[00:00:00] Welcome to the Powering America Podcast. I'm Brian Hyde, and I'm happy to welcome Steve Cortes. You may be familiar with some of the documentaries that he's done. Steve is also the founder of the League of American Workers and a former Trump advisor. And Steve, I'm, I'm sure I'm leaving off a few things that you've done. Welcome to the program. No, that's okay. That, that those are probably the most important things or the things that are most recognizable to regular folks out there. Uh, I appreciate you having me, Brian. Thank you. Let's, uh, let's dive right into the topic of domestic energy policy. Um, I know there's a lot of, uh, a lot of attention being focused right now on, on the big global picture of energy policy with things that are going on in the Middle East, but I, I feel like sometimes we don't get enough, uh, focus on what's happening here at home. In the United States, uh, regarding energy in particular. I know that you were, you produced a documentary, um, not so long ago about, uh, about wind farms and about, i, I think it was called the Green energy scam in in New Mexico. Could you fill us in on that? Sure. Happy to. Uh, yes, and I'm, I'm happy to talk about the mistakes and then [00:01:00] also the great solutions that are very, very available to us as Americans, thankfully. And, uh, yeah. But as far as the, one of the biggest mistakes of all, and there's a lot of, of bad policy and what I call the, the green and new scam, uh, which is being perpetrated against the American people, but, but perhaps one of the worst offenses is the wind scam. And so that motivated me to make that documentary. Uh, it's called blown Away. Um, uh, and it exposes the scam that is wind power. Uh, if folks wanna watch it, it's, it is done very well, gotten millions of views, thankfully earned a lot of attention. It's at Cortes investigates.com la My last name, C-O-R-T-E-S investigates.com. All my docs are there, but I went to the New Mexico Desert. To film this one, and I went there for a couple of reasons. First of all, one of the biggest wind farm projects in America is in New, the New Mexico Desert. It happens to be one of the most remarkable, unique, and really just stunningly pretty places in all of America, maybe in all of the world. I think it's been completely [00:02:00] disfigured by these incredibly ugly, giant word. Uh, wind turbines that are everywhere. But I also went there because I wanted to make the contrast of while we are building this boondoggle energy source that doesn't work, that isn't environmentally sound, um, that isn't in any way efficient, literally under, right underneath those very windmills are oceans of natural gas. And, you know, therein lies most of the answers. But regarding wind specifically. It doesn't work in several ways. Uh, the most important being, it just does not economically work from an energy output standpoint. And, and what I mean by that is the cost benefit ratio. The cost to construct and maintain these behemoths, uh, whether it's in the ocean or on. Land, it's not yield enough energy output, at least that is usable for consumers and businesses to make it make sense economically. And part of the reason why, by the way, these, uh, massive wind turbines, for example, that I show in the New Mexico Desert, they are so far. [00:03:00] From most of the consumers that need that energy, whether it's homes or businesses, power plants, whatever. It is so far away that by the time you transmit the electricity over power lines because of latency, you've lost most of it. So it's an incredibly inefficient way to generate and transmit. Electricity, uh, to people also because wind, by its nature and even in the windiest place is intermittent. That's just reality. You are the slave to mother nature. Um, and so it is not dependable. And because of that, and this makes the economics even worse of the wind scam, you must have full redundancy, meaning it has to be fully backed by another energy providing source. And almost everywhere. What is that source? It's fossil fuels, it's hydrocarbons. Uh, in the case of New Mexico, it's largely natural gas, which again makes lots of sense, but neither makes economic sense when you have built two redundant systems, right? One to back up the other, uh, it, it can't possibly work economically. But then also I focus on the aesthetics of it. And I think this is important.[00:04:00] You know, America's a beautiful nation, and so many of our precious landscapes have been completely ruined. And I realize this is a, you know, the beauty's in the eye of the beholder. But I think most people will agree with me that when you take a beautiful, natural landscape, whether it's a Midwestern farm field or a, a desert landscape in New Mexico or a, a wonderful offshore vista in the northeastern United States, I think most people, most sensible people with any kind of eye for beauty will say. Ooh, that's really Maureen. You know, what is otherwise a wonderful natural landscape And, and we should care about that. And, you know, it matters to us. But for us to do that. To give up these landscapes, um, and vistas, and to do it with an energy source that doesn't work, that's not economically viable, makes it all the worst. But then the third component here, which I think is also important, is that environmentally, they're, they're not sound, believe it or not, right? So the whole purpose supposedly is to be quote, clean and to be green. And