Energy Crue
Welcome to 'Energy Crüe', the podcast that dives deep into the heart of industry innovation, entrepreneurship, and personal growth. I'm your host, JP Warren, and each episode, we embark on a journey to uncover the passions and motivations that fuel industry leaders. We're not just talking business here; we're exploring the personal drives, the triumphs, and the challenges that shape today's pioneers. Alongside these inspiring conversations, I'll be sharing my own story - the battles with imposter syndrome, the pivotal mindset shifts, and the lessons learned throughout my entrepreneurial voyage. As a certified coach, my goal is to empower you, our listeners, to break free from the barriers holding you back. Join me as we navigate both the professional and personal landscapes, learning and growing together with 'Energy Crüe'
Energy Crue
How Tech Bros and Fossil Fuels Are Shaping Our Energy Future with Dan Romito
Energy illiteracy is widespread, creating disconnects between energy expectations and realities, while the imminent convergence of technology and energy sectors creates urgent infrastructure challenges.
• Dan Ramito shares his journey from NASDAQ analytics to energy sector expertise
• American coal is relatively clean compared to energy alternatives from other countries
• Water scarcity presents a critical challenge for data centers and semiconductor manufacturing
• Most hyperscale data centers use 164 million gallons of water annually
• Tech industry prioritizes "what works" over ideological energy preferences
• Natural gas has become the preferred energy source for reliable AI power needs
• Energy companies must improve environmental data tracking to maintain relevance
• The "Radical Middle" approach combines fossil fuels and renewables pragmatically
• Infrastructure modernization for power transmission is essential for economic competitiveness
• Energy education remains critical as many Americans don't understand basic electricity generation
Thanks for watching that intro may be a little bit old, but the topics are not old. These topics are always moving forward. Welcome to New Energy Crew Podcast. I'm diving right in, I'm excited right now.
Speaker 1:The person that I have, the guest that I have on right now on Energy Crew Podcast, he is probably, I would say, about 10 to 15% busier than my schedule. So that means that if we do want to have a 15 minute phone call, we have to schedule about two and a half months in advance. That's how this, uh, that's how much road and street this person is covering, uh, spreading the gospel of energy realities and what's on the forefront of whether it's energy, whether it's water, whether all this power generation demand. I've seen his stuff and I'm not going to give him too much of an introduction because I like having this conversation. So we actually had a conversation because this gentleman's going to be leading a crew club operator roundtable discussion in May. We started talking. I said buddy, let's just do a podcast. He's like you know what? My 1130 canceled, let's dive in. So, hey, without further ado, I'm pumped to welcome my buddy. We're rocking hacks my hacks is only rigs.
Speaker 1:All right, this is from Landman Life. I dig it because let's get that rig count up if possible. Let's stop having a crash. And dan dan ramada with the managing director again, I'm not even looking at your lincoln, but that's how much. I looked at your stuff, the managing director at pickering energy partners. Brother, how are you good man? Thanks for having me on I. Uh, I thought last minute what a last minute move too to get I didn't give me the heads up on like this massive production.
Speaker 2:For the introduction I was like whoa, where did this come from? You know who did that? You know who?
Speaker 1:did that music. No, my wife, stop it. Really, dude, she has she got on a garage band. She like sent it to me and like really I gotta pay her every time I use it, but still it's worth it you like, just like you know do like chores around the house and forms of like payment right.
Speaker 1:No, I thought it was awesome. Yeah, that type of choice, but, yeah, man, so, uh, so, dan, I'm excited to do this, but I don't even know what we're going to talk about today. But, uh, I guess kind of a little. Some things I'll tell you from my perspective and obviously I want your background because you have a unique back. I don't feel like anyone that enters the energy industry has the same back. Okay, so I love everyone's kind of, and you and I met over a cup of coffee just because I saw your stuff.
