San Jose headquarters and will relocate to Texas.

Some details about this debacle were covered in this article:

The “Real” California Oil Reserves Numbers?

Taking into account offshore and onshore reserves, a 2014 study by petroleum geologist Tim Considine for the California Policy Center estimated California’s total crude oil reserves at 30 billion barrels. This figure is corroborated by a 2025 report issued by Californians for Energy and Science, an industry group promoting oil and gas development in the state. One thing is certain, California has abundant reserves of crude oil, but the data and information are not widely disseminated and remains the intellectual property of the oil majors and drillers. To quote one expert:

California’s known crude oil reserves range in estimation because oil companies tend to only report on reserves that they are confident they may receive a permit to drill for and recover. This reluctance to report all findings, let alone pursue all possible leads, is a testament to how the unwelcoming business environment of California affects what should be one of the most productive oil industries not only in the country, but in the entire world. As of 2024, California is estimated to have 1.716 billion barrels of proven reserves, accounting for 3.1% of the country’s total. However, due to the lack of incentive to explore all potential leads, other estimates place the potential reserves far higher, upwards of 30 billion barrels, as reported by Californians for Energy and Science. Source.

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Cali Crude vs. Texas Tea

A tale of two contrasting states:

• California possibly has up to 30 million barrels of oil reserves, but is oil business unfriendly. The “true California reserves” data is estimated from industry experts and remains the intellectual property and/or knowledge closely held by oil companies that have explored and extracted in California.

• Texas is business and oil industry friendly and has about 20 billion barrels of oil reserves. Per data compiled from the Texas government and industry, Texas has far more “proven” crude oil reserves than any other U.S. state.

Above: as of 2023 there were over 20.1 billion barrels of crude oil reserves in Texas, the largest sources being the Eagle Ford and Permian basin. Offshore reserves amount to approximately 4.7 billion barrels. From statistica.

More Texas Tea discovered, hot off the press: a 2026 geological survey confirmed that the Permian Basin contains an additional 1.6 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil, along with 28.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Above: Jett Rink greeting his people in the iconic film Giant.

Leslie Benedict: Money isn’t everything, Jett.

Jett Rink: Not when you’ve got it.

Conclusions

California has perhaps up to 30 billion barrels of oil in reserve according to industry experts. These massive oil deposits could make California a world-class oil producer and energy independent. Unfortunately, misguided Net-zero Policies have hamstrung California’s energy production.

Texas has about 20 billion or so barrels of oil in reserve with new discoveries made quite often. Texas is a strong fiscally responsible low-debt state, while California is in deep debt despite the highest taxes in the USA. California is also first nationwide in unemployment, with oil industry workers now among those without jobs.

Recently, but before the Iran war, $8.00/gallon of gas has been seen in some parts of Northern California.

Above: California dreaming.

Above: Ford F-150 Lightning lived up to it's name and caught fire on a car transport trailer, destroying both the trailer and innocent ICE vehicles.

Hello again Dear Readers! Welcome to another specially curated Cornucopia of EV Combustion Clusters. Like a multitude of prairie dog's heads popping up from the Dakota plains on a sunny day, the realms of possibilities for EViscerations have yet to be exhausted !

EV and E-bike battery fires have sunk cargo ships, burned down businesses and homes, and yet we are witnessing even more venues of destruction and frantic 911 calls.

Above: a fancy Porsche EV sent 4000 cars and the ‘ol Felicity Ace down to Davy Jones’ Locker. ‘Tis a pity so many cool ICE cars went down too.

Most of the media is underreporting these conflagrations, and say “don’t worry, EV and E-bike battery fires are rare”, and in our opinion, this is pure BS. This is because there are ever increasing numbers of EVs and E-bikes in congested cities and the ‘burbs, making the odds of having an incident even more frequent and more perilous.

Alarmingly, the co-opted green media also downplays the dangers EV and E-bike lithium batteries pose, especially in terms of catastrophic fires, such as those caused by battery impacts, punctures from accidents, and faulty charging. Also of major concern is the underreporting of the proliferation of low quality and counterfeit Chinese lithium batteries (not Taiwanese), which may lack circuit protection devices that prevent short circuits and thus fires.

Above: EVs and their battery packs should have circuit protection in case of over-current or over-voltage events. Many counterfeit batteries and backwater Chinese products leave out circuit protection to save money.

TC’s Sidebar: back in the day, your concierge chemist worked in the salt mines of the battery Circuit Protection Division of RayChem, which was eventually sold off to LittleFuse. Part of the work involved the analysis of Chinese counterfeit circuit protection devices for cell phones. It was found that they had no current shut-off functionality or circuit protection. Not so fun to have your face scorched by a lithium battery fire while on the phone, right? Overseas life is cheap apparently.

A lithium battery can fail and catch fire by catastrophic impact, puncture, poor quality of manufacture, or by faulty charging. In a properly functioning lithium battery, the electricity flow and battery chemistry are kept under control by a separation membrane and the battery case.

If a failure occurs, all bets are off and a cascade of chemical reactions may be suddenly unleashed without limits. This releases large amounts of heat in an uncontrollable fashion, and can lead to a physiochemical phenomenon known as a “self-propagating thermal runaway”, a catastrophic failure mode that feeds off itself like an ammo dump cooking off in the Sandbox.

Above: vicious cycle of lithium battery thermal runaway.

As one might imagine, a fire combined with thermal runaway is a bitch to extinguish. The propagating heat and flames ignite and reignite, consuming fuel materials from the battery itself and/or oxygen and moisture from the atmosphere, like a flamethrower working Tarawa pillboxes.

Above: lithium cell blow-out due to gas expansion and battery case failure during thermal runaway. From IEEE.

Molten Metal Volcanoes

It is important to note that an EV like a Tesla has a sh$t-ton of individual lithium cells (thousands), all densely connected together in battery packs to occupy as little space as possible.

Above: packing ‘em in - Tesla battery cell packs

When one or more of the battery cells are damaged or abused, the resulting heat can affect the battery cells adjacent to the first, causing a cascading failure mode. When the cells cook-off, an EV fire may burn as high as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 Celsius). In contrast, a gasoline-powered vehicle on fire burns at 1,500 F (815 C).

The high temperatures realized in a lithium battery fire can cause EV structural metals such as aluminum, iron, and copper to melt. Looking up the properties of metals used in an EV, one will find that the melting point of aluminum is 660 C, with copper at 1084 C, and steel at about 1425 - 1540 C. These metals may melt, pool, and/or vaporize in and around a lithium fire. In a typical scenario, a battery explosion from gas pocket ignition and failure of the battery case results in the high velocity ejection of hazardous molten metals, like volcanic lava being ejected from Mt. Vesuvius.

Above, run for the hills: thermal runaway and catastrophic failure of lithium battery cells.

As shown in the video above, lithium battery packs and cells can turn into blow torches as the fire feeds off flammable battery chemicals, such as organic liquid electrolytes and metal oxides. This is like a dragon farting fireballs. For more specific information see: The Ultimate Guide to Dragon Farts.

Yes, dear, there is even more to fear: another severe health hazard from an EV inferno is the plumes of carcinogenic gases comprising of benzene, miscellaneous polyaromatics, methyl-ethyl-bad sh*t, cyanide and other nasties generated from burning a plethora of interior and exterior plastics found in modern cars. Downwind is not the place to be. I would advise at this point: “run like hell and call 911”, before you are nailed by molten metal, and whatever you do, don't breathe the fumes!

Above: run nine-one-one, a Volkswagen ID3 spontaneously caught fire just after the driver put her child in the car and wanted to get behind the wheel herself.

Water Can Promote Lithium Battery Fires 🔥

Firefighters have a huge problem with EV fires in that they just can’t hose them down with water and expect to stop them. H2O chemically reacts with lithium to form flammable hydrogen gas and lithium hydroxide in what we chemists call an oxidation-reduction reaction, as graphically illustrated in the video below.

Above: a fun activity every person needs to try at least once is to throw a chunk of an alkali metal into water and see what happens! We used to do that in Beebe Lake in Ithaca (shhhh).

Alkali metals such as lithium, sodium and potassium burn (oxidize) underwater because they violently react with H20 molecules that “fuel” or promote the lithium oxidation. Water as a kind of “fuel” or promoter : when lithium comes in contact with H2O, it grabs the oxygen for itself (lithium is oxidized and gives up an electron) and converts the H2O hydrogen atoms into hydrogen gas (reduction of hydrogen). Hydrogen burns and explodes, so an EV fire can have characteristics not unlike the Hindenberg disaster.

Thrills and spills: chemical reaction of lithium metal with water form alkaline lithium hydroxide and hydrogen gas.

Special Containment Dumpsters and Pools for EV Thermal Runaway

In yet another twist in the world of EV thrills and toxic spills, Yankee Ingenuity comes into play so that firefighters are protected from thermal runaway and can contain an active or potential EV fire 🔥 by total submersion of an EV in water.

All you need to do is winch an EV into a presumably watertight EV fire containment “dumpster” or EV Firebox and flood with water. Nevermind the cost and transportation of the dumpster, taxpayers will surely subsidize. Another way to go is a portable EV submersion pool by Garrison, just the thing everyone in the business needs to keep handy.

Not to be outdone, our friends at Emergency One in the UK have come up with a upscale dumpster contraption called the “E1 – EV Submersion Unit”, as shown in the thrilling video below.

Above: super trick drive-in or winch-in EV fire containment dumpster from Emergency One.

Trailer, Tow Truck and Tow Yard Infernos: Talking to the Guys at the Tow Yard

I was visiting a tow yard outside Phoenix, Arizona when I inadvertently discovered a costly niche EV issue. I was there to inspect and recover items from a totaled car, (gratefully nobody was seriously injured in the wreck). It was nestled amongst other forlorn wrecks, each with their own unique story and trauma, and most notably a totaled VW ID4 EV. This VW had been segregated at the end of a line of cars for a reason.

Above: sad ID4 off by it’s lonesome

The workers and I were discussing some of the more interesting cars and crazy situations they had experienced, and the conversation transitioned to how lame EVs were, and the story behind the VW carcass.

The guys shared that the EVs and hybrids in the yard needed to be segregated from the other cars and surrounded by concrete EV containment barriers to protect the yard and adjacent cars from being incinerated should the EV’s spontaneously combust. This could be mysteriously triggered by some unknown gremlin, planetary alignment or just the hot sun.

Above: basically a concrete Lego, a tow yard EV Containment Protection Walling solution from Elite Precast Concrete.

The guys went on to share how the EV combustion albatross has increased their day to day running costs and insurance. It is expensive to purchase and move around concrete barriers just for the EV “customers”.

In an understandable rebellion, tow truck operators don't want to pick up EV wrecks because the EV or hybrid might light off while towing, and they are expensive to store if you do actually make it back to the yard. Indeed, in one case in AZ, an EV caught fire twice - once after hitting a building, and a second time while being towed!

Above: Arizona Tesla catches fire twice following crash.

In Europe, there are also reports of tow companies refusing to pick up EVs involved in an accident, as reported in Belgium: EV caught fire while driving - no local towing service wanted to deal with the wreck. Image below.

Above: after burning out, foam job and cool off, this wreck gets a lift in Belgium. Storage not allowed at the yard due to reignition concerns. Cars ultimate fate unknown.

In other situations, the results can be even more catastrophic for a tow or transport company because innocent and far more precious ICE vehicles get caught in the cross-fire 🔥 of an EV inferno, per one FL example shown below.

Above: tractor was able to ditch trailer just in time in FL.

Indeed, due to liability concerns, more and more EVs involved in accidents are being scrapped by insurance companies because of fears of battery failures and fires, as torched upon by Stu Turley in the article: EVs Head for Junkyard as Mechanic Shortage Inflates Repair Costs. Unfortunately, you never know when a wrecked EV is going to light-off and torch a tow yard, per video below.

Above: EV torches tow yard near San Diego, CA.

In yet another twist, hybrids with partially discharged batteries can wreak havoc on tow yards after sitting, as exposed in the video below by one of my favorite YouTubers, MGUY Australia.

Above: MGUY Australia details the results of an Aussie EV fire in a tow yard.

Cashing in on EV Liabilities and Hazards

In addition to the ambulance chasing parasite attorneys and insurance companies, a new industry has been spawned for risk analysis, hardware, and safety equipment such as EV containment barriers, portable EV submersion pools, EV submersion dumpsters, and battery isolation barriers (armor) for EV batteries.

All this makes life more complicated and a lot more expensive on truckers and the towing businesses, adding more hardships to regular working people having to deal with the virtual signaling of the more wealthy and the absurdities of this Ill-fated “transition”.

But the towing professional need not fear, as the Energy Security Agency has come to the rescue, providing a full guidebook and menu of bureaucratic liability options to service an EV inferno, per below:

Above: Ford F-150 Lightning strikes again!

Article dedication: for OCD, JF, and all my loyal readers and supporters.

Above: in the early part of the twentieth century, oil wells dominated the beach in Venice, California. (Los Angeles County Chamber of Commerce/Library of Congress).

Preface

In a recent series of articles, we reported on Gavin Newsom’s anti-oil industry policies which have led to mismanaged petroleum resources and has created a looming energy crisis:

As previously described, California politicians naïve Net-zero policies have kneecapped California energy independence. This has resulted in decreased tax revenues, increased debt and unemployment, and a large increase of oil imports from foreign countries with less stringent environmental oversight.

In this article, we examine California’s vast existing petroleum resources, of which could make California a worldwide powerhouse of energy production and energy exporter.

California’s Untapped “Black Gold”

Above: massive oil deposits could make California a world-class oil producer. Unfortunately, Gavin Newsom’s misguided Net-zero Policies have hamstrung California’s energy production potential.