these wind turbines are none of that. Um, because there's an enormous amount of material that, [00:05:00] and petrochemicals by the way, which are necessary to construct them, to transport them, uh, to put them in to, you know, to construct them and then to maintain them. And by the way, at most, they only last about 20 years, at which point we take them down and you have a 200 foot tower of fiberglass concrete. Uh, other, you know, non-recyclable recyclable materials, which we are for the most part, burying because we have no better idea what to do, uh, with these boondoggles once they come down and they don't last all that long. So environmentally not sound. Also the harm to animals. The windmill issue, of course, is pretty well known for birds, but there are a lot of other harms done. For example, a lot of animals both in the sea and on land. Really rely on hearing and sonar and these wind turbines, once you get close, they're unbelievably loud. Um, and they create, you know, real disruptions and, and the disruption is, is worse for the offshore ones. Right? And there's a lot of growing evidence that it's doing tremendous damage, including to whales, uh, literally killing [00:06:00] them in some cases. So there's movement which claimed, which at one point was in some ways founded to save the whales now wants us. To kill the whales for wind turbines constructed out in the ocean that don't produce enough electricity to, uh, merit the cost anyway. And when you put all that together, Brian, it just tells me this is a scam. And it's a scam that's been perpetrated upon the American people. You know, it seems like during the Obama presidency and then, um, again, particularly during Biden's presidency, um, the, the whole green energy thing really was ramped up. And Steve, I have to ask you, did, did we ever reach a point. Where the, you, you talked about, you know, the amount of energy that it takes to build and construct, like, for instance, a wind turbine. Have we ever reached the point where either solar or wind farms, um, were able to produce the kind of energy that they, they were, that, that we were told they would, um, minus, you know, being subsidized by government and taxpayers eating up a lot of those costs. No, of course not. And and the reason you know, that, by the way, is we live in a capitalist country, and [00:07:00] if these things were economically a viable on their own, then private enterprises would be pursuing them and would be constructed them without subsidies, even in places where the subsidies weren't available, if they made economic sense. Uh, there's plenty of entrepreneurs, plenty of power companies who would say, heck yes, we'll build those wind turbines 'cause we're gonna profit from all the electricity that they produce. But, uh, number one, there's not enough electricity, as I mentioned, it's too intermittent. Um, and, and number two, most places that are windy enough to even have a chance to be economically viable don't tend to be next to the farms and factories and homes that need the electricity itself. Yeah, no, it has not worked in any sense. Now listen, I and I try to be reasonable about this. I kept my documentary just focused on wind and I didn't even talk about solar, and I think there are a lot of problems with solar subsidies. I think there are a lot of problems with us destroying farmland to put in ridiculous against, once again, very ugly. Fields of solar plates, uh, solar panels that don't make sense. But I will, I will admit this. I think there [00:08:00] are uses for solar. There are places where it is really dependably sunny. And when you put solar on top of existing structures, particularly if you can put them high up so that it's not displeasing to the eye, um, and where the investment is relatively minimal, right? You're putting it on an existing structure. You're not building a 200 foot tower in the sea or in the middle of nowhere. Um, there are some. Excuses for solar and solar is getting better. So I'm not 100% against solar, I'm against it as it's practiced right now. And the massive subsidies that we taxpayers are providing for a lot of, you know, really just, uh, solar projects benefited only for the, the benefit of the all. Owners, not consumers, but I think there is a place in the power grid for sensible solar in really dependably sunny areas. I though my thesis, Brian, is there is no place where wind turbines make sense. Uh, the only place a windmill makes sense is literally on a single farm. And some of this still happens. You know, you've seen on, on old, old fashioned windmills [00:09:00] on farms where they're literally just using it. As a backup source to power certain operations on their farm only. And you live in a really windy area in Oklahoma, something like that is, is is still viable and at times works. But in terms of actual real power grid production, wind does not work. Anywhere it, it is literally a scam. A a multi-billion dollar scam. And here's something that makes it even worse. You know, given all those factors I've already, uh, enunciated. One other additional aspect of this is that almost all of the materials used to make these behemoths comes. China. So we are literally paying our existential enemy, the Chinese Communist Party. We are paying them to import materials for a power source, which doesn't work for American consumers. And in terms of the operation of them, particularly offshore, it's almost all