Speaker 1:So everyone that doesn't know dan out there, you you probably might never recognize the name. You've probably seen him giving a lot of. He does a lot of keynote speaking. He does a lot of conversations at energy conferences kind of about, um, energy realities versus energy expectations, and obviously you can kind of go in what you're talking about. But, dan, not only that, buddy, you can't stop. You're not slowing down, like not only are you doing all these speeches, now you're doing like you're leading, slowing down, like not only are you doing all these speeches, now you're doing like your leading crew club round tables, now you. Now you're doing books, now that you also have another podcast man, so books, speak like you're doing a lot. Talk to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I probably never got rid of like the ADD I had as a kid. I just don't want to sit still, only because I just don't know how to enjoy it like the. The running joke that my wife has is she's sort of given up on asking to go on like these extensive vacations because I just don't know how to number one sit still, but also just number two, like just how to enjoy it. Like if there's a thought, I'm not as bad as larry david, like larry david, supposedly, what wrong with like the notebook and write it down. But now I'm doing this thing where, like I'll just text myself these ideas, but no, I just you know there's there's a lot of things that are going on and you know it's just my nature, just personally, where if I, if I have this obsessive nature, where, like, if I don't understand something and it's interesting, like I want to go down that rabbit hole and understand it.
Speaker 2:And you know that was the genesis of the book, right, the radical middle, it was like why can't we just figure this stuff out? It's actually not that complicated when you get to the core of the matter, but you know, in looking at just how the energy debate has evolved over the last two decades. Really, it's fascinating to see the, the evolution of environmental ngos, how they in most cases don't really care about the environment. They're just these political beings. It's how the the energy industry is somewhat at fault because we don't have the data that we probably should have to just put a lot of these arguments like to bed um, well, let me, let me ask you a question on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, obviously, dude, there's so much I can go on. So you're talking about, you know, the industry not having data and all that stuff. For me, I challenge that. I think it's not a question if this industry has data. I just think if this industry has historically done a pretty poor job of and again, I don't want to say, oh, you need us the reality is, you need us. I don't like that approach because I think that divides more than brings people together We've done a pretty poor job. I mean, think about it. We're an industry of engineers and we're thinking data and facts and percentages are going to change hearts and minds. In reality, you're right, two decades the conversations have changed because they have done so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I got into the energy space almost on accident. You know, to your introduction earlier, I was at NASDAQ for almost 10 years and I was running their analytics desk. That was just a really fancy way of saying the stock exchange itself would collect all this data and we never did anything with it. And so I firsthand saw the impact of when you have access to data and you retrofit it into something constructive the impact both from a storytelling, from a narrative perspective, but also from a financial perspective as well.
Speaker 2:When Adina Freeman came into being CEO and Adina's awesome, I'm being sincere on that I wouldn't be sitting in this chair or have the opportunity with Pickering right now if it wasn't for her. She's very personal, she's very intelligent and, to her credit, she understood that the longevity of NASDAQ wasn't centered on being the stock exchange right. We had to be a fintech. That means we had to provide technology solutions to our issuers, not necessarily just to grow, but to expand or to be able to compete for capital and narrative minds in like this next century. So what we ended up doing was we built a lot of behavioral models At that given time. If you were going to pursue capital as a small or a mid cap. It's a little bit different for, like a mega cap like Microsoft. So these behavior models.
Speaker 1:they were more for, like, how does the organization behave or has?
Speaker 2:No, no, no. So it was more based on the behavioral tendencies of investors. So if you were a small cap technology company with a balance sheet of X and cash flow of Y and margin of Z and trading volume of A, we could tell you the individuals that displayed the highest probability of buying your stock and how many meetings it would take. I mean, we got it down to a pretty granular science and that business was very, very successful and we began utilizing it to entice energy companies to switch from the New York Stock Exchange to NASDAQ. Nasdaq they probably don't like this, but they're known, obviously, as a technology exchange. They have healthcare, they have industrials, they run the gamut in terms of sector representation, but at the time they didn't necessarily have energy companies.
Speaker 1:So was this energy direction or this energy migration. Was this more of a? Hey, I'm Dan, I'm interested in energy. Why don't we? Or is this like a no?