California is the eighth-largest crude oil producer in the United States and ranks fourth in barrels of oil equivalent produced (in 2014, California was the 3rd largest producer). The state has been producing oil since the 1860s, making it one of America’s oldest petroleum provinces.

Today, approximately 80-90% of California’s onshore drilling takes place in Kern County in the San Joaquin Valley. California is home to four “super giant” oil fields that have each produced over 1 billion barrels of oil, and 21 additional “giant” fields that have each produced over 100 million barrels.

Above: view of a part of the vast Midway-Sunset oil field, the largest in California and the third largest in the United States. First discovered in 1894, the Midway-Sunset oil field has so far produced over 3 billion barrels of oil and still holds more than 500 million barrels in reserve.

California heavy crude oil is thicker (higher viscosity) and typically has a higher sulfur content (sour) than light crude (Texas Tea), and thus requires refineries that are engineered to handle a thicker sulfurous feedstock. California refineries that are still open were originally built and engineered to process native heavy crude feedstock.

This heavy crude, which is also found in Venezuela and is best suited to feed most of the USA’s Gulf refineries, is in high demand as it produces preferred diesel transportation fuels and other critical products. In fact, many American oil refineries cannot run efficiently or produce a full range of useful petroleum products without blending heavy crude with light crude. This is because without heavy crude oil, those refineries cannot produce industry critical refined products such as jet fuel, diesel fuel, lubricating oil, naphtha (for plastics), paraffin (for many industrial applications), and asphalt. . A good recent article explaining this and associated geopolitics is: “Dense, sticky and heavy: why Venezuelan crude oil appeals to US refineries.”

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California Oil Reserves Underestimated by as much as 30 X.

California may have the largest reserves of heavy crude oil in the United States, and according to some reports the reserves are second only to Venezuela worldwide. Attempts to quantify just how much heavy oil is recoverable in California is difficult, mostly due to lack of economic incentives, per energy experts below:

Expert Quote 1

California’s known crude oil reserves range in estimation because oil companies tend to only report on reserves that they are confident they may receive a permit to drill for and recover. This reluctance to report all findings, let alone pursue all possible leads, is a testament to how the unwelcoming business environment of California affects what should be one of the most productive oil industries not only in the country, but in the entire world. As of 2024, California is estimated to have 1.716 billion barrels of proven reserves, accounting for 3.1% of the country’s total. However, due to the lack of incentive to explore all potential leads, other estimates place the potential reserves far higher, upwards of 30 billion barrels, as reported by Californians for Energy and Science. Source.

Expert Quote 2

That wide range of oil reserves estimates can partially be explained by the fact that California’s oil companies only report proven reserves if there is a possibility they will acquire a drilling permit. For this reason, they’ve been writing off proven reserves of oil, while the amount of so-called contingent reserves – recoverable if permits were available – is proprietary. But estimates of California’s actual total reserves, including unproven but likely deposits, are much higher. Taking into account offshore and onshore reserves, a 2014 study by petroleum geologist Tim Considine for the California Policy Center estimated California’s total crude oil reserves at 30 billion barrels. This figure is corroborated by a 2025 report issued by Californians for Energy and Science, an industry group promoting oil and gas development in the state. One thing is certain, California has abundant reserves of crude oil. Source.

California’s Imported Crude Dependency

Crude Facts

1. Sixty percent of California’s raw energy inputs relies on petroleum.

2. Due to anti-oil and gas industry policies, California oil consumption now comprises 63 % of imported foreign oil.

3. California native production has largely decreased from a high of 402 million barrels in 1986, to only 118 million barrels in 2024.

   ---

Above: California heavy oil production continues to decrease while foreign oil increases. Gavin Newsom’s tenure has unfortunately accelerated the demise of the oil and gas industry in California. Source.

According to the California Energy Commission, California produced 325,000 barrels per day of crude oil from in-state wells in 2024, and imported 1.1 million barrels per day. More than half of the oil that imported was heavy oil, despite California having some of the biggest reserves of heavy crude in the world.

Above: South America provides a big piece of the California oil pie. Extraction of this oil can be very damaging to rainforest ecosystems. Source.

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California Oil Imports Create Environmental Destruction in Foreign Countries.

Above: Oil extraction operation in the Amazon rainforest. Source: NBC.

As shown in the previous pie chart, and below, the top 4 foreign countries with the biggest pieces of the California oil import pie are:

While Iraq obviously does not extract oil from pristine rainforest regions, Brazil, Guyana, Ecuador, and Columbia do. We note that the bulk of the Guyana oil is from offshore, but of course, California has a moratorium on offshore oil extraction. The untold environmental destruction in other countries is difficult to reverse and flies in the face of California’s Environmental Stewardship as espoused by California politicians.

In 2025, the normally naïve and willfully blind California government decided to take a second look at California’s dependency on Amazon oil and the associated rainforest destruction. This is was covered recently in the excellent Sacramento Bee opinion piece entitled A new California bill highlights the true impact of California’s oil import dependency.

In yet another twist, more South American countries would like to sell their oil into the California market, as explained in a very recent 2026 article about Peru: Peru leads amazon oil and gas expansion, threatening indigenous communities and protected forests. Peru is apparently anxious about developing its oil and gas resources for its own use and to supply thirsty California as well.

Above: Amazonian Demi-glace sauce ala French Laundry.

Conclusions

In sum, Governor Newsom’s war on domestic oil has been an deeply injurious to the California economy, and has been waged incessantly - until recently, of which time the Governor realized that $8.00 a gallon gas is not good press or timing for his run for President in 2028.

California’s overburdensome rules and regulations, designed to make expensive “renewables” appear more affordable than oil, have had their desired effect. Production has fallen dramatically; the oil industry, once a powerhouse in California is on defense; renewables look artificially cheap; and the Governor can brag to his supporters that he is fighting “climate change.”

This approach has had a terrible flip side: dramatically reduced federal, state, county, and city tax revenues, lost jobs, higher gas prices (the effects of which overwhelmingly impact the poor), and increased oil imports. The foreign imports increase environmental damage as a result of the necessity to ship hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil across the seas, and further negatively impacts the environments of poorer countries with less stringent environmental regulations and oversight.

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An Additional Note From Ronald Stein, PE (Personal Communication)

All of California’s in-state transportation fuels for jet, ships, trucks, and vehicles are made in-state as there are no pipelines over the Sierra Mountains to get those fuels from other States.

CA fuel demands for :

• 3 of the busiest Ports in America, requiring bunker fuel for the merchant ships.

• 13 million gallons of aviation fuel daily for its 145 airports,

• 42 million gallons a day of gasoline fuel for cars, and

• 10 million gallons a day of diesel fuel to support the state’s trucking infrastructure.

The real shocker is that closure of in-state refineries will “lessen” crude oil imports, but increase the need to import finished transportation fuels from new refineries in Asia !!!!!

Yes, CA is becoming a national security risk for the entire country !

Ron

El Salvador is poised to become the compute capital of Central America and beyond because of it’s geothermal energy resources and the leadership of President Nayib Bukele, who is promoting and building data centers that are powered by geothermal derived electricity.

El Salvador is fortuitously located along the Pacific coastline of Central America, where a string of volcanoes runs for more than 1,000 kilometers from Guatemala to Panama. El Salvador has 36 active volcanoes of the 242 existing in its geography, as indicated today by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

The capital city of San Salvador sits in line with this chain of cones and calderas, and the country derives 75 % of it’s electricity from a combination of hydroelectric, geothermal, and fossil fuels. Geothermal accounts for about 25 % of the country’s electricity and is growing, as catalyzed by the need for inexpensive and reliable energy to power it’s economy and burgeoning data centers. El Salvador’s geothermal capacity is supported by two main plants: the Ahuachapán plant with an installed 95 MW capacity, and the Berlin plant in Usulután with a 110 MW capacity.

Above: 10 major volcanoes of El Salvador, which has upwards of 36 active volcanoes. There are a total of 242 volcanoes existing in its geography and vast pools of untapped geothermal energy sources.

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Above: Tecapa/Berlin geothermal facility. El Salvador has a long history with geothermal power, having inaugurated the Ahuachapán plant in 1975 and the Tecapa/Berlin facility in 1999. El Salvador’s geothermal capacity is supported by the Ahuachapán plant with an installed 95 MW capacity, and the Berlin plant in Usulután with a 110 MW capacity.

El Salvador’s ongoing geothermal build-out. In February 2023, a major update was announced that the InterEnergy consortium would build and operate two new geothermal wells: one in Chinameca, San Miguel, with a 20 MW capacity, and another in San Vicente, producing 10 MW.

The Potential for Geothermal Energy to Meet Growing Data Center Electricity Demand

Above: data center electricity demand is going exponential, and the need for reliable baseload power generation. Source: The Potential for Geothermal Energy to Meet Growing Data Center Electricity Demand.

A short list of data center utilization:

• Hosting private cloud applications for businesses

• Processing big data and powering machine learning and AI

• Supporting high-volume eCommerce platforms

• Powering online gaming communities

• Managing data storage, backups, and recovery

• Powering stock trading systems

• Real time medical imaging, diagnosis, and research

• Enabling autonomous vehicles and real-time maps

Volcano Power: El Salvador Poised to Become a Southern Hemisphere AI and Crypto Leader

President Nayib Bukele shocked the nation and many around the world with his announcement last summer that bitcoin would become legal tender beside the U.S. dollar in El Salvador. Bitcoin mining is the process of creating new Bitcoins by solving extremely complicated math problems that verify transactions in the currency. When a bitcoin is successfully mined, the miner receives a predetermined amount of Bitcoin.

• El Salvador now has an estimated Bitcoin holdings valued at almost $400 million, mined using 1.5 MW of electricity from Tecapa/Berlin geothermal power plant.

  

Above: container containing 300 computers that mine crypto at Tecapa/Berlin geothermal power plant near El Salvador’s Tecapa volcano.

Future AI Geothermal Powered Innovation and Partnership

Above: Aaron Ginn, CEO and co-founder of Hydra Host and President Bukele make a recent deal for NVIDIA’s cutting-edge B300 system .

In a groundbreaking move that positions El Salvador at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation, President Nayib Bukele has secured a number of NVIDIA’s cutting-edge B300 systems, featuring the most advanced AI processors available (16 × NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs). The announcement follows a high-level meeting between President Bukele and Aaron Ginn, CEO and co-founder of Hydra Host, a prominent AI infrastructure firm managing GPUs across more than 50 data centers.

NVIDIA’s cutting-edge B300 system, featuring 16 × NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs, are set to power El Salvador’s National AI Laboratory, bolstering the country’s plans to build a fully sovereign AI infrastructure. This initiative will allow El Salvador to operate independently in AI research, development, and deployment, ensuring national resilience, cybersecurity, and long-term economic competitiveness.

Of note, Hydra Host is an approved Tier 1 supplier for Nvidia products and leases AI compute time to major corporations worldwide using it’s Brokkr product. Hydra Host is a Peter Thiel Founder’s Fund seed company and has been growing rapidly, and recently hired Kai. S. Golden for special projects and to lead Hydra Host’s financial arm.

Above: Miami is becoming the crypto and financial center of the USA. Hydra Host co-founders Garret Johnson (COO) and Ariel Deschapell (CPTO), and Financing Lead for Data Centers Kai Golden.

Tuco’s Child Preface

We recently reported on the German government admission that shutting down their nuclear power plants was a mistake. Prior to closures, in 2011, Germany had a nuclear fleet of 17 reactors, generating over 33% of the country’s electricity. Since then, nuclear power has been replaced by coal, imported natural gas, and wood pellets, leading to an increase in “greenhouse gas” emissions, and greater reliance on foreign energy sources.

Here we examine the cost in human lives, money, and carbon caused by Germany’s “Atomausstieg”, or nuclear phase-out. From 2011 to 2023, Germany shut down 17 reactors, and thus removed 800 TWh of safe and clean low-carbon electricity — equivalent to about two years of national demand.

By phasing out nuclear in the name of “safety”, Germany has exposed its population to far greater health risks from coal and wood pellet burning, and an increase in electricity prices of almost 25 %.

The phase out of nuclear power and increased CO₂ emissions has also distorted the price of carbon credits on the European Carbon Trading System. Germany must now purchase approximately €57 billion in additional carbon credits due to the increased emissions.

We further note that Germany is exceptionally dependent on Russian natural gas imports. This revenue has enrichened Putin and Russia, and has helped fund the war in Ukraine, as explained below:

Above: checkmate Germany.

Germany’s Nuclear Power Phase-out Results in Devastating Health and Environmental Costs

Adapted from: The Germany Nuclear Phase-Out

Key points:

1. Germany’s nuclear replacement energy: almost entirely fossil fuels (98% coal, 2% gas).

2. Nearly 20,000 deaths attributable to air pollution from Germany’s nuclear exit. This is five times higher than even the most pessimistic estimates of the death toll from Chernobyl. By phasing out nuclear in the name of safety, Germany inadvertently exposed its population to far greater risks from coal.

3. Health impact: increased coal burning estimates are 19,200 premature deaths and 177,000 serious illnesses from air pollution, based on WHO health impact factors. This equates to approximately 12 billion Euro in additional health costs for Germany.

4. Toxic pollutants: increased coal burning adds tonnes of mercury, cadmium, and lead to the wider environment, in addition to other toxic metals.

5. CO₂ emissions goal defeated: this substitution caused an additional 730 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions — more than all of Germany’s 2024 annual greenhouse gas emissions.

6. Carbon trading: Germany’s increased CO₂ emissions has disrupted the EU’s main emissions trading system (EU ETS) and market, which has trickled down and increased electricity costs for the average German. The additional carbon allowances that must now be purchased represent resources diverted away from investment in infrastructure, social benefits, or industrial innovation. European carbon prices have risen notably in late 2025, reaching €83.79 per tonne on December 15, up 3% monthly and 30% year-over-year. The price of carbon permits in the EU’s main emissions trading system (EU ETS) recently hit multi-month highs.