European firms, particularly Scandinavian ones. And these contracts are enormous. [00:10:00] Brian, I mean multi, multi-billion dollar contracts from the people of the United States to give it to, to give, uh. Money for materials to the Chinese and money for construction and operation and maintenance to the Danish. Uh, so just on so many levels, it's offensive, it's inefficient, and, and it just doesn't make sense. I do think thankfully though, people are waking it up to it, and I think part of it is that the wind business. Really overplayed its hand and overbuilt. And I think the aesthetic part is where most people first start learning about wind, which is fine. I mean, most people are an energy analyst. They don't wanna sit down and say, well, let me get total construction costs and let me amortize it. What's the kilowatt hour? I mean, most people just aren't going to do that. Now wind doesn't make sense if you do that, mathematics, but, but I think any sensible person just says, you know, there were no windmills over there. And that wonderful, you know, view we had. Of the foothills of these mountains, and now there's giant windmills and I don't like them and they're ugly. And by the way, I talk to people who live near [00:11:00] them and they're loud as heck. Um, and they break a lot. Um, and they're impossible to transport, uh, to, you know, to get there, to get in place. So, uh, I think most regular people, they're. Skepticism begins with the ugliness of the wind turbines. Uh, but once they look into it further, they realize that, you know, on no level, uh, does this, does this scam make sense? Steve? Let's, let's make the case for natural gas. You had talked about that earlier, but before we make the case for it, talk to me about why did we ever go away from it in the first place? What was the thinking there? Yeah. Well, I think the unfortunate reality is, you know, number one, uh, there was just a, a certain mania around what I would call echo radicalism, right? So, uh, a very good intention, which is to be stewards of the earth, right? That we were given this earth by the Lord above and in the United States, we were given a particularly amazing land. So out of good intentions that we should be responsible stewards of the earth grew. An environmental movement, which had a lot of really [00:12:00] good tenants, uh, and still does to this day, a lot of very worthy goals, right? Clean air and water is important for everyone. Um, but it then was largely hijacked by radicals. And by the way, one of the people who really. Woke me up to this thesis is one of the founders of Greenpeace who says exactly that, right? That, uh, that that organization in many ways was started with laudable goals, saving the whales, for example, from overfishing. Um, but that it devolved into a radicalism that doesn't resemble anything like the founding intentions. Well, that happened to the green movement in the United States and worldwide for that matter. And because of that. Uh, we really checked common sense at the door when it came to energy policy and we started pursuing a green agenda regardless of the facts, regarding of how environmentally sound this green agenda actually is, and regardless of the economics. And I also think. There's a real h haughtiness among the policy crowd, the Davos crowd. Far too many politicians in Washington DC and in state [00:13:00] capitalists to say, well, you regular folks may not know what's good for you. We know what's good for Mother Earth and so we're going to pursue these policies, um, even if they're stro. For you, even if they're not actually good for the environment. So just a, a lot of haughtiness there and that caused us as a country to turn away from our inherent advantages. What are the biggest one? Ones being. Just the absolute, you know, the, the amazing abundance of natural gas that we've been gifted. We didn't earn that, that we've been gifted in this country. And, and let's talk about, uh, why natural gas makes sense. I mean, I know that the concern is, well, you know, fossil fuels are a finite resource. They're gonna run out and, you know, and we'll destroy the earth in the process. But, um, natural gas seems to have a pretty good track record of. Being a clean source of energy abs. Absolutely. Now listen, I think we can use all hydrocarbons now in an environmentally effective way. This, you know, this isn't, uh, the 18 hundreds when we had to burn dirty coal. So I think even coal can be used in a really responsible [00:14:00] way. Petroleum certainly can too, but particularly natural gas, right? Because there you don't even really need a lot of technological advantages or advancements. I mean, natural gas just inherently burns and provides fuel in an very environmentally clean way and a super efficient way. Um, you know, regardless the supply of it. I mean, will we ever run out if we keep using the way we are? Yes. Let's be honest. I mean, someday, centuries from now, literally that's how much natural gas we have. Uh, we would run out now. I'm very confident. That we're gonna have so many other technologies that by the time we're talking centuries down the road, uh, that won't be an issue. I think, in fact, maybe not in my lifetime, Brian, but in the lifetime of my children, probably we won't be that reliant on hydrocarbons and fossil fuels. Uh, and probably things like geothermal, um, or a more efficient way to use nuclear power is gonna be the normal way