Speaker 2:I didn't care. I didn't care. I didn't know anything really about energy. I just knew that you know, we had this. We had this internal divide. Um, ideologically, there was more of a dogmatic crowd that was like, do we really want to partner with oil and gas? And it was for obvious reasons. And then there was like the reasonable side, like, hey, this represents an economic opportunity. Frankly, none of us understand the oil and gas space. So, like, let's investigate. And then this is like 2015, 2016. And then Larry Fink came out with his letter on ESG. This is like 2019, right before COVID, right. And the world was just like what is this black magic you lay upon me? And so we started working with clients on how to navigate ESG. We worked with a lot of energy clients on, like, what do the capital markets really want? How do we interpret this?
Speaker 1:How do we- With some things, with something not to interrupt. That's what I do. I like to ask my wife I interrupt so with something so new. I remember when ESG first started, kind of getting center stage right With something so new, how do you really kind of communicate that to the investment community if you really don't know?
Speaker 2:the uh story. Yeah, so you'll love this story. Like I asked, I was asked that very same question and the big thing I was like why don't we talk to the source themselves? Like, why don't you ship me out to europe? I'll go, like begrudgingly, I'll just go. I have to go to beat the. I will go to europe, please send me. Uh, go to Ibiza. I'll go to Europe, please send me. And I will talk to these investors and I will sort of get the lay of the land.
Speaker 2:So I was in Frankfurt, london, stockholm, copenhagen. It was great. The food was way too expensive and not necessarily as good as America. But just in just talking with these guys, I'm like, just give me the lowdown. Like how do you think about this? Like what should we be doing? What is your advice? And I would just literally sit there and just take like notebooks of notes. And then I came back to the States and we had all this demand because, look, I'm like, look, I was boots on the ground in Europe, like, if you want to and they were and they were, were and they were leading the esg, I guess.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, like and the one thing that's crazy, um, that you know in the united states, you know to back up a little bit and this is a great example, given the turmoil perceived turmoil and volatility in the markets people don't realize that about 70 of the trading in the markets today is quantitative. It's all driven by algorithms. The vast majority of trading takes place with an algorithm, and so algorithms are programmed to look at very specific levers that they can buy or go short on. It's not some dude sitting behind a computer and be like, oh my God, I'm freaked out, I'm going to sell. There's some of that, but it's dominated by the quantitative market.
Speaker 2:In Europe, you have the exact opposite. You have a quantitative presence, you have an algorithm in place to say, but you're talking about pension money and endowment money, so their investment horizon is 20, 25, 30 years out, and there is this growing perception in Europe that there is this climate crisis and, oh my God, what are we going to do? It's the end of the world, and, of course, that's not necessarily the case, but it started as like this on the extreme, and it's gotten slightly better. I would say the Europeans are a little bit more, you know. There's a little bit more of a frenzy over there in terms of all things climate, climate but when we came back to the States, you know, I was like I was like head blown right and I was like what the hell do?
Speaker 2:I have Some people saying that renewables and wind and solar are going to take oil and gas tomorrow. I have some people saying that renewables are never going to penetrate the market. I have other people saying that it's going to be the balance. I have other people saying you know, the end of the world is in like three weeks, so build your bunker and get like your you know food and your ammo and I was like what the hell?
Speaker 1:So wait, so that's that's. That's a tough thing. I'm going to pause you real quick because, like that's a tough, it's never going to replace. I think if you lean into that you can make a career out of that. But when it comes to what you're trying to do and again what Mike Umbrose trying to do, what me and him try to do with energy checks and all that stuff, it really is kind of like bridging energy expectations Like oh, the sky's falling with energy realities Like so, physics doesn't allow that, so you have a lot of different noise. So it's like, how do you pull out of that noise and say, okay, well, let me get my bearings right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I mean at that time to your point, it's like, well, there's so many differing opinions, Like I'm just going to do the work myself and come to my own conclusions. And plus I found this really really interesting.