7. Germany’s estimated additional carbon ETS costs are an estimated at a whopping €57 billion.

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Above: increased emissions from lost nuclear power production, Germany 2011-2023. The increase in CO₂ emissions shown above does not include sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, or heavy metals.

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Above: HEALTH IMPACTS FROM ADDITIONAL COAL AND GAS POWER, 2011–2023.

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Above: It is estimated that the nuclear exit has already caused five times more deaths than Chernobyl by driving continued coal combustion, and this number stands to rise even further in the coming years. The justification for the nuclear phase-out rested heavily on concerns about safety and health risks. Nuclear’s risks are minimal compared to those of coal.

Above: fear, politics and money has left Germany in decline as a result of the nuclear phase-out or Atomausstieg.

Above: Angela, you were my best operative, fluent in Russian too!

The German Trifecta of Failure

Above: German activist declaring victory over nuclear power 2023, Germany’s Energiewende.

Tuco’s Child Preface

We all strive to learn from our mistakes and hopefully never repeat the more damaging ones. Now is the brutal moment of truth for Germany - can they turn around their once mighty but now sinking industry and economy after closing their safe and efficient nuclear power plants? Germany’s closed plants include the following:

• 2008 Obrigheim plant

• 2017 Neckarwestheim plant

• 2017 Philippsburg 1 plant

• 2020 Philippsburg 2 plant

• 2023 Neckarwestheim II

Some history of plant closures and Putin’s Resultant Glee:

Above: nuclear demolition - a collapsed cooling tower at the former Biblis nuclear power plant after being destabilized. Source.

German Chancellor Merz Admits Nuclear Phase-Out Was Huge Mistake

Adopted from article written by Dave Ritchie, January 18, 2026

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz admitted the 2023 nuclear phase-out was a “huge mistake,” causing soaring energy costs, industrial decline, and increased emissions amid reliance on fossil fuels. This reversal highlights economic fallout and calls for potential reactor restarts, contrasting global nuclear revival trends.

Above: dismantling nuclear plants is a big business in Germany - and apparently they are proud of it, until recently (?).

Merz’s Nuclear Reckoning: Germany’s Costly Bet Against Atomic Power

Germany’s energy policy has long been a battleground of ideology, economics, and environmental ambition. But in a stunning admission this week, Chancellor Friedrich Merz labeled the country’s complete shutdown of its nuclear power plants a “huge mistake” that has inflicted severe economic damage. Speaking at the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Berlin, Merz highlighted how the phase-out, finalized in 2023, has left the nation grappling with soaring energy costs and diminished industrial competitiveness. This reversal comes amid mounting pressure from business leaders and a backdrop of global energy shifts, where nuclear power is experiencing a renaissance in places like France and the United States.

The decision to exit nuclear energy, known as the “Atomausstieg,” traces back to the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel accelerated the timeline, committing to close all reactors by 2022, a deadline later extended slightly due to the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By April 2023, the last three plants—Isar 2, Emsland, and Neckarwestheim 2—were decommissioned, marking the end of an era that once saw nuclear providing about a quarter of Germany’s electricity. Critics, including some within Merz’s own Christian Democratic Union (CDU), argued from the start that this move was shortsighted, especially without robust alternatives in place.

Merz’s comments, delivered on January 14, 2026, underscore a growing consensus that the shutdown exacerbated Germany’s reliance on imported fossil fuels, particularly Russian gas before the war, and now on liquefied natural gas from diverse suppliers. “We have paid a high price for this decision,” Merz stated, pointing to elevated electricity prices that have hammered manufacturers. Official data from the Federal Statistical Office shows industrial energy costs have risen by over 40% since 2023, contributing to a broader economic slowdown. This admission isn’t isolated; it echoes sentiments from industry groups and international observers who have long warned of the policy’s pitfalls.

Above: cooling tower demolition

The Economic Fallout Unfolds

The immediate aftermath of the shutdown saw Germany ramp up coal-fired power generation to fill the gap, ironically increasing carbon emissions at a time when the country aimed for net-zero goals. According to a report from the Foro Nuclear, the phase-out led to higher energy prices, elevated emissions, and economic recession risks as industries struggled with the transition. Energy-intensive sectors like chemicals and steel have been hit hardest, with companies such as BASF reporting reduced output and job cuts. In 2024, Germany’s GDP growth stalled at 0.2%, partly attributed to these energy woes, per Eurostat figures.

Beyond domestic impacts, the policy has strained Europe’s energy market. Germany’s increased demand for natural gas imports has driven up prices across the continent, affecting neighbors like France, which relies heavily on nuclear for stable, low-cost power. Merz acknowledged this in his speech, noting that the shutdown created “unnecessary vulnerabilities” in supply chains. Posts on X from energy analysts highlight public frustration, with many users decrying the irony of Germany demolishing nuclear infrastructure while facing blackouts and high bills—sentiments that have amplified calls for policy reversals.

Yet, the human element can’t be overlooked. The shutdown displaced thousands of workers in the nuclear sector, from engineers to maintenance staff, many of whom transitioned to renewables but at lower wages. Communities around former plants, like Gundremmingen, have seen economic decline, with local businesses suffering from reduced activity. A 2025 demolition of cooling towers there symbolized not just the end of nuclear but a broader erosion of industrial might, as noted in various online discussions.

Above: cooling tower demolition

Ideological Roots and Policy Shifts

The anti-nuclear movement in Germany dates back to the 1970s, fueled by environmental groups and the Green Party, which gained traction after Chernobyl in 1986. The Heinrich Böll Foundation, aligned with the Greens, celebrated the 2023 closure as a “culmination of a 50-year democratic process,” according to their analysis in Understanding the German Nuclear Exit. This perspective views the phase-out as a victory for public engagement and renewable energy push, with wind and solar now comprising over 50% of the grid. However, Merz’s critique frames it as a strategic blunder, arguing that it ignored nuclear’s role in baseload power—reliable energy not subject to weather fluctuations.

Recent developments have bolstered calls for a rethink. The German nuclear association Kerntechnik Deutschland e.V. advocated in 2025 for restarting up to six shuttered reactors, deeming it a “safe, economically viable” option, as reported by World Nuclear News. Technical assessments suggest these plants could be operational within months, providing a quick fix to current shortages. Merz, while not committing to restarts, hinted at exploring “all options” to lower costs, signaling a potential pivot under his leadership.

Internationally, Germany’s path contrasts sharply with peers. France is expanding its nuclear fleet, while the U.S. has approved new reactors amid a push for clean energy. Even Taiwan, which phased out nuclear by 2025, is reconsidering amid energy needs, per Wikipedia’s entry on nuclear power phase-outs. Merz’s admission aligns with warnings from figures like former U.S. President Donald Trump, who in 2018 called Germany’s energy strategy a blunder, a point resurfaced in recent media coverage.

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Global Echoes and Domestic Pressures

The ripple effects extend to climate goals. Climate scientists expressed dismay at the 2023 shutdown, as covered by CNBC, noting that nuclear’s low-carbon profile could have accelerated decarbonization. Instead, Germany burned more lignite coal, boosting emissions by an estimated 5% in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. This has drawn criticism from environmentalists who once supported the phase-out but now question its execution without sufficient green backups.

Merz’s remarks also come amid political turbulence. As chancellor since late 2025, he faces opposition from coalition partners and a resurgent far-right, with energy policy a flashpoint. A Reddit thread from 2023 on r/germany captured early public debate, asking why the plants were closed despite energy crises—a question that persists. Recent news from Anadolu Ajansı quotes Merz calling it a “serious strategic mistake,” emphasizing the world’s costliest energy transition.

Industry insiders point to specific metrics: Electricity prices for businesses hit €0.25 per kilowatt-hour in 2025, double the EU average, per the German Energy Agency. This has prompted relocations, with firms like Volkswagen eyeing cheaper energy abroad. Merz warned that without action, Germany’s export-driven economy could face irreversible decline, a view echoed in a TVP World report.

Above: the good old days of Sprockets and SNL.

Pathways to Revival and Lessons Learned

Looking ahead, experts advocate for a hybrid approach: bolstering renewables while reconsidering nuclear. A Deseret News article details plans to potentially rebuild capacity, inspired by global trends. China, for instance, is adding dozens of reactors, highlighting nuclear’s role in energy security. In Germany, public opinion is shifting; polls from 2025 show 60% support for restarts, up from 40% in 2023.

Challenges remain, including waste management and safety concerns that fueled the original phase-out. Yet, advancements in small modular reactors could offer safer, cheaper alternatives, as discussed in energy forums. Merz’s government is investing €10 billion in grid upgrades, but insiders argue nuclear revival is essential for stability.

The broader lesson for policymakers worldwide is the peril of hasty decisions in energy transitions. Germany’s experience, as analyzed in RT, shows how ideological commitments can clash with economic realities. Posts on X reflect a mix of schadenfreude and concern, with users noting Germany’s budget strains and industrial woes under Merz.

Navigating Uncertainty in Energy Futures

As Europe contends with geopolitical tensions, including ongoing fallout from the Ukraine conflict, energy independence is paramount. Merz’s critique, detailed in The Last Refuge, ties the nuclear exit to broader failures in securing affordable power. This has sparked debates on reinstating reactors, with economic models suggesting potential savings of €50 billion annually.

For industry leaders, the focus is on innovation: Integrating nuclear with renewables could create a resilient system. Germany’s push for hydrogen and offshore wind is promising, but without baseload support, volatility persists. Merz’s admission may catalyze change, prompting alliances with pro-nuclear nations.

Ultimately, this moment reflects a pivotal reassessment. As one energy executive posted on X, the shutdown was a “mistake” born of misplaced priorities, now costing Germany dearly. With global nuclear capacity projected to grow 20% by 2030, per the World Nuclear Association, Germany risks being left behind unless it acts swiftly. Merz’s words signal a potential turning point, but translating regret into reform will test the nation’s resolve.

Tuco’s Child Preface

Did you ever wonder how Russia, Iran, and Venezuela have stayed afloat (pun) economically despite so-called crippling sanctions on oil exports?

Welcome to the world of deeply discounted oil, covert pirate oil tankers and international money laundering schemes. “Dark fleet" vessels that hide their locations to transport illegal oil cargoes has enabled Russia, Iran, and Venezuela to continue exporting oil in defiance of U.S. and allied sanctions, thus keeping their economies afloat, and powering many others worldwide.

We note that Putin is a master of this subterfuge, and has actually done quite well since the Ukraine war started. Some of this was touched upon in the recent article below.

Above: mystery tanker on it’s way to a Chinese port of call.

Covert Tankers Ply the Seven Seas

The following report was adapted from Matthew Smith’s Venezuela’s Secret Weapon: A “Dark Fleet” Of Oil Tankers

Dark fleet is a term used to describe the assortment of tanker vessels which conceal their locations so as to enable the transportation of illicit cargoes of crude oil and derivative products. This is done using a variety of deceptive techniques to prevent the tanker from being identified or tracked. These include turning off the vessel’s ID system, spoofing its location and using multiple flags of convenience over short periods.

While this has been a long-running practice that emerged to cloak the transportation and sale of U.S.-sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iraq exploded after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

To penalize Moscow for the attack on Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies sanctioned Russia’s economically crucial petroleum exports. This caused the volume of vessels evading identification to surge. A substantially larger dark fleet is extremely beneficial for Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela, which only two years ago was a near-failed state on the verge of collapse but has since seen its economy return to growth.

The dark fleet first emerged as U.S. sanctions against Iran and Venezuela were ratcheted up to prevent those pariah states from exporting their crude oil to key markets without incurring hefty penalties. The volume of tankers clandestinely shipping petroleum to Iran and Venezuela has surged over the last three years. According to a Reuters investigation, there was a fleet of 300 vessels clandestinely shipping Iranian crude oil by March 2023 compared to 70 in November 2020. The news agency also stated earlier this year that Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA had leased 41 tankers in 2022 to ship Venezuela crude oil, paying roughly double the market rate. In an earlier Reuters article, it was estimated that there were more than 200 tankers, including over 80 supertankers, shipping Iranian and Venezuelan crude oil.

Latest estimates from a variety of sources put the number of vessels in the dark fleet at a far higher number. According to maritime AI company Windward there are 1,100 vessels in the dark fleet, with around 32% crude oil tankers, another 20% being oil product vessels, and the remainder comprised of chemical as well as other types of tankers. Analysts from other data broker firms put the number of vessels at around 700, but given the fleet’s opaque nature, it is difficult to determine the correct number. While PDVSA has its own fleet of 22 tankers, a recent internal report claimed that at least half of them are in such poor condition, they are unfit to ship crude oil. It is for that reason, along with growing oil production, that a larger dark fleet will be beneficial for Venezuela.

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A combination of endemic corruption and malfeasance, sharply weaker oil prices, a lack of skilled labor and strict U.S. sanctions saw Venezuela’s economic backbone, its petroleum industry, almost collapse. Against all odds, with the assistance of Russia, China and Iran, the national oil company PDVSA was able to rebuild some corroded energy infrastructure and bolster oil production. According to data supplied by Caracas to OPEC, Venezuela pumped an average of 810,000 barrels per day during April 2023, which was not only 7% higher than a month prior but 4.5% greater year over year. This is nearly triple the record low of 390,000 barrels per day during July 2020, when petroleum production plunged because of sharply weaker prices and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The reconstruction of Venezuela’s heavily corroded oil industry is crucial to returning the economy to growth. Every year from 2014 until 2021, Venezuela’s gross domestic product contracted, plunging by 80% or $171 billion. This has been labeled as the modern world’s worst economic collapse to occur outside of war which saw over seven million Venezuelans flee the country, which was once the wealthiest in Latin America. Surprisingly, for 2021 Venezuela’s economy had returned to growth, expanding by 0.5% that year and then by a notable 8% in 2022. Key to this remarkable development was Venezuela restoring oil production and securing access to crucial energy export markets, which is where access to the dark fleet is pivotal. While U.S. sanctions had constrained Venezuela’s economy for some time, it wasn’t until President Donald Trump enacted his policy of maximum pressure that cut Caracas off from global energy and capital markets that it crashed.