to generate power or perhaps, you know, solar from space. There's a lot of interesting advancements, uh, going on there. You know, we will, we will have those answers, but the point is. In the meantime, for the near term [00:15:00] to medium term, we have literally centuries of supply of natural gas. We know that we can use it to cleanly produce, um, all the energy needs that the United States could possibly need, and because we are blessed with it in such abundance, this to me is the natural. Uh, reasonable answer. And to get to that point of latency too, I just want to give you one example that I think is really revealing, and that is, you know, regarding the, the latency and losing power by transmitting the electricity over electric lines. It's primarily how we have to power ourselves right now, but it's not the most efficient way to do things. Uh, in general. If rather by having pipelines and shipping natural gas and you don't lose any, right, you don't lose a drop when you are shipping natural gas. If it's liquified, I say a drop, but just, you know, theoretic, metaphorically a drop, you don't lose any of it. Uh, shipping it in pipelines and natural gas is already used in most industrial, large scale industrial operations. They're not taking electricity from power lines. At most big plants. They're [00:16:00] already using natural gas. What we are getting better and better at those processes. And so the more we're doing that, the more we have, uh, we build pipelines and maintain good pipelines. And to give you an example, specific one from New Mexico. Um, so there's, there's a massive operation being built right now outside of Phoenix, uh, one of the biggest industrial projects in the entire world, building semiconductor chip manufacturing capability here in the United States. I think that's a great thing. We are almost totally dependent right now on China and Taiwan for our semiconductors, and uh, that's a vulnerability and it's one of the reasons why. If we worry so much, will China ever make a move militarily on Taiwan? And it could be just devastating for the American economy, which is totally dependent on those chips. Well, we're now trying as a country, private industry as well as government, um, to, to erect that, that manufacturing capability. In Phoenix or outside of Phoenix, it's going to require an unbelievable amount of power, far more than the existing grid could provide. It would, it would take all the power of Phoenix and more, [00:17:00] uh, just to power this new sort of chip city that is being, uh, developed. Right now, it's multi-year construction project. Well, instead, what are they gonna do? Very sensibly. They're going to power it with natural gas Now. All, all of that natural gas. Arizona itself doesn't have a whole lot of hydrocarbon resources. All of it theoretically should be coming from right next door in New Mexico. Okay. And some of it will be, but not all of it. And the reason is because some echo radicals in New Mexico are blocking that happening and literally blocking a pipeline that could very sensibly very efficiently, you know, over just a few hundred miles, bring that natural gas. From the bounty of New Mexico, which by the way is one of the poorest states in America, could sure use the jobs and the activity, take it to this chip city in Arizona, um, and fully power it with wonderful New Mexico produced natural gas, but it's not happening, at least not happening in a scale. Why? Because of political reasons. Uh, because of an echo g Echo agenda. Echo radical agenda. New Mexico generally is a pretty blue [00:18:00] state. Generally run by some pretty left-leaning politicians. Um, and they would rather feel good about themselves by putting up windmills that don't make any sense. Instead of saying, let's harness the resources which God has given us as new Mexicans and let's use them to power, uh, Arizona and, and ourselves and, and the world. Frankly, Steve, it sounds like the opportunity is there. What we're waiting on apparently is a return of common sense. Yeah, no, absolutely. And and thankfully I think it is starting to happen, you know, for sure. President Trump so far has been great on energy policy, um, in terms of a lot of the energy resources in the United States are found, uh, on federal lands, and we know that we can very responsibly access these resources. It's not like the old days, again, where you need, you know, a massive footprint. For example, a lot of places where they're drilling for natural gas, Brian, you can hardly tell it's going on, right. It's literally, it's that little of an above ground, um, interference with the, with the environment. It's the opposite of a windmill, where it's [00:19:00] unmistakable that there's a windmill there, there's a 200 foot tall tower. It's a skyscraper, um, often in the middle of nowhere. And so, uh, we, you know, we know how to access responsibly natural gas again. We can, uh, we can ship it via pipelines all over America. And once we liquefy it, by the way, in terms of LNG, we can send it all over the world. And, uh, and that's starting to happen more and more. And it should happen. And uh, and again, the only reason that we don't already have a really robust LNG export business in the United States is because it was fought by the environmental groups. They're fighting the very solution to our, uh, to our energy needs and overseas, but they didn't want to reward what they viewed as the evil