Speaker 2:So you know, for a good two, three years it was like what's the state of the state on oil and gas, what's the state of the state of renewables, what's the state of the state on the technologies? And then you know, doing that, you're like, well, these things are interconnected. Because you have infrastructure in the United States, you have connectivity, you have distribution, you have utilities, you have, like, this just landscape of all this sort of complimentary or adjacent considerations. I'm like, well, I'm going to learn it because I just thought it was interesting. So you would just nerd out and do the work, and the benefit of that, in addition, outside of just learning it right, was you could apply that in the business world by providing advice.
Speaker 2:Like people at the time and even today, I mean, that's what our business basically does. There's all this sentiment, all this opinion, all this perspective, all this volatility, all this turmoil. It's like dude, I just want steady Eddie. What is the course ahead and how do we do that in a way that's the most effective and the most efficient? So the blueprint that we put in place for clients was actually the blueprint that I put myself. It's like, put everything in the proverbial grinder, right the funnel and you funnel out all the BS and the noise and the shenanigans and then what comes out on the other end is actually pretty practical perspective and really useful advice to incorporate into strategy.
Speaker 1:Well, what's interesting about that? I think, doing the work, like, for example, you're doing the homework, you're diving into it, and this again, I might be leading you on all this stuff, but from what I see is you dive into a subject like that, into all this noise, you come up with your own assumptions and all this stuff. But I would assume that leaves you in such an advantageous position not only to stand to, hey, listen, this is where we're at today, take away the noise, take away these layers of bullshit and all that. So this is where we're at today. But that also kind of gives you an opportunity to say, okay, well, where are some bridges that need to be built for tomorrow? Because I think that from a lot of stuff that you've you've talked about I may be wrong a lot of stuff you've talked about, it's a lot of like this is where we're at today, but these are the bridges that we need to be built.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, I think the oil and gas industry is amazing for a variety of different reasons.
Speaker 2:It doesn't necessarily mean that we are perfect, right, and so I tend to look at this of how do we maintain the relevance and the legitimacy and the power and the capabilities of the oil and gas space. I think sometimes I get overly frustrated because oil and gas can be perceived as an echo chamber. Right, we're amazing and like you're. In the short term, you're like, yeah, like, but you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's these things on the horizon that we should be very, very mindful of, and I'll give you a couple of different examples. The first example is when it comes to let's just call it environmental transparency and there's a lot to be lumped into that little bucket the United States is the outlier, right, they are the outlier relative to the rest of the world, our partners, whether it's Japan, korea, the EU, canada, south America you know I'm not going to throw China in there, it's a different conversation. They're not our partner Too soon. You know I'm not going to throw China in there, it's a different conversation. They're not our partner Too soon. But, yeah, but in any case, they look at this topic differently and I think that we, particularly in the United States, but certainly in the United States energy sector, have a little bit of dissonance going on in terms of, like, what we think we should do is what we think the rest of the world should do, and a lot of that overlaps, but they just view it differently. The second component is and I just wrote about this extensively because there's the growing consensus which is correct, that natural gas is going to lead the way we feel.
Speaker 2:The participants in the sector feel that they're in the driver's seat. Objectively speaking, they are not right. It is the tech bros who do tech bro stuff who are calling the shots. The tech bros didn't wake up one day and said natural gas is amazing. The tech bros said we have this insatiable demand that is about to take place AI Right For power, and we want it to be reliable. And we want it to take place. Ai Right for power, and we want it to be reliable and we want it to be affordable and we don't want any of the shenanigans associated with anything that could infringe upon our ability to become the dominant AI player globally.
Speaker 2:What source of energy provides us the greatest means or the greatest capability of achieving that? It's natural gas. So there's a very it's's subtle, but there's a very distinct mindset where the sector, the energy sector, thinks natural gas is great because we know all the merits of natural gas. The tech bros don't give a shit what it is. They are not pro fossil fuel or pro renewables. They they are pro what works Right, whatever works they want.