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It was Teheran that provided the skilled technicians, critical parts and crucial condensate that were essential to rebuilding heavily corroded oil infrastructure and thereby boosting petroleum production. Ongoing reliable supplies of condensate are especially important to PDVSA, particularly since U.S. supplies ended with Trump’s January 2019 sanctions. The very-light high API hydrocarbon is a vital ingredient for processing and upgrading Venezuela’s heavy and ultra-heavy crude oil to exportable grades. It was the provision of a reliable supply from Iran that was key to PDVA growing oil production.

While Iran’s condensate is still crucial to PDVSA’s operations, energy supermajor Chevron, which was permitted by the U.S. Treasury to recommence lifting petroleum in Venezuela in November 2022, is sourcing U.S.-supplied naphtha for heavy oil upgrading. Chevron is required to do this because of U.S. sanctions on Iranian crude oil and related products because U.S. sanctions block Chevron from making any payments to Caracas. As a result, all petroleum lifted by the U.S. energy supermajor will be utilized in an oil-for debt swap, with Chevron seeking to recover $3 billion in outstanding debt with PDVSA by the end of 2025.

This emphasizes just how important the dark fleet, including Iranian tankers, is to PDVSA to ship oil to global energy markets in order to receive urgently required cash payments. Asia is the main destination for Venezuelan crude oil, with China believed to be receiving the bulk of those exports. A larger dark fleet makes it easier for PDVSA to not only ship oil to buyers undetected, in contravention of U.S. sanctions but also to ramp up export volumes which are vital for boosting income and sustaining it's economy.

Above: spoof or reality? Tesla with handy auxiliary charger for long distance trips.

Tuco’s Child Preface

I am pleased to present the following article by Urs Broderick Furrer, an energy expert and attorney with a broad background in all matters of practical energy use and deployment.

EVs Were Never Ready for Prime Time

One would have to be living under a rock to be unaware that much of the U.S. public discourse in newspapers, magazines, scientific journals, movies, television, social media and political debate, centers on the environment in general and climate change in particular. Indeed, while much of our public discussion of climate change is discussed in terms of certainties, the reality is that many of the mathematical formulas relied upon by scientists are complicated and poorly understood and the conclusions reached are often disputed by other scientists. In reality, the policy decisions implemented to combat climate changes are often based on theoretical assumptions, which all too often generate other environmental issues.

Despite those complicated questions, our public discussion on the challenge of climate change focuses largely on solutions that many assumed to be easy, but which tended to be far more complicated than is commonly understood or discussed. As an example, among the “easy solutions” was the introduction of electric vehicles (“EVs”) which were widely seen as an imperative to reduce atmospheric carbon by activists, lawmakers, reporters, and many, if not almost all, in the media.

However, contrary to what was commonly accepted by “those in the know,” EVs turned out not to be, at least at this point, the easy answer they were assumed to be. Access to and availability of the raw materials for EV batteries, associated costs and impacts, environmental justice issues, and the production and use of EVs were all largely ignored in the crafting of policies surrounding EVs. Indeed, because EVs were perceived to be the answer, little of our discussion centered on the typical cost-benefit analysis that is commonly undertaken when market forces, over time, drive one industry into retreat as a new and better alternative becomes more widely accepted.

Similarly, little, if any, of our public discussion considered whether a rapid conversion to EVs was technically possible or environmentally sound, and whether the mass of the motoring public would voluntarily embrace EVs. It is these two issues that this paper will explore.

Above: the Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger station. With 98 charging bays, the California facilty is the largest charging station in the world. But to provide that kind of power, it takes diesel generators. Source.

As of 2020, there were about 287 million cars in the United States of which, just over 1.8 million are EVs, or less than 1%. The Edison Electric Institute projected that by 2030, there would be 18.7 million EVs in the United States out of approximately 317 million cars, meaning 94% of all cars would still be powered by internal combustion engines (ICE). Assuming the same growth in total cars from 2030 to 2040 means about 350 million cars will be on the road and, even if the growth of EVs is 1,000%, we could expect 187 million EVs representing 53% percent of all cars. This would, however, mean there would still be 163 million cars powered by internal combustion engines (ICEs) on the road in 2040. It is against these realities that forecasts of rapid EV adoption were made by government officials, automaker, and activists.

Under the Biden Administration, EV tax credits were increased from $2,500 to $12,500, provided the EVs would be built in the United States with union labor. Additionally, the Biden Administration and Congress’ infrastructure bill earmarked $65 billon dollars for upgrades to the country’s electric transmission and power infrastructure and $7.5 billion dollars for 500,000 new EV charging stations. It had been estimated that 9.5 million charge ports would be needed for the 18.7 million EVs estimated to be on the road by 2030. A simple math calculation reflects that if $7.5 billion dollars was allocated for 500,000 new EV charging stations, the installation of 9.5 million charge ports (19 times more) would require an investment of $142.5 billion. Under the “Build Back America” bill, that $7.5 billion dollars has, to date, funded only 56 out of the 500,000 new EV charging stations envisioned.

Above: diesel-hybrid Tesla conversion. Source.

Assuming ten times the number of charge ports are necessary for the ten times as many EVs on the roads between 2030 and 2040, the cost of the charging stations alone, absent inflation driven cost increases, would be approximately $1.5 trillion dollars. According to a Wall Street Journal article, the Biden Administration’s EV goals would require the entire grid to be rebuilt within 10 years at a staggering cost of $7 trillion, or more than the entire 2021 United States federal budget. Were such goals even economically possible? Did they make any sense? Did anyone but a few of us even ask those questions?

As noted above, the Biden’s Administration plan called for 500,000 new EV charging stations, in order to accommodate the 18,700,000 EV that activists and some policy makers projected to be on the road in 2030. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, every 1,000 EVs require, on average, 3.4 Direct Current Fast Chargers (DCFCs) and 40 Level 2 charging ports. As Nives Dolsak and Aseem Prakash noted in Forbes Magazine, “assuming 35 million EVs by 2030, the U.S. will need to build about 50,000 DCFCs and 1.2 million Level 2 ports.” This meant that 380 EV charging ports would need to be installed each day from 2022 through 2030. Since 2022, the U.S. has installed about half that, or 140 EV charging ports today.

However, if 35 million EVs required 50,000 DCFCs and 1.2 million Level 2 ports, how many would we need for all 317 million cars expected to be on the road in the United States in 2030? That 785.7% increase in EVs would mean 392,875 DCFCs and 9.4 million Level 2 ports, or 3,353 a day. To say that has not happened is an understatement.

To date, the policymakers have not answered some key questions: How long will it take to install those DCFCs and Level 2 ports? Where are they being built? Is the space for those charging stations available? Who is paying for them? How many additional transformers, substations, transmission lines will be needed? Is there space for those where they are needed? Will the 19,519 municipalities, 16,360 town and township governments, and 3,031 county governments across the U.S. issue all of the necessary permits for the DCFCs and Level 2 ports that are necessary for the projected ICE to EV conversion?

In addition to the cost that the conversion to EVs would have imposed on the taxpayer, EVs are not, as widely assumed, zero emission. EVs are, and for the foreseeable future, will continue to be powered by electricity generated by coal, oil and natural gas; and the carbon dioxide generated from producing one EV battery alone, is equivalent to eight years of carbon dioxide emissions from one ICE vehicle.

Above: cure for EV range anxiety

The Biden Administration’s EV policies were made to appear to be beneficial and part of the solution to climate change; however, those policies denied the reality of the lack of infrastructure to support EVs in the U.S. and issues surrounding the availability of necessary resources manufacture EVs and EV batteries. Furthermore, The Biden Administration and Congress pushed those EV policies while overlooking EV’s negative environmental impacts, including those associated with mining the very minerals that are needed to produce and operate the EVs and fact that EVs, being significantly heavier than ICE vehicles, produce significantly more toxic tire dust than ICE vehicles. As Tuco’s Child noted in an October 19, 2025 piece in Substack, Tire Dust: The Greatest Source of Pollution from Automobiles - Not CO₂, carcinogenic particulate pollution from car tires is as much as 2,000 times worse than vehicle exhaust pipes. Indeed, despite spending trillions of taxpayer dollars, the Biden Administration and Congress ignored these concerns, and failed to implement the infrastructure and electrical grid improvements across the United States that would have been necessary to support the proposed increases in the number of EVs.

Similarly, the Biden Administration and Congress ignored the crucial questions regarding whether the infrastructure and technology advances necessary to convert all ICE vehicles to EVs were even possible in the time frames proposed. Indeed, before spending trillions of taxpayer dollars, two of the most basic questions should have been asked: (i) are the raw materials necessary to build 275 million cars actually available and extractable and, if so, in what time frame; and (ii) where and how fast we can install the necessary charging ports for all of those cars.

According to the International Energy Agency’s (“IEA”) World Energy Outlook Special Report, The Role of Critical Materials in Clean energy Transitions, “Lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite are crucial to battery performance, longevity and energy density – which is the key to EV range. Rare earth elements are essential for permanent magnets that are vital for wind turbines and EV motors” and that “a concerted effort to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement (climate stabilisation at ‘well below 2°C global temperature rise’, as in the SDS) would mean a quadrupling of mineral requirements for clean energy technologies by 2040. An even faster transition, to hit net-zero globally by 2050, would require six times more mineral inputs in 2040 than today.” In plain English, in order to meet climate goals, the IEA estimated in 2022 that the production of lithium would have to increase by 4,100%, graphite by 2,400%, cobalt by 2,000%, nickel by 1,800% and rare earth materials by 600%. That the Biden Administration and Congress did not have a plan on where, how, and when those minerals would be mined, by whom, and at what cost is now obvious to all.

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Importantly, the IEA noted that such a demand for those materials “poses huge questions about the availability and reliability of supply” and that the “expected supply from existing mines and projects under construction is estimated to meet only half of projected lithium and cobalt requirements, and 80% of copper needs by 2030.” Indeed, the IEA noted that, “it has taken 16.5 years on average to move mining projects from discovery to first production. These long lead times raise questions about the availability of supply and the ability to ramp up output if demand were to pick up rapidly.” Before spending trillions of taxpayer dollars, were these questions asked? Of course not.

Above: honey, where does lithium come from?

Moreover, the water intensive process necessary to mine such minerals would have made the necessary increases in production difficult to say the least. For example, in order to extract one metric ton of lithium (approximately enough for 125 EV batteries), it takes about 2 million liters of water. More than half of the world’s lithium lies beneath the salt flats beneath the Andean regions of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, one of the world’s driest regions. The impacts to water supplies, and associated environmental justice issues necessitated by a 4,100% increase in lithium production (not to mention the other necessary minerals), would be devastating on both environmental and social levels. This too was ignored.

Lastly, was there ever going to be enough of the necessary minerals to convert all ICE vehicles to EVs? Take lithium again, for example. According to UBS, by 2030, EVs would have needed 2,700 GWh worth of lithium-ion batteries a year” (20 million tons) or the “equivalent to 225 billion iPhone 11 batteries - and 13 times more battery power than we use today.” As UBS Global Head of Mining Research, Glyn Lawcock, wrote in 2022, “There is not sufficient supply to meet this demand projection based on our knowledge of known projects today. That includes all projects whether they are under construction, in feasibility, or still in exploration.”

Above: another fun day at the lithium mine.

According to an early 2020’s Bank of America Global Research report, the global EV battery supply is in danger of running out completely as soon as 2025. “Our updated EV battery supply-demand model suggests the global EV battery supply will likely hit [a] ‘sold-out’ situation between 2025-26, with its global operating rates reaching above 85%.” As Haley Zaremba wrote for OilPrice.com, this “supply shortage will be largely a product of rapidly increasing demand in a market that is simply unprepared for the levels of EV adoption coming down the pike in the immediate term.” As she wrote, “even in some of the most developed countries in the world, aging power grids are entirely unprepared to handle the onslaught of increased energy demand.”

Yet despite the issues of raw material availability, cost, and infrastructure required to handle the massive amount of electricity needed for the increased number of EVs planned by policymakers, and the impact to the water supply and environment in the mining processes necessary to convert all ICE engines to EVs, the Biden Administration, Congress, and multiple states went all on the banning of ICE engines and trying to impose the “energy transition” to EVs on unwilling consumers.

One would have hoped that our elected officials would have had answers to each of these questions before banning the sale of ICE vehicles and imposing EV mandates on us. Did our elected officials have those answers? Obviously not. Similarly, one would have assumed that the car companies that chose to stop manufacturing ICE vehicles would have wanted to know the answers to all of these questions before overturning their business models. Indeed, these are the questions that should been be answered before we tried to convert all passenger cars to EVs; however, such questions were largely ignored by policymakers mandating the elimination of ICE sales in favor of EVs by 2035 and automakers whose dismal sales have resulted in huge losses.

But why? Well, the average new EV sold in the U.S. has a median driving range of 250 miles, the average new ICE vehicle has a range of 412 miles. Without the full build out of a nationwide charging station network, the limited EV driving range is an issue for many customers. But that driving range is only one of many reasons why consumers never bought in to EVs. Another major issues is the inconvenience of recharging an EV. Indeed, while it usually takes approximately five minutes to refill a passenger car’s gas tank, charging an EV using a Level 2 charger can range from 7 hours for a BMW i3, to 12 hours for a Tesla Model S or Model 3.