fossil fuel industry by creating the kinds of, because you need a good amount of infrastructure, particularly at ports to get LNG correctly shipped there. Put onto massive tankers and then sent throughout the world. It's starting to happen, but we, we already should be at a much higher level of LNG exporting all over the world. [00:20:00] We'll get there, I think, and thankfully, as I said, president Trump has just been stellar on energy policy. Uh, and I think there's, there's definitely, and I do some polling on this, there is a growing aversion to windmills. I think people are waking up to e even if they subscribe generally to the, you know, so-called green agenda. They're realizing that the windmills are a different, uh, you know, a different sort of brand of this. And, uh, and again, I think the. Aesthetics are part of that reason. And then also just a lot of really bad publicity, very deservedly bad publicity about the, the, uh, destruction of animals. Um, you know, particularly at sea. I think that that seems to particularly grab people. Um. The fact that, uh, that in the oceans, you know, there's real destruction going on, by the way, in terms of, you know, I talked about what an effort it is to construct these things. That's a big deal On land. It's 10 times worse, of course, in the ocean, right? Because you're talking about building these massive concrete bases. Um, I mean, think about what you need. For a 200 foot tall tower that's in a high wind [00:21:00] area, the kind of concrete base you need for that at the bottom. And then you're talking about putting that in deep fast, moving ocean water with winds. I mean, it's an enormous construction project. I mean, it's a real engineering feat. And um, you know, I commend the knowhow, Brian, but that means, number one, it's incredibly expensive to do, doesn't make sense economically. Um, and then number two, it means. You are so disrupting sea life, right? And mammals, uh, sea, uh, marine life. Um, so, so disrupting it, uh, because the footprint is showed so giant and particularly in the oceans. So, you know, for so many reasons, wind doesn't make sense. Natural gas makes all the sense in the world. It already really is in many ways the fuel of America, particularly at the industrial level. Not so much yet at the consumer level. Um, but you know, that will accelerate. And again, I'm not against other technologies. I think solar has a limited place for now. It might get bigger as time goes on. I think geothermal, the more I study it, and I'm not a [00:22:00] scientist, but the more I study it, I think geothermal ultimately, uh, could be the true renewable. You know, we call these other ones renewables, but they're not really, um, but geothermal in terms of trying to capture the heat of the earth itself, you know, as it bubbles up to the surface, um, that is, I think, truly renewable, meaning it never ends. It's in no way intermittent. It's absolutely constant. And in places where the Earth's crust isn't terribly thick, we're already starting to generate reasonable amounts of power from it. I think as our technology gets better and better. That could become a very real, uh, source. Now, there again, though, you do have the problem of transmission. You're, you do have to put it into power lines and ship it somewhere. So, you know, we will see if that is ultimately the answer, but I think it's part of the equation probably. But the, the linchpin, um, you know, the, the, the central solution today and for the near term for coming years, probably coming decades, is natural gas. And we in the United States are just in such a fantastic. And blessed [00:23:00] position because we have literally oceans of it underneath our feet. And by the way, it's everywhere. It's all over America. When people think of natural gas, they kind of automatically think of, uh, offshore Gulf of Mexico. They think of Texas, of course. Um, some other places. New Mexico has quite a bit, um, but it's all over the place. It's under California, it's under New York, uh, state and these places have chosen through bad policy to say we are not going to access it for our citizens. We're not gonna provide great energy jobs for our people. We're not gonna provide stable, dependable, domestic, uh, fuel for their homes. For purely political reasons. And in the case of New York, by the way, there's a, there's a really interesting contrast 'cause they're of course right next to Pennsylvania, they basically share the same Marcella shale massive ocean of natural gas. Pennsylvania has decided to access it and Pennsylvania is not a, some ruby red ultra conservative state. Right. Um, you know, they have a, a blue Governor Shapiro right now, but they've been pretty sensible about energy policy and said we're gonna access this and it's been [00:24:00] amazing for Western Pennsylvania. And then, but literally. You cross a state border, same, same natural gas, accessible on the other side, they're not able to tap into it and they've just chosen not to. And it shows you the consequences of bad power, and it's one of the reasons why New York State is a far more expensive place to live than Pennsylvania. Right next door, again, talking with Steve Cortes. He's a documentarian, former Trump advisor, founder of the League of American Workers. And Steve, thank you so much for joining us today on the Powering America Podcast. Hey, Brian, it's, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.