Speaker 2:Now there's also this I think we're operating in this statute of limitations. We have this window. The tech bros are not going to wait around for natural gas, in particular, to figure it out. They're not going to wait around for permit reform. They're not going to wait around for judicial review reform. They're going to say, say, look, we have this problem, we will figure it out. And there's this convergence between technology and energy where we have to get along. Right, we are. It's sort of like, you know, two divorced families that have kids and the kids are moving in together like stepbrothers. Right, like, not as funny, though I wish it was that funny yeah, like, like, don't like, technology's not going to be able to play. The drum set and then the other, and then energy is not going to be used. The nunchucks, right, just like in step brothers, they're gonna let me ask you.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question though. So, with that mindset, obviously, I think, listen, I I'm not gonna. I'm speaking generalities here because I don't like, because, listen, I mean I could, I could generalize, you know, people in the oil field, I could generalize people in tech, the tech bros, sure, but I think when it comes down to like, when it comes to, I would say, what drives the public perception, would be more on the tech bro side, right, yeah, that's really driving it. So if tech bros are saying natural gas is good, natural gas is a clean fossil fuel or something like that, or it's green, when that, whatever you want to market it, I think that would have a bit.
Speaker 1:So my question is how does and how does a out day? Well, it's the most relatively in relative industry out there, but how's an outdated industry such as fossil fuels and the tech industry? Because everything I've read I think you did something that was like one if you, if you have chachapy to chachapy to be like one email, it's like this much energy and it's this much water, right? So how do we all come to the table? And kind of not, but I'm not saying differences, but because I don't think we're being different at all. But how do we all come to table and have the same conversation to build and get more beneficial than it is?
Speaker 2:uh I mean foundationally, one of the things that technologists are really really good and what they take to heart is everything's immeasurable, and to a certain extent, we do employ that within the energy space. But what we don't do a good job of and it's getting much better is number one. We have to improve the confidence that we have in the data that's tracked, because we have to improve the technology that's utilized to measure emissions Right Like we are at a point where the cost benefit does, in some cases, make a lot of sense. There are, of course, regional constraints to that, but generally speaking, it just appears weird, particularly to the tech bros, who do have the vast majority of them do have emissions related goals, and some of them look, I think, are foolish, and so I think it's not a good idea to sit back and judge the merit of the climate goals that the tech bros release.
Speaker 2:The fact of the matter is they have them and I don't even make the argument that they have them in most cases because their supply chain is increasingly reliant on Europe, and this is codified reliant on Europe, and this is codified into law in Europe, and the Europeans are not going to repeal it or just anytime soon. So, like you have this downstream effect where the tech bros are reliant on the European market for their supply chain. Because the European supply chain is subject to a variety of emissions related laws, it aligns with their goals. You're going to have to at the very least get the data from the energy companies who are providing them with the energy source, like it's just a natural downhill effect. But to your question on like how does that improve? Number one, the the general market doesn't necessarily appreciate how energy really works. That's our fault.
Speaker 1:Is it appreciated or understand?
Speaker 2:Both it's underappreciated and misunderstood In the book I wrote. I almost fell out of my chair. This is like three years ago. There was a lady very smart, cfa, very established, very experienced who literally told me that electricity comes from electricity. Right, she couldn't explain to me how electricity came. You know how electricity was sourced, and it was fine, but it was like that was actually the genesis for writing the book. I'm like if this lady who once again objectively super cool, super smart, pushing back on the renewable versus fossil fuel, if the foundational premise of her rebuttal to me saying we need more natural gas, was she didn't understand how electricity worked in the first place. Clearly there's a whole other segment of society that just doesn't understand it as well, and most of that is shaping public perception. Um, you can't fault them, though, man. I grew up in connecticut.