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Further, it should be noted that regular use of the faster charging DCFCs reduces battery life because the higher current raises battery temperatures. Additionally, as noted by Arthur Novichenko in Hotcars.com, different “automakers use three kinds of DC fast charges: most automakers use the SAE Combined Charging System, Nissan and Mitsubishi use CHAdeMO, and Tesla uses Tesla Supercharger. The absence of vehicle compatibility is different from universal vehicle access to gas stations and can be a huge barrier to widespread electric car realization.”

Moreover, EVs lose a significant amount of the expected driving range in cold weather. According to the AAA, the average driving range of an EV decreases by 41 percent at temperatures below 20 degrees Fahrenheit. This, of course, would cause an EV owner to make sure the charge is “topped off” to avoid losing a charge; however, EV batteries work best when running at a charge level between 20 percent and 80 percent. As Andrew J. Hawkins noted in The Verge, when the temperature drops, “EV owners have the same instinct as their internal combustion engine-driving brethren, which is to crank up the heat as high as it will go. This puts a serious strain on an EV’s battery, reducing the overall range and increasing the need to charge more often to minimize the chance of being stranded by a dead battery.” Similarly, as Mr. Hawkins also noted, extreme warm temperatures requiring the use of air conditioning can reduce EV driving range by as much as 17 percent.

Above: freezing A & rotsa ruck.

More than a mere inconvenience, one of the clear drawbacks of EVs is the inability to charge them during power outages. How many times have we watched as hundreds or thousands of drivers flee their homes to avoid impending natural disasters, or to flee after a natural disaster? How do you charge your EV to escape a hurricane, or the aftermath of an earthquake or tornado if there is no power? What about those who get stranded on highways where fast approaching snowstorms suddenly trap those stuck in rush hour traffic forcing people to sit in their cars for hours and often abandoning their cars when their fuel tanks are empty and there is no heat? When the storm clears, emergency responders can deliver gasoline to the cars with empty gas tanks. What do we do if hundreds or thousands of those cars are EVs with no access to a battery charge? It is not so easy to deliver the electrons that would be needed.

Above: tow companies cash cow.

Thus, for most consumers, the question is why would they buy a more expensive EV which has a shorter driving range than a comparable ICE vehicles (250 miles v. 412 miles), when there are substantially fewer charging stations across the country compared to gasoline stations (77,000 v. 150,000), the average time to charge an ICE vehicle is exponentially longer than an ICE vehicle (420 minutes for a BMW i3 and 720 minutes for a Tesla versus 5 minutes for an ICE vehicle), and EVs’ already limited range is further reduced in cold and hot climates? Perhaps they are less expensive?

According to edmunds.com, the average transaction price for an electric vehicle in 2024 was $53,048 or more than $17,000 higher than what an average gas-powered car would cost. While it is true that the Biden Administration’s Build Back Better proposal included thousands of dollars in tax credits to qualifying cars, those cars needed to be built in in the U.S. by unionized labor, thus making them more expensive, and those subsidies expired earlier this year.

According to a 2022 CNBC article which cited the U.S. Department of Energy, it takes at least 15 years before an EV costs less than a similar gas-only model when you factor in the purchase price, maintenance, financing, repairs, the federal tax break, and fuel costs. Overall, it is about $0.02 less a mile to own an EV as opposed to gasoline only vehicle. However, does that two cents a mile (spread out over the typical ownership of 12-15 years) seem worth it to the driver who has to spend more than $11,000 up front to buy the EV and then worries about finding a charging station, the time it takes to charge his or her car, or whether turning the heat or air conditioning on will result in running out of a battery charge before finding the next charging station? Certainly there is some percentage of drivers who will agree to such a tradeoff to “address” the issue of climate change. Currently, however, that percentage has been shrinking and 2025 polling found that only about 33% of Americans would consider an EV and the percentage that would pay a premium to do so is undoubtedly less. Importantly, polling from October 2025 reveals that only 38% of Americans would spend one dollar a month to mitigate climate change.

The obvious, but seemingly often overlooked fact is that EVs have to be manufactured using electricity and then have to be charged by the electric grid, where nearly two-thirds of the electricity necessary to power the electric grid, that will charge EVs, is created by burning of fossil fuels. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2020, 40% of all electricity generation in the United States was supplied by natural gas, while 20% was supplied by nuclear, 19% by coal, 8.4% by wind, 7.3% by hydropower, 2.3% by solar, 1.4% by biomass, 1% by petroleum, and 0.5% by geothermal. In other words, two-thirds of our electric grid is powered by hydrocarbons.

Despite technical advances and the application of carbon capture storage, none of this is likely to change in the near future. Furthermore, EVs create two times higher greenhouse gas emissions in production, with battery production responsible for 10-70% of greenhouse gas emissions, and cell manufacturing and battery assembly accounting for between 3-80% of the total battery emissions during the production phase.

According to the Global Energy Institute’s review of the IEA’s 2018 World Energy Outlook, worldwide energy demand is expected to grow by about 27%, from 2017 to 2040 and, despite the trillions of dollars that will be spent on “decarbonization,” hydrocarbons are still expected to account for 74% of all energy supply. Why is that? Because reliably meeting “100% of total annual electricity demand, seasonal cycles and unpredictable weather events requires several weeks’ worth of energy storage and/or the installation of much more capacity of solar and wind power than is routinely necessary to meet peak demand.” An analysis published in Energy & Environmental Science found that an all solar/wind grid could keep America’s lights on 99.97 percent of the time using just 12 hours of storage. However, as Mark P. Mills, wrote in City-Journal.org, “[t]hat sounds good until you do the math. On average, that statistical level of reliability means there would be a few hours of zero power every year. But that doesn’t include the unpredictable but inevitable episodes—even as few as every couple of years—of continent-wide blackouts due to extended sunlight/wind droughts.”

Such widespread blackouts occurred in California in August 2021, China in September 2021, and Spain and Portugal in 2025. Each series of blackouts was accompanied by a government ordered rush to bring fossil fuels back to secure the energy supply (natural gas in California, and coal in China). Similarly, Europe has seen blackouts, near blackouts, and energy prices soaring more than 230% when compared to 2020. What caused all of that? Much of Europe shut their coal plants and nuclear over the past few years, leaving much of the continent to rely on renewables. Then, the wind stopped blowing off the North Sea in August 2021 and renewables overloaded an unstable grid in Spain in Portugal in 2025. As Joe Wallace of the Wall Street Journal put it, “[t]he sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production off the coast of the U.K. in recent weeks whipsawed through regional energy markets. Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in, at extreme costs, to make up the shortfall from wind.” What will happen when the wind stops blowing again? And, what if there are prolonged periods of cloud cover?

As Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution wrote in the Wall Street Journal, on September 30, 2021, “[t]he solar and wind favored by environmentalists generate only 8% [of electricity]. Though renewables are often touted as the cheapest energy source, it’s only true when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. If it’s a still night you need backup power, typically from fossil fuels—which makes electricity costlier because you need to pay for both the solar panel and the gas turbine.” Since we cannot yet control when the sun shines and the wind blows, and since we do not yet have the battery infrastructure to manage the variables in renewables, we have no choice, for now, but to continue to rely on fossil fuels, even if the extent that we rely on them is reduced over time.

In sum, because building EVs expends a significant amount of energy and because, for the foreseeable future, most EVs will be powered by batteries that need to be charged regularly using electricity that is reliably generated by the burning of fossil fuels, EVs are not the easy answer to the problem of atmospheric carbon as all too many people assume.

Because of these, it is clear that the complete changeover from ICE vehicles to EVs within the various time frames demanded/proposed has not and will not happen.

Indeed, notwithstanding the untold billions of dollars that have been spent to date on the EV charging infrastructure, consumers remain dissatisfied with the inconvenience of battery charging when relying on them for their primary mode of transportation and charging costs, a 2025 AAA study revealed that only 16% of customers are likely or very likely to consider a battery electric vehicle as their next purchase and As Robert Bryce noted in his recent piece, Ford’s $35.1 Billion EV Fiasco, Felony stupid, 57% of EV owners earn more than $100,000 annually, 75% are male, and 87% are white, and according to a University California, Berkeley study, most of those potential customers are concentrated in “counties with affluent left-leaning cities” like Cambridge, San Francisco, and Seattle “play a disproportionately large role in driving the entire national increase in EV adoption.”

And, despite the overall consumer dissatisfaction with EVs, and the fact that they are mostly toys for wealthy white men living in deep blue, left-leaning communities, almost all legacy automakers promised bright EV futures including some companies that promised to cease the production of all ICE models in the next decade or so. At the same time, California, New Mexico, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, Hawaii, Connecticut, New York, Oregon, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Washington have all adopted bans on the sale of new gasoline or diesel vehicles by 2035.

Yet, of the automakers who pledged to throw out their current ICE-based business models and adopt EV platforms consider whether their customers wanted to drive an EV? Especially without the necessary infrastructure in place, or even a realistic plan for such infrastructure? Did they, or did the States that have adopted ICE engine bans, ever ask the public for their opinion or are they simply going to force EVs onto a public that is currently highly skeptical? Obviously not, as Ford Motor Company just took a write down on their books of $19,500,000,000. In fact, since 2022, Ford has lost over $35.1 billion dollars on EVs.

And, if you thought Ford EV losses were an outlier, think again. With the exception of Tesla and a number of Chinese companies, automakers worldwide continue to lose billions, whether its dollars, or euros. According to Automotive News, automakers lose on, on average, $6,000 for every EV they sell. According to Grok AI, since 2020, legacy automakers have lost between $50-$70 billion dollars: Ford ($19.5 billion), GM ($8-10 billion), Volkswagen ($15-20 billion), Stellantis ($5-7 billion), Hyundai ($4-6 billion), Toyota ($3-5 billion), Honda ($1-2 billion), Nissan ($3-4 billion), and BMW/Mercedes (a combined $4-6 billion). Talk about a train wreck!

Have automakers learned their lesson and do they now understand that consumers, by and large, simply do not want EVs? If only common sense were common. After taking a $19.5 billion dollar write down, is Ford ready to scrap its EVs? Not at all. As Robert Bryce noted, Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, oblivious to his failed policy and investor losses stated that “Instead of plowing billions into the future knowing these large EVs will never make money, we are pivoting,” that “[w]e now know enough about the US market where we have a lot more certainty in this second inning” of reduced-emissions powertrains, and that “[w]e’ve got to land the plane.” Robert Bryce’s price retort said it all: “Land the plane? Dude! Your entire EV strategy, the strategy you were in charge of, just crashed and burst into flames, and the bill for the damage is, checks notes…$35.1 billion! And yet, you say you have ‘got to land the plane.’”

Once again, Ford’s stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge reality is not an outlier. Porsche, a company once greatly admired, is, like Ford, unwilling to consider the possibility that it’s all EV business plan has been an unmitigated disaster. As Tuco’s Child recently put it in a November 22, 2025 Substack piece, Going Down With The Ship: Porsche Won’t Give Up on EVs, Porsche, “still adhering to delirious EV mandates and Teutonic Green Fantasies” has lost billions of dollars and priced its EV models as if consumers were demanding them and if those prices had been “generated by an AI trained on Sotheby’s auction results.”

In conclusion, it is clear that despite the billions of taxpayer dollars wasted, the widespread propaganda of how cool EVs are, how great they are for the environment, and all of the state and federal laws, subsidies and automaker marketing pushing consumer to buy EVs, the fact remains that consumers never bought into EVs and why should we be surprised? After all, EVs still do not come without significant downsides such as serious inconvenience to consumers include limited range, battery charging time, and increased costs, not to mention the adverse environmental impacts caused by mining and production, and toxic tire dust, and the technical hurdles caused by the limited supply of necessary minerals.

From the consumer’s perspective, from a logical perspective, from an economic perspective, and an environmental perspective, it is clear that it is past time for the States that have EV mandates or equivalent laws on their books to follow the Federal Government and finally repeal those mandates and for those car makers that still don’t understand their customers, it is well past time to give up the pipe dream of EVs. To our elected officials and those automaker corporate officers and board members, are any of you listening?

Above: Greek Theater in Taormina, Sicily.

Flying to Sicily

I recently took a One Percenter-style trip from the West Coast to Sicily in a Boeing 777, a gloriously inefficient fossil fueled contraption which unabashedly generates copious quantities of heat, CO₂ and water.

It always amazes me how big jetliners stay aloft. A relatively crude contraption in simple terms, a jetliner is a friction generating winged aluminum tube propelled by jet engines running at maybe 30% thermodynamic efficiency. Weighting up to 775,000 lbs in the case of a loaded Boeing 777 at take-off, to stay aloft, the plane contends with 4 forces acting upon it, per below:

Above: thirsty jet engines fight drag and gravity and propel you to adventure.

The Jet Fuel Consumed for Italy Fun and Culture

For a 11-14 hours non-stop flight from SFO to Rome (FCO), you are looking at the following 777 fossil fuel carnage:

• San Francisco to Rome is approximately 6264.3 air miles.

• A 777, depending on the version gets between 0.2 and 0.3 MPG at the aircraft level.

• The jet fuel consumed for the 777 for that flight is roughly 20,880 gallons !

• The miles per gallon per passenger (seat miles) is about 70 MPG depending on load and route.

• In case you are further intrigued, a fuel consumption table for many commercial aircraft can be found here.

