Summary of #60 Linnea Lueken: Warmists are “playing with people's lives in a very literal sense”

00:00:00 - 00:50:00

Linnea Lueken, a research fellow at the Heartland Institute, discusses her experiences as a climate skeptic. Lueken recalls being taught climate change as an indisputable truth in high school and college courses, with little room for opposing views. She talks about the challenges facing the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in Europe due to limited export capacity and government regulations. Lueken argues that an all-electric system is reducing the grid's reliability and capacity to provide power, and that policymakers need to weigh decisions against potential risks and costs. She also questions the wisdom of basing infrastructure planning on technology that does not yet exist.

• 00:00:00 In this section, Linnea Lueken, a research fellow at the Arthur B Robinson Center at the Heartland Institute shares her background and how she came to become climate skeptic. She talks about her experience in high school where climate change was presented as a truth, and how she started fact-checking sources during class using her iPad. Teachers were mostly pushing the idea of climate change being caused by humans, and she felt that it was presented everywhere, even in seemingly straightforward courses like mineralogy. She also mentions the anti-fracking propaganda piece “Gasland,” which was shown in class and how she later fact-checked it.
• 00:05:00 In this section, Linnea Lueken shares her experiences and observations in college courses in petroleum engineering and geology. She recounts an incident where her professor ignored certain data and only focused on the hockey stick graph which promotes the linear relationship between CO2 and temperature, and how geology classes even included a social justice component. Linnea raises concerns over her coursework being influenced by the government or Federal funding and notes how teachers were dismissive of alternate theories or viewpoints. Her article detailing her experiences, submitted anonymously, was published and led to her fear of backlash and eventual discovery.
• 00:10:00 In this section, Linnea Lueken talks about her experiences as a petroleum engineering student and her involvement with Heartland, a think tank that focuses on energy and climate policy. Lueken explains that she co-wrote a policy paper about fracking and is currently working on developing an "energy at a glance" series that provides an analysis of commonly cited energy topics. She also discusses the controversy surrounding a recent episode of their climate change roundtable show featuring Judith Curry, where their ability to live stream on YouTube was stopped just 90 minutes beforehand. Despite the setback, Lueken says the show has been doing well and invites viewers to tune in every Friday at noon.
• 00:15:00 In this section, Linnea Lueken promotes the Climate Change Roundtable live show, which she co-hosts with Sterling Burnett and Anthony Watts. Lueken also discusses the upcoming Heartland Climate Conference, which will focus on the real crisis of climate change and the policies in place to combat it. Later, Lueken talks about liquefied natural gas as a clean fossil fuel and the difficulties it faces due to administrative and regulatory hurdles, but notes that the United States is a net exporter of LNG due to policy changes made before the Trump administration.
• 00:20:00 In this section, Linnea Lueken discusses the challenges the US faces in exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe due to limited export capacity. She notes that the Biden administration has been hostile towards pipeline infrastructure and transporting natural gas through other means. There are criticisms towards the administration's energy policy for stifling the supply side. The government has placed methane and emissions restrictions on pipelines, drilling sites, making it more expensive while making it harder to move gas from the Well site to other places like the electricity grid. Moreover, time is an essential factor in the oil field, and every day a company is caught, they lose money based on how long they have the equipment.
• 00:25:00 In this section, the speaker explains the impact of regulations on drilling operations and how they can make a well more expensive and less profitable, especially for smaller companies. She highlights the fact that larger oil companies are in bed with regulators and actively lobby for increased regulation on the oil field, often using green energy virtue signaling. Additionally, the speaker believes that natural gas companies might be trying to demonize coal in order to gain more market share. Finally, the speaker points out that while cleaner coal technology exists in the West, China and India are rapidly increasing their use of coal-fired electricity, which seems to go largely unnoticed by environmentalists.
• 00:30:00 In this section, Linnea Lueken discusses the energy density comparison between tanker trucks of LNG versus tanker trucks of oil. She explains that LNG has a higher energy density than almost anything else, with an estimated 55 megajoules per kilogram, whereas gasoline and diesel are only 45 and crude oil is 41. This makes LNG a clear winner, especially when compared to lithium batteries that are only 0.5 megajoules per kilogram. Lueken also notes that some methane fuels on Earth could be abiotic since evidence suggests they might not come from decaying organisms. However, she explains that the term fossil fuel is misleading and refers more to microscopic algae and phytoplankton since there weren't enough dinosaurs on the planet to produce the quantity of oil and gas found. She also suggests that changes in pressure and geological formations could cause some confusion in the abiotic oil conversation.
• 00:35:00 In this section, the speaker discusses how the permeability of rocks is just as critical as their porosity when looking for oil. Lucky discoveries of oil can happen when previously undiscovered high-pressure systems are found with the right permeability and can quickly migrate to depleted closed-off systems. The speaker mentions a story of a company in a foreign jurisdiction that worked in a lower-pressure zone than its competitors, and when they drilled a hole nearby, they siphoned the oil out from under their competitors. This demonstrates how important good geology knowledge is. Lastly, the speaker notes how fracking has become an effective way to artificially create permeability in rocks by cracking them open and holding them open with sand or a plastic bead, making it easier to extract natural gas from otherwise tight shale rocks.
• 00:40:00 In this section, Linnea Lueken discusses the impact of transportation costs and fossil fuel costs on the price of goods in factories and food processing plants. She also mentions the Northeast's problem with pipeline infrastructure and their import of natural gas from Russia and Canada due to US regulations. Additionally, Lueken explains how the US and Canada's relationship on natural gas trade has been affected by the Biden Administration's Keystone cancellation. Lastly, she mentions that while industrial accidents can occur in the solar and wind industry, they can also happen in fossil fuel refineries and power plants.
• 00:45:00 In this section, Linnea Lueken discusses the Biden administration's recent interest in banning gas-powered stoves and the dangers it poses to the energy grid. Lueken points out that the push towards an all-electric system is reducing the grid's ability to provide power, with intermittent sources such as wind and solar being favored over more reliable sources. This has already led to blackouts in many parts of the world. Lueken cautions that increasing dependence on an unstable grid could be dangerous, especially in the context of extreme weather events, and questions whether legislators fully understand the background knowledge of the energy system. She emphasizes the need to balance policy decisions with their costs and the potential risks they pose.
• 00:50:00 In this section of the interview, Linnea Lueken talks about the danger of planning infrastructure based on technology that does not exist yet. She argues that waiting for a battery breakthrough to start planning for sustainable living is playing with people's lives, especially when it comes to home heating in the winter. She also mentions the possibility of a conspiracy by generator companies to sell more generators if people cannot heat their homes without them. The conversation concludes without any further points made.