Ciao Bella! - Sicilian Oil Reserves and Refineries-

Above: The ISAB refinery in Sicily generates 20 % of Italy’s refined oil products

Powering Italia. It’s not all cappuccinos and quaint villages, you still need plenty of fuel to run Italy ! In fact, 80 % of Italian energy needs are fulfilled from oil and gas. “Renewables” are a tiny fraction as expected, and may find utility on a remote farm.

It was also drawn to my attention that Italy and Sicily possess significant oil reserves, and Sicily in particular has a large oil refining capacity that supplies mainland Italia and others. For example, the ISAB plant in Sicily refines 320,000 barrels per day of crude, accounting for a fifth (20 %) of Italy's refining capacity, and directly employs about 1,000 people in an economically depressed area in the country's southernmost region.

The Glorious Targa Florio Road Race in Sicily

Above: The first Targa Florio in 1906 was a groundbreaking event, since it was the first form of open road automobile endurance racing ever held in Italy.

During my trip, I didn't fret about the fossil fuel consumption too much, because I was on an “all natural” walking tour in the Sicilian countryside, and covered 85 miles over a 2-week period, walking from village to village, as fueled by awesome Italian food. Along the way, at major intersections, I looked longingly at the Targa Florio signs, wondering how fun it would be to drive a vintage car along this famous route.

Above: vintage Alfa on the Targa Florio in Sicily.

Above: vintage Ferrari on the Targa Florio in Sicily.

Walking Sicily and SNL Sprockets on the Trail

Above: view of Mt. Etna.

The Sicilian countryside is beautiful, the people are friendly, and the Mt. Etna reds are exceptional. On these walks, from town to town, one occasionally meets other walkers, mostly from the U.K. or Germany.

On the trail, I had the opportunity to chat with a German couple: a ruddy perspiring Dieter who was accompanied by a Stern Tall Frau with short cropped bleach blond hair. As is the style, Dieter and Frau were wearing brightly colored synthetic fabric hiking outfits, trick hiking boots, and day packs made from polyester and nylon. I note that most hiking technical gear is produced by fossil fuels, so green cred is really not part of that equation.

Despite the Sicilian sun, the couple were not wearing hats, and were badly sunburned. In my travels, I have seen many Germans that don't use sunblock or hats - they apparently go for the Lobster Look, and post-vacation bragging rights, as there are few sunny days in Germany and the weather is generally depressing.

Above: lobster 🦞 time.

In truth, I was interested in the Green Couple’s thoughts on Germany’s Energiewende, or energy transition fiasco, so I cast out some subtle yet irresistable baited questions ;-). In response, my new acquaintances staunchly defended Germany’s Energiewende, most notably in support of the closing of Germany's nuclear power plants. They also expressed fear of the Orange Man, and what Putin was going to do next in Ukraine.

To calm my fellow walkers and smooth out the conversation I assured them that the USA taxpayers would continue to fund NATO and the Ukraine war, and that the printing presses were running 24 x 7. That seemed to calm them.

Above: German activist declaring victory over nuclear power 2023, Germany’s Energiewende.

As our stilted conversation became tiresome for me (I was supposed to be on vacation) I bid them Ciao Ciao, all the while smugly swathed in my comfortable, breathable and odor free merino hiking outfit (derived from organic sheep wool).

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Michael Corleone goes back to Sicily (classic scene from The Godfather)

Triple 7 vs Hybrid: Shocking Fuel Efficiency!

Tuco’s Child Preface

Dear Readers, just when you thought the high-fever EV nightmare was over, after many tens of billions of dollars lost by automakers worldwide, one automaker salutes and stands alone on a sinking ship. Yes, it is iconic Porsche - still adhering to delirious EV mandates and Teutonic Green Fantasies that consumers want an electric Porsche instead of the iconic and glorious ICE flat-six powered 911 or other Porsche ICE vehicles.

Owning a Porsche is beyond the reach of most - and now more than ever due to price increases from the huge engineering and retooling costs incurred by Porsche for factories to produce EVs that nobody wants.

Porsche has been in the humiliation position for awhile now, including a glorious maritime fiasco in which a Porsche Taycan EV caught fire and sank an entire cargo ship, per below:

Not to be outdone by simply wasting cash and sinking ships, Porsche blew wads on a demonstration production plant to produce “green” synthetic fuels off the coast of Spain using windmills and magic dust per the article below:

Given the above back-drop, a friend recently passed on the following article, edited for length and content below, that describes how Porsche insists on staying the course with EVs despite billions of Euros and thousands of jobs lost thus far.

New Giant Rolling Whale: Cayenne EV weighs a whopping 5,831 pounds (2,645 kilograms) without a driver. The battery alone weighs 1,322 lbs.

Porsche’s Catastrophic EVisceration: Prices go Up and Sales Crater

Adapted from AutoEvolution, Alex Oagana

Porsche is still adhering to an electrification strategy that assumes Porsche buyers desperately want an EV in every imaginable body style - even though their actual purchasing habits politely disagree, as reflected in ICE Porsche sales.

Spendy, Spendy. Due to the EV albatross, the 911 Carrera - a car once synonymous with ‘attainable exotic‘ - can now be specced at a price that would’ve bought you a Turbo not all that long ago, like about $150 K for the starter package.

The lame brain Macan EV, introduced as a mass-market lifeline to the Porsche badge, arrived with a sticker that suggests ‘mass-market‘ was a typo. The worst offender is the cargo ship sinking Taycan - Porsche’s “electric crown jewel”. Now ex-CEO Porsche Blume used the Tacan as both a lighthouse and a battering ram for the brand’s EV transition, now many sit on dealer lots in numbers that whisper a truth the marketing department would never dare say aloud: the ICE Porsches are still the best sellers by far.

Porsche is currently caught between two identities: one is the Porsche that enthusiasts romanticize - light, sonorous, rear-driven, combustion-powered. The other is the Porsche that executives envision - electric, scalable, margin-optimized, and aimed at a future where legislation, not desire, dictates the powertrain.

The result is a lineup where the electric models are priced as if they’re already the dominant choice… even though the sales charts keep clearing their throat, loudly and repeatedly.

What makes this moment particularly strange is that Porsche has never been more profitable, more influential, or more confident in its own branding. But it achieved that position not through volume EV adoption or futuristic tech moonshots - it got there because its ICE models, the ones Brussels increasingly frowns upon, are still the heartbeat of the brand. The 911, Cayenne, and gas Macan (until recently) are still the quiet heroes keeping the entire EV strategy solvent.

So why the pricing frenzy? Why does everything from a Taycan to a Panamera now cost ‘one carefully optioned MacBook more‘ every year? Because Porsche has learned a brutal lesson from the luxury industry: High demand doesn’t justify high prices. High identity does.

And right now, Porsche is trying to fund tomorrow’s electric dreams with yesterday’s combustion-powered credibility. When EU regulations push harder, the brand leans further into EV development. When EV sales wobble, the pricing of ICE models quietly floats upward to compensate. It’s a financial feedback loop powered by regulatory anxiety and shareholder optimism.

Which leaves buyers - enthusiasts, loyalists, longtime Porsche families - staring at MSRP sheets that feel like they were generated by an AI trained on Sotheby’s auction results.

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The EV Bet: A Porsche Double Down Debacle

Photo: Porsche AG

To understand Porsche’s current fixation on electrification, you have to imagine a boardroom where everyone agrees on one thing: The regulations are coming, whether the customers want them or not. And while other manufacturers panic-react with half-hearted hybrids or apologetic EVs that feel like they were designed by the intern, Porsche did something much more ambitious - and much riskier: it tried to future-proof the brand by force.

Enter the Taycan. The car that was supposed to be Porsche’s electric Moses, parting the lithium-ion seas and leading the faithful into a promised land of instant torque and silent heroics. And to be fair, the Taycan is a masterpiece of engineering. It drives like a 911 that spent a summer in a tech incubator. It charges quickly, handles brilliantly, and looks more expensive than it already is, which is quite an achievement.

But the Taycan also exposed a truth Porsche wasn’t prepared for: EV enthusiasm and EV purchasing are not the same thing. Everyone loved the idea of a Porsche EV. Fewer people loved the payments. Even fewer loved the range in winter. And the fewest of all loved watching depreciation hit a Taycan like gravity hits a piano.

Yet Porsche doubled down. Hard. Because in the post-Dieselgate landscape of German executive thought, being ahead of the regulatory curve isn’t just smart - it’s mandatory. Porsche couldn’t afford to be seen as the stubborn, combustion-loving relic while Audi, BMW, and Mercedes showed up to Brussels with a bouquet of zero-emission compliance charts.

So the company went all-in on a strategic blueprint that assumed three things. EV adoption would accelerate exponentially; prices of batteries and rare-earth materials would drop accordingly; EU legislators wouldn’t change direction midair.

All three of those assumptions aged like leftover seafood. EV growth slowed. Battery costs stayed annoyingly high. And Europe - so certain about a 2035 ICE ban - has been wobbling like a politician who just discovered what rural voters actually drive.

Still, Porsche pressed forward, expanding the Taycan lineup, preparing an electric Macan that somehow weighs more than a coastal village, quietly planning for an electric Cayenne that weighs even more, and sketching out the long-term possibility of a fully electric 911, since the hybrid one is already here. Because from Stuttgart’s perspective, hesitation is riskier than action.

If the future is electric, Porsche wants to own the desirable part of that future. If the future is hybrid, Porsche wants to appear as the brand that arrived early rather than reluctantly. And if the future reverses course entirely… well, there are enough accountants in the building to figure that out later.

Behind the scenes, former CEO Oliver Blume’s strategy was simple: Make Porsche the performance EV brand before anyone else even tries. Tesla can have the drag strip. Audi can have the corporate fleet. Mercedes can have the executive lounge. But Porsche? Porsche would own the fun part.

The problem is that enthusiasts didn’t sign up for this plan. They came to Porsche because it built emotional machines - cars that vibrate, resonate, inhale, and exhale. Cars that feel alive. And alive is not the adjective most people use when describing 2.6 tons of thermal management systems and torque vectoring algorithms.

Yet Porsche keeps building them. Because commitments were made. Factories retooled. Supplier contracts inked. Corporate direction set. And, crucially, because Porsche has convinced itself that it can electrify its identity without electrifying away its identity.

This reveals the core paradox of modern Porsche: It’s doing the right thing for tomorrow, even if tomorrow’s customers aren’t ready, and today’s customers are quietly wondering why their options menu now includes ‘battery pack cooling.’

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Porsche EV Losses Increase Porsche ICE Car Prices

Photo: Porsche AG

The official line from Porsche remained a kind of glassy-eyed optimism: ‘We are committed to providing the highest quality products in a transitioning marketplace.’ Translation: EV development costs money, and you’re going to help pay for it.

This is the part Porsche will never say out loud. Developing a full EV ecosystem - from platforms to drivetrains to charging networks - is a financial supernova. Even for Porsche. Especially for Porsche, because Stuttgart doesn’t build cheap things, and Stuttgart sure as hell doesn’t want to build boring ones.

But the real kicker is that the EVs Porsche is building don’t yet sell in the volumes necessary to balance the sheet. EV adoption curves aren’t matching the projected slope lines on those shiny investor slides. Taycan demand cooled off. The electric Macan enters a market where consumers are having something of an existential crisis over range, charging, and depreciation. And the 911 - Porsche’s crown jewel - remains off-limits for full electrification because the company knows exactly what kind of brand suicide note that would be.

So, what’s the solution? Make combustion cars more expensive. Make the hybrid cars even more expensive. A Taycan with the exact same options and somewhat similar performance to a Panamera is around 50 to 70k cheaper. Why is that? To funnel revenue from the cars people actually want into the ones that regulators say they must eventually want.

It’s a cross-subsidy masquerading as product strategy. Porsche isn’t alone - BMW, Mercedes, Audi, they’re all doing some version of this - but Porsche is unique in one critical regard: its customers will pay it.

Not happily. Not loudly. But consistently. Which, mathematically, is even better.

Because Porsche understands something other brands forgot: Once someone decides they want a Porsche, they don’t compare prices to other cars. They compare prices to the idea of what a Porsche should cost. And if that idea shifts upward gradually enough, the customer’s perception shifts with it.

This is not a conspiracy. It’s not a scam. It’s a survival mechanism dressed in carbon fiber and wrapped in corporate optimism. Porsche wants to electrify its future - but it wants you, the loyal buyer, to electrify its balance sheet in the meantime.

And unless the EV projections take a very dramatic turn upward, this is going to continue. The creeping cost of admission into Porsche-hood will keep creeping, because Porsche can’t afford not to creep it.

We love classic air cooled 911s

Above: Bon vivant Gavin owns vineyards he founded with Gordon Getty, of Getty Oil fame.

Tuco’s Child Preface

Dear Readers, one of the great things about Substack is the ability to meet and access experts in their respective fields. Recently, Gene Nelson of GreenNuke introduced me to Edward Ring, the Director of Water and Energy Policy at the California Policy Center, who is an advocate for common sense energy policy in California. Ed and I have discussed the trials and tribulations of the oil and gas industry in California, reflected in a series of articles published in this Substack, including the recent below:

In our conversations, Ed pointed out that despite Gavin Newsom’s recent “efforts” to keep California refineries open and slow the exodus of the oil and gas industry; California is now at a dangerous tipping point with regards to stable supplies of petroleum fuels. This perilous state of affairs is outlined in detail in the following important article by Ed Ring.

Above: California Dreaming - you can’t have one without the other.

Newsom’s Concessions to the Oil Industry Will Not Save It

By Edward Ring

Access to adequate supplies of gasoline and diesel fuel for Californians is in dire peril, and the signing of SB 237 on September 19 will do very little to change that. To rescue the industry, far more sweeping legislation is required.

First, to put this in perspective, note that fully 50 percent of California’s raw energy inputs still rely on petroleum. We can debate the virtues and detriments of fossil fuel all we like, but we can’t change this math. Californians need petroleum products, and at the same time, our state legislature has systematically attempted to destroy the industry.

The supposed breakthrough represented by SB 237 is that it will restart permitting for drilling. It directs CalGEM (California’s Geologic Energy Management Division) to issue up to 2,000 drilling permits. This volume of permitting is necessary to sustain production, but under pressure from state agencies and regulators, the volume of drilling permits has steadily dropped; only 74 were granted in 2024.

As a result, California’s in-state oil production has dropped from a high of 402 million barrels in 1986, to only 118 million barrels in 2024. But consumption has not fallen nearly as fast. In 1986 California consumed 676 million barrels of oil, and that total has only declined to 511 million barrels in 2024. We now import 77 percent of our petroleum.

Above: soon to close Valero refinery in California.

The inadequacies with SB 237 are many. To begin with, it only directs CalGEM to issue a higher volume of permits in Kern County. This leaves areas of the state with high value fields completely cut off, including Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties. Even if Kern County drillers were reactivated overnight under ideal conditions, they could not produce enough oil to replace what’s being lost as existing wells everywhere else are being forced to shut down, or are naturally depleted and deactivated.

Moreover, SB 237 does not allow for fracking, and most of the oil wells in Kern County require fracking. California’s regulators do not acknowledge that, in contrast to Texas, fracking in California is done in relatively soft soil and at shallower depths. This means it requires far less energy and far less water, and has a far more localized impact. Fracking in California is responsible and safe, but CalGEM is keeping it out of bounds.

Compounding the problems with SB 237 is the fact that it does not override SB 1137 which puts boundaries on oil fields. SB 1137, currently in litigation, restricts drilling to areas that are at least 3,200 feet away from any inhabited structure. Unless SB 1137 is overturned, it will further limit how much oil can be extracted in Kern County, or anywhere else in California.

The next link in California’s endangered oil supply chain are the major north/south pipelines that carry oil from California’s wells to California’s refineries. As it is, thanks to the steady decline in production, the major pipelines moving oil in California are flowing at rates that are almost too low to be sustained. The pipelines cannot operate if the flow of oil is much below 25 percent of their capacity, and right now they are approaching that tipping point. The pipelines also have to charge far more per barrel when they’re so underutilized, since their fixed costs don’t change.

Less oil. No way to move the oil to refineries. And then there are the refineries themselves. Operators are justifiably asking why they should stay active in a state that regulates their profits, micromanages their storage and distribution, and imposes environmental regulations far in excess of any other state or nation. As it is, two major refineries, Valero in Northern California, and Phillips 66 in Southern California, have both announced they will cease operations. When this happens, California’s refineries will not have the capacity to supply the state’s current demand for gasoline and diesel fuel.

Above: The Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, California, is set to close by the end of 2025, resulting in the loss of approximately 600 jobs and a significant reduction in the state’s refining capacity.

What Californians need is a practical approach to energy policy, one that includes a long overdue acknowledgment of facts that contradict the incessant, rote demonization of fossil fuel. For example, natural seepage of oil in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties releases into our air and water more oil, methane, and volatile organic compounds than the drilling itself. In fact, capped wells often release more gaseous pollution than active wells, and even with extremely expensive attempts to prevent that on a carefully capped well, the pressure that naturally builds under the cap means that gas inevitably escapes. The City of Los Angeles could improve its air quality if it resumed drilling.

Someone closely following California’s oil industry told me “there is a reasonable chance SB 237 hasn’t done anything at all. It’s all just show.”

Supporting California’s oil and gas industry while committing to alternative fuel technologies as soon as they become competitive are not incompatible sentiments. And trying to kill an industry that still accounts for 50 percent of California’s total energy consumption is suicide.

Governor Newsom and the state legislature need to seriously confront the problems their governance has sown before these problems explode into an energy crisis that will make 1973 look like a picnic. SB 237 is a very, very small step in the right direction at most. More likely, it is merely a gesture.

Above: Baby Gavin started his first wine store in SF, now he is an owner of a multi-million dollar winery in Napa. He currently lives in a bubble and burns plenty of fossil fuels to maintain his 1 % ‘er lifestyle.

Dear Readers, I was recently surprised to learn that tire dust from cars going down the road is the largest source of toxic pollution from cars and is the number one source of microplastics in the ocean. EVs are the worst offenders because they can weigh 1000 to 2000 lbs more than ICE cars to achieve a barely passable mileage range. This is because the energy density of Li batteries is very low compared to other fuels, per the previous article below:

No matter how much EV proponents would like the Laws of Physics to be different, no amount of magical thinking will change our current physical reality with regards to the conservation of matter and energy. The simple mechanics of increased carcinogenic particulate generation by EVs are described below, and in a following article.

A 2 minute Primer on Tires Creating Toxic Tire Dust

When a tire rolls down the road, the contact patch instantaneously sticks and unsticks to the road surface, and thus the tire wears via abrasion. The abraded rubber particles are then suspended in the air and are blown by air currents over large areas.

Tire adherence to the road, or traction, is largely influenced by rubber tire chemistry and materials, the weight of the car, tire temperatures, and the forces on the tire.

Softer stickier tire compounds wear faster and leave larger more gummy debris, while the more common harder higher mileage tire compounds wear more slowly, and generate vast plumes of finer particulates that comprise of carcinogenic compounds from the tire manufacturing process.

As mentioned, EVs can weigh 1,000 - 2000 lbs or more than ICE cars due to the batteries, and thus they wear out tires 20 to 50 % faster, and create more toxic tire dust than an ICE car. Fortunately, EVs are dying off, but we should be aware that every car creates toxic tire dust particles.

Particulate Pollution from Car Tires is 2,000 times Worse than that from Vehicle Exhaust Pipes, so zero EV Tailpipe Emissions will Make no Difference in Local Air Quality

Damian Carrington Environment editor, The Guardian

Almost 2,000 times more particle pollution is produced by tyre wear than is pumped out of the exhausts of modern cars, tests have shown.

Log bar graph from Emissions Analytics show massive contribution of tire particulates vs. tailpipe particulates. Tire particulates are more toxic than tailpipe gas and particle emissions.

The tyre particles pollute air, water and soil and contain a wide range of toxic organic compounds, including known carcinogens, the analysts say, suggesting tyre pollution could rapidly become a major issue for regulators.

Air pollution causes millions of early deaths a year globally. The requirement for better filters has meant particle emissions from tailpipes in developed countries are now much lower in new cars, with those in Europe far below the legal limit. However, the increasing weight of cars means more particles are being thrown off by tyres as they wear on the road.

The tests also revealed that tyres produce more than 1tn ultrafine particles for each kilometre driven, meaning particles smaller than 23 nanometres. These are also emitted from exhausts and are of special concern to health, as their size means they can enter organs via the bloodstream. Particles below 23nm are hard to measure and are not currently regulated in either the EU or US.

“Tyres are rapidly eclipsing the tailpipe as a major source of emissions from vehicles,” said Nick Molden, at Emissions Analytics, the leading independent emissions testing company that did the research. “Tailpipes are now so clean for pollutants that, if you were starting out afresh, you wouldn’t even bother regulating them.”

Molden said an initial estimate of tyre particle emissions prompted the new work. “We came to a bewildering amount of material being released into the environment – 300,000 tonnes of tyre rubber in the UK and US, just from cars and vans every year.”

There are currently no regulations on the wear rate of tyres and little regulation on the chemicals they contain. Emissions Analytics has now determined the chemicals present in 250 different types of tyres, which are usually made from synthetic rubber, derived from crude oil. “There are hundreds and hundreds of chemicals, many of which are carcinogenic,” Molden said. “When you multiply it by the total wear rates, you get to some very staggering figures as to what’s being released.”

The wear rate of different tyre brands varied substantially and the toxic chemical content varied even more, he said, showing low-cost changes were feasible to cut their environmental impact.

“You could do a lot by eliminating the most toxic tyres,” he said. “It’s not about stopping people driving, or having to invent completely different new tyres. If you could eliminate the worst half, and maybe bring them in line with the best in class, you can make a massive difference. But at the moment, there’s no regulatory tool, there’s no surveillance.”

The tests of tyre wear were done on 14 different brands using a Mercedes C-Class driven normally on the road, with some tested over their full lifetime. High-precision scales measured the weight lost by the tyres and a sampling system that collects particles behind the tyres while driving assessed the mass, number and size of particles, down to 6nm. The real-world exhaust emissions were measured across four petrol SUVs, the most popular new cars today, using models from 2019 and 2020.

Used tyres produced 36 milligrams of particles each kilometre, 1,850 times higher than the 0.02 mg/km average from the exhausts. A very aggressive – though legal – driving style sent particle emissions soaring, to 5,760 mg/km.

Far more small particles are produced by the tyres than large ones. This means that while the vast majority of the particles by number are small enough to become airborne and contribute to air pollution, these represent only 11% of the particles by weight. Nonetheless, tyres still produce hundreds of times more airborne particles by weight than the exhausts.

The average weight of all cars has been increasing. But there has been particular debate over whether battery electric vehicles (BEVs), which are heavier than conventional cars and can have greater wheel torque, may lead to more tyre particles being produced. Molden said it would depend on driving style, with gentle EV drivers producing fewer particles than fossil-fuelled cars driven badly, though on average he expected slightly higher tyre particles from BEVs.

Dr James Tate, at the University of Leeds’ Institute for Transport Studies in the UK, said the tyre test results were credible. “But it is very important to note that BEVs are becoming lighter very fast,” he said. “By 2024-25 we expect BEVs and [fossil-fuelled] city cars will have comparable weights. Only high-end, large BEVs with high capacity batteries will weigh more.”

Other recent research has suggested tyre particles are a major source of the microplastics polluting the oceans. A specific chemical used in tyres has been linked to salmon deaths in the US and California proposed a ban this month.

The fate of tire dust in our environment.

Innocent fun, but not great for your lungs.

Bonus Materials Including Original Study:

Gaining traction, losing tread Pollution from tire wear now 1,850 times worse than exhaust emissions

Composition and transformation chemistry of tire-wear derived organic chemicals and implications for air pollution

Above: Recent fire at the Chevron Refinery in California.

Tuco’s Child Preface

Dear Readers, the gyrations of the political chameleon Gavin Newsom continue to astound, as his Net-Zero Carbon policies have irrecoverably damaged the California economy, per the article below:

Just recently, Stu Turley, David Blackmon, and Mike Umbro of Californians for Energy and Science, gave us an update entitled: California Energy Crisis Brought to you by Gavin Newsom, also available on YouTube.

Timely podcast from Stu Turley, David Blackmon, and Mike Umbro of Californians for Energy and Science.

In the following article from CalMatters, we present an “on the streets” perspective and review the true human economic costs related to refinery job lay-offs in California due to Gavin Newsom’s war on the fossil fuel industry.

California Oil Refinery Closures Leave Workers Searching for a Job that ‘Just Doesn’t Exist’

by Adam Echelman of CalMatters October 8, 2025

Many thousands of oil workers have lost their paychecks because of Gavin Newsom’s war on the oil and gas industry.

For the refinery workers being laid off — most of whom lack a college degree — it’s unlikely they’ll find another job that pays as well, despite recent efforts by the state to help.

Wilfredo Cruz went to the doctor in October of last year to have his brain scanned because he was experiencing vertigo — a dangerous condition when you’re a refinery worker like Cruz and your job entails climbing 200-foot towers and fixing heavy machinery.

While he waited at the doctor’s office, he picked up his phone and felt a moment of panic, seeing 100 unread text messages in the last hour.

The Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles had just said that it was going to close, and Cruz learned in that moment that he would eventually lose his job, along with nearly 1,000 other employees and contractors.

“It was a big shock, a gut punch,” said Cruz, who thinks his last day will be sometime in April. Workers say layoff notices will begin to go out in the next few months.

It’s just one of a handful of refineries that have closed or that intend to close in the coming months. For the workers — most of whom lack a college degree — it’s unlikely they’ll find another job that pays as well, despite recent efforts by the state to help. Though the Trump administration signed legislation creating billions of dollars in tax cuts for oil and gas companies, it’s not going to save these jobs or offer the workers any money to train for new ones.

“You have people earning between $80,000 to $200,000 a year, and almost everyone is a high school graduate and that’s it,” said Cruz. “To go out and look for another job that’s even somewhat comparable, it just doesn’t exist.”

When he isn’t at the refinery, Cruz is wearing a plain black shirt, shorts, and New Balance sneakers — anything that’s easy to clean if his 2-year old son throws food at him, he said. His vertigo is better these days, almost a year after the refinery said it would close, but he now has to find a job so he can support his family and pay his mortgage. The best bet, he said, is to go back to school and start a new career in cybersecurity.

Thousands of jobs lost

California has about 100,000 workers in the fossil fuel industry, according to an August report by the Public Policy Institute of California. That’s about the population of a small city, such as Merced or Redding. As the state continues its transition to renewable energy, many of those jobs may disappear — and some already have.

Refineries have been closing all across the U.S. in recent years, but California has been hit hard, especially in Contra Costa County, Solano County and parts of southern Los Angeles, near Long Beach. First it was the Marathon refinery in Contra Costa County in 2020, which put hundreds of people out of work before the plant converted to renewable fuels with a fraction of the former workforce. Then Phillips 66 began shifting one of its Contra Costa County refineries to renewables and closed an affiliated plant on the Central Coast. A Valero refinery in Solano County is also expected to close in the next few months, leading to more layoffs.

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Publicly, oil companies have given vague justifications for the closures, though oil industry advocates, such as the Western States Petroleum Association, blame the state’s increased regulation and its renewable energy transition. Environmental groups point to the decrease in oil demand as more Californians turn to electric vehicles.

With thousands of jobs at stake, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-led state Legislature this summer tried to strike a deal with Valero to avoid the closure of its Solano County refinery. Those conversations are still “ongoing,” said Daniel Villaseñor, the deputy director of communications for the governor.

What the state has offered so far is a $30 million pot of money, which refinery workers can use to train for new jobs. The money went out to four different workforce organizations last February, and they have until 2027 to distribute it to workers in various ways, such as through scholarships.

The United Steelworkers union, which represents many of the Phillips 66 refinery workers, received about a third of the money and recruited Cruz to help find eligible workers at his job. Some of his colleagues are trying to become truck drivers, emergency medical technicians, or radiologists, but the state money rarely covers all the training expenses, he said.

In his spare time, Cruz is enrolled in an online, year-long certificate program in cybersecurity at UC San Diego and is using the state money to cover the $4,000 tuition. He said he wants a remote job, something that would allow him to spend more time with his son.

The steelworkers union has pushed Newsom for much more, ideally “hundreds of millions of dollars per year” to help retrain the refinery workers it represents, said Mike Smith, the national bargaining chair for the union. The governor has yet to make any new promises.

Six-figure salary, no degree required

The average work day at a refinery might entail crawling into small spaces, withstanding searing heat, or operating heavy machinery with precision. And it can be dangerous: In 2006, the roof of a storage tank collapsed, killing one person and injuring four others at the Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles, which was then owned by an earlier iteration of the company.

Twelve-hour shifts are the norm, including many night shifts, and overtime is common. Nearby residents complain that the Phillips 66 facilities have a foul smell and that they pump cancer-causing chemicals into the air, creating health risks for the entire community. Workers are required to wear full-body fire retardant uniforms each day because fires are a constant risk, such as last week, when an explosion rocked a Chevron refinery in El Segundo. There was no major damage.

Though the work can be physically demanding, the rewards are plentiful. Union workers at the Phillips 66 refinery complex make about $115,000 a year, plus a pension and an 8% match on 401k contributions, said Smith.

Together, the Phillips 66 refineries in Los Angeles and the Valero refinery in Solano County produce about 17% of the state’s gas. Without these facilities, Californians could see higher prices at the pump, according to an independent analysis by the federal government.

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Laurie Wallace, a self-described artist, never wanted to work in oil and gas, but the money was a big draw, she said. For years, she was working as many as three different jobs, saving up money for punk and ska concerts while flipping burgers at In-N-Out, helping customers at Ace Hardware, or working shifts at a local cafe. Her husband at the time learned about a training program for refinery workers. He said he was going to apply and when she said she was interested, he told her she would never get in.

“I took the test and got the better score,” Wallace said. “I don’t do well with people telling me not to do something.”

In the nearly 18 years since that exam, she’s worked at the Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles, handling the heavy machinery that transports California’s oil and gas. Wallace often earns over $100,000, especially with overtime, allowing her to achieve what many might consider the American Dream: a four-bedroom house in the Long Beach suburbs with an affordable mortgage and family vacations every year, including cruises to Mexico and trips to Las Vegas.

She’ll likely see a pay cut in any future job. In a 2023 study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, UC Irvine professor Virginia Parks helped survey those who had been laid off by the Marathon oil refinery in Contra Costa County in 2020. She found that roughly a quarter were unemployed or no longer looking for work over a year after losing their jobs. Some workers found opportunities at other oil refineries, though they made less money because they lacked seniority or a union. Others found jobs at utility companies or chemical treatment plants, and a few started working in health care or retail.

“I don’t think (refinery workers) need long training programs but they do need some sort of reskilling,” said Parks, who wants the state to provide workers more financial help. She’s especially interested in state grants that give workers income support while they search for a skilled job. “Otherwise they’re just going to find whatever (job) they can.”

Her study found that workers who did find a job after getting laid off made about $38 an hour — $12 less than before.

Lots of experience but few ways to prove it

Since the layoffs at the Phillips 66 refinery complex will happen slowly over the next few months, Wallace still has a job for now. Her department is responsible for receiving and shipping the oil and gas that arrives at the Port of Los Angeles, work that is so essential that she thinks she’ll be one of the last people laid off, potentially in 2027.

Over the years, she’s driven the trains that transport tons of oil and gas, operated cranes to carry pieces of pipelines and climbed on top of the massive fuel storage tanks that line the 110 Freeway. Often, she said she worked six or even seven days in a row.

In April, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and got a modified schedule. Now she works night shifts and only two or three days in a row. After finishing her radiation therapy around 2 p.m., she changes out of her usual attire, a punk T-shirt and jeans, and gets into her work uniform. She then has to get through Los Angeles traffic, bypass the plant’s two layers of security, and travel across the refinery, which takes up multiple city blocks, or about 650 acres. Her shift begins at 4:30 p.m., where she spends 12 hours in a room, alone, under fluorescent lights, actively monitoring 16 different computer screens for changes in pressure or chemistry.

After so many years, staying alert during a night shift is second nature, she said with a laugh. “I’m a little high strung. I have no problem staying awake.”

The stakes are high. If she isn’t paying attention and a machine fails or a tank has the wrong pressure, fuel leaks can occur. In 2014, a hole burst in an underground pipeline near the refinery, pouring 1,200 gallons of oil into a residential street.

Although Wallace has used many cranes over the years, she doesn’t have a crane operator’s license. In fact, all of the training that she’s done happens on-site, and her employer isn’t required to track it or give her any credential, such as a license or certificate, that could transfer to another job. After the Marathon refinery in Contra Costa County closed, former workers struggled to substantiate their skills when looking for new jobs, the UC Berkeley Labor survey found.

Drawing directly on the study, and with support from the steelworkers union, longtime labor activist and state Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, proposed a bill this year that would require employers to provide their workers with proof of any on-the-job training or education. The governor has until Oct. 12 to sign or veto the bill.

It’s only “a first step” though, said Parks, a co-author of the study. Long-term, she said refinery workers should have the option to acquire independent certificates or credentials, such as a crane operator license, that prove their skills and don’t rely on an employer at all.

“It’s not ideal but it’s temporary”

So far, only a fraction of the oil and gas workers who are eligible for state support have actually received it.

“We just started enrolling members,” said Rosi Romo, who coordinates the grant program on behalf of the steelworkers union.

Though the steelworkers union received the money last March, only about 100 people have participated so far, said Romo, most of them in Southern California. She said the program can fund 650 scholarships, offering up to $15,000 in tuition for each worker

In Kern County, where the oil industry is a major employer, the local job centers received over $11 million from the state, which they’ve used to help nearly 370 former oil and gas workers retrain in new careers, including trucking and nursing. The job centers have enough money to serve around 750 people, said Danette Williams, who works in marketing for the centers, known as the Employers’ Training Resource.

Unlike the steelworkers union, which is only giving out scholarships, Williams said the Employers’ Training Resource is also offering to reimburse 50% of wages during the first 480 hours of the workers’ new jobs. Romo said she wasn’t aware that was possible under the union’s contract with the state, but if it is, she said she’d try to offer the same benefit.

The other organizations who received the grant money did not respond to CalMatters’ questions.

Romo, along with other representatives from the steelworkers union, said the work schedule at the Phillips 66 refinery complex is one reason why workers have yet to use most of the money. As of August, about a quarter of union employees have already left the facility for other opportunities, said Smith, the national bargaining chair for the union. The remaining employees are left working overtime.

Once layoffs begin in the coming months, Romo and Smith said they expect an uptick in the number of workers taking advantage of the scholarship money.

Phillips 66 did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its overtime policies or other ways it may be supporting workers’ job transitions.

Cruz said he’s working six days a week now, 12 hours each day. To make progress on his cybersecurity course at UC San Diego, he tries to listen to lectures and audiobooks during his commute or while eating lunch or dinner during his two, 30-minute breaks. After he puts his son to sleep around 9 p.m., he has a few hours to study, though he has to wake up at 5 a.m. to make it to his shift on time. “It’s not ideal but it’s temporary,” he said.

Wallace has a slight advantage, since she started taking online classes in 2020 to complete her associate degree. She’s still one class short, but she hasn’t had the time to finish it. Between her radiation therapy and the 12-hour night shifts, she said it’s unlikely she’ll be able to study for at least another year while she works with the skeleton crew that’s closing the refinery.

If she had time, she said she would finish her associate degree and use the state training grant to help offset the cost of a bachelor’s degree. But because the state tuition grants expire in 2027, it’s quite possible she won’t be able to use the tuition money at all.

More Media of Interest

Newsom signs law delaying oil industry’s leak detection in communities

Above: California legacy oil provides the lion’s share of revenues for California cities, including Signal Hill, Long Beach, and Bakersfield. The oil revenues pay for essential services such as the police and garbage collection.

Tuco’s Child Preface

Ladies and Gents, apparently kindergarten and grade school are not over, especially in California. If you want to be King or Queen for a day, and put a hurt on the local oil and gas industry, California has just the reporting system for you, a part of anti-oil Senate Bill 1137 and Newsom’s Net-Zero war on oil.

We further note that as California oil production decreases, demand is filled mostly by imported oil. In fact, California plays an outsized role in the destruction of Amazon rainforests. About 66% of the oil exported from the Amazon rainforest goes to the United States, with the lion’s share (50%) of global Amazon oil exports going to California. The Gruesome Newsome details were covered here previously:

Senate bill 1137 has decreased California oil production, and prohibits the issuance of well permits and the construction and operation of new production facilities within a health protection zone (or HPZ) of 3,200 feet from a “sensitive receptor”.

The following article examines the “sensitive receptor” section of Senate Bill 1137, wherein a person can call-in an existing oil pump jack which affects their health, their view, smells bad, or is noisy, even though they bought a house nearby or chose to live nearby.

This article also touches upon the crushing $300 million dollar budget shortfall that the City of Long Beach faces due to Newsom’s anti-oil policies and Senate Bill 1137.

Newsom’s Tattle-Tale System to Stop the Oil & Gas Industry and the Demolition of the City of Long Beach Budget

History. In the 1890s, the small town of Los Angeles (population 50,000) began a transformation driven by the discovery and drilling of some of the most productive oil fields in history. By 1930, California was producing nearly one quarter of the world’s oil output, and its population had grown to 1.2 million. In the decades that followed, many wells closed, but even more opened, surrounded by urban and suburban growth. Machinery was camouflaged, loud noises were abated, methane pockets were vented, as residents learned to live side-by-side with oil production facilities. To this day, oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin remain very productive, and modern techniques have centralized operations into smaller areas or moved offshore. Gathered here are a few images of some of the sites and machinery still in use among the homes and an elite high school in Los Angeles. Source.

Venice Beach, CA 1952.

Signal Hill, Long Beach CA.

Beverly Hills High School, CA.

Signal Hill, Long Beach CA.

Don't Like the Fumes, View or the Noise? The Tattle Tale Bill, CA Senate Bill 1137

In September 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom signed California Senate Bill 1137 (SB1137) into law. SB1137 seeks to protect the public health of California’s frontline communities by introducing a 3,200-feet distance between residences, schools, playgrounds, hospitals, and nursing homes from an oil and gas production well. This bill prohibits the issuance of well permits and the construction and operation of new oil production facilities within this health protection zone, and it also establishes strict engineering controls to be implemented by existing operations within the zone.

A Karen How to Guide: Turn-in an Oil Pump Jack

Sensitive Receptor Identification Form:​ Use this online form to share input on places that may affect a sensitive receptor, as outlined in Senate Bill 1137.

Above: a screenshot from the Sensitive Receptor Narc Page.

With regards to a sensitive receptor type person, we do respect those with legitimate health issues that could be impacted by living near an oil extraction enterprise. However, it might be a good idea to move away if possible. Whatever the case, this reporting system is just another attempt to drive away the oil and gas industry in California, something of which Newsom has been quite effective at, to the detriment of many.

The Net-Zero Demolition of the City of Long Beach Budget: a $300 Million Shortfall

Grissom Island is one of four oil islands in Long Beach that provide revenues for the city. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.

The vibrant City of Long Beach CA depends on oil revenues to run it’s city and city services. Long Beach has long relied on oil revenue, but that stream is beginning to run dry.

According to a June 2024 report by City Auditor Laura Doud, the city is projected to lose 54% of its revenue from local oil production by 2035 — valued at between $278 million and $301 million — which could devastate its coffers.

Breakdown of the Long Beach City services that depend on oil revenue.

Due to Newsom’s Net-Zero campaign, the city is under mounting pressure to transition its economy away from a reliance on local oil production, which is set for a dramatic decline $300 million over the next 10 years, according to the City Auditor. Meanwhile, the city has $1 billion in outstanding coastal projects, from a deteriorating Naples Island seawall to costly upgrades at the Convention Center. Source.

There are no real other sources of income to meet this budget shortfall other than pandering to the State and Federal Government for “development money” and bailouts, which are only temporary stop gaps. Unfortunately, the Long Beach City Government has also adopted woke and DEI ideology via personell hires and cultural changes, which could put them out of favor for Federal funds.

Long Beach projected budget shortfall as a result of Gavin Newsom’s oil policies.

Conclusions

Newsom’s Net-Zero campaign and Senate Bill 1137 have had severe negative financial impacts on cities and municipalities throughout California. California is suffering from a big budget deficit, and once flush cities with balanced budgets such as Long Beach are now in debt and face budget shortfalls due to decreased oil revenues.

Above: Lubricate here in Culver City, CA and call in a oil pump derrick.

Long Beach

The Long Beach budget woes and the results of Newsom’s policies have been covered for some time now by the Long Beach Post and make for an interesting read.

Gavin Newsom’s Plan for Destruction

Source: Governor Gavin Newsom