Speaker 1:It's the sector's fault. Like we do it right. I work in connecticut. I had no idea. I had no idea about the energy space for I, for I entered it and actually I just recently got a tesla. And uh, relax y'all, I've recently got a test. I think it's an amazing piece of technology, awesome. And I was driving my 11 year old daughter and, uh, she's like you know, you can't get this. You say in the world, like, at the end of the day, like this is charged from natural gas, natural gas. Obviously she's regarding to tell what I'm saying, but, yeah, even the conversations that I, at 11 years old, I would never know that electricity is brought from natural gas right, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:And now like it even the the stakes are a little bit higher because you have very bad policy, like one of the things that's fascinating to me. Um, electricity demand for the better part of a quarter century was flat, like we just didn't have it, so we just took it for granted. You never had this spike or this drop in electricity. It was just like this steady eddy line for the better part of a couple generations, so we were conditioned to just take it for granted. And now you have this aspect where people are like, wow, ai is amazing. Like the stuff you can do on chat, gpt, the capabilities that generative AI will present to us, the efficiencies, geopolitical standing, the economic opportunity, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Everyone universally agrees that's amazing.
Speaker 2:And you're like, just wait a second. Like we don't have the infrastructure in place to facilitate that degree of demand. You're like, well, what are you talking about? It's like like you need this incremental amount of power to to fuel the generative AI ecosystem. Like, why can't we just do that, right? They're like, well, yeah, we'll just AI ecosystem. I'm like, well, why can't we just do that? And it's like right. They're like, well, yeah, we'll just do it. It's like no, no, no, like we have infrastructure considerations, we have judicial review considerations, we have permit reform considerations, we have water infrastructure considerations, and then so you go down this list and you're like, wow man, like we are actually really, really behind and if we don't get our act together and get policymakers to understand how this shit really works, like china is going to hand it to us, because if they want to build a power plant tomorrow, they'll just build it yeah, well, let me ask you.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question. I went to y'all, uh, the picker energy partners of energy conference and often, and first off, you did a phenomenal job. But I think there's a lot of the similar, the themes that I was like. I loved how y'all touched on the water, you touched on electricity, you touched on power, you touched on all things energy which I dig. But I thought something again, I'm kind of regurgitating what you just said.
Speaker 1:Something to me obviously I want you your input on this too is that, whether it's natural gas, whether it's AI, whether it's water, I feel like the United States and tell me I'm full of shit or not. But I feel like the United States is probably about 10, 15 years saying, hey, we know we should be doing this, we know we have to do this, but that's going to be another 10 years before it becomes a problem, and in 10 years it becomes a problem to be a night. So why is there? What can be done to accelerate these necessity infrastructure upgrades to our power, to our water, to our whatever? Like? Where are you seeing the biggest like? Bang your head against the wall?
Speaker 2:I mean, the biggest bang against my wall is I mean? So we do a lot of advocacy work as well, and the advocacy work that we do predominantly centers on just giving a very objective and empirical state of the state. Um, who do you?
Speaker 1:who do you give this to? Are you speaking inside the echo chamber? You going?
Speaker 2:outside, the outside, like inside and outside.
Speaker 2:It's funny like speak inside the echo chamber. It's like here's like they. It used to be like here's the esg guy and I would hate that. It's like nope. But then when I'd go to like new york, it's like it probably didn't help. I was joking that I wore my boots Right, but they're like hey, if you watch land man and like all they want to talk about is like land man and it's like the cartels really kidnapped people. It's like like dude, I don't know. Like it's a great show, like beak varsity, oh uh, dawson's great. Yeah, varsity blues, and it's like okay, anyway, um, so out it's.
Speaker 2:It's a good point outside the echo chamber for those who are genuine right and not anchored to the any sort of agenda. It very much is this very um interesting wake-up call because the, the comments that I get in new york or b Illinois definitely Wisconsin is like I never knew this existed. I was unaware of these adjacencies and I'm going to just reconsider things differently and that's honestly the best compliment that I can get, because that's the whole point. It's like here's the state of the state and I'm just going to tell you in charts, graphs and tables what the economic reality of the day is and whatever determination you want to make, go for it. Like I don't care, like I'm not here to like convince you. I'm just here to educate you and you're a grown-up and you can figure it out yourself.
Speaker 2:In Texas and Oklahoma, the feedback is a little bit different. The feedback is a little bit different. It's either very defensive which it's not intended, obviously to attack the industry, but it is not that great and people rally or rail against california, as they should. The age of the infrastructure in california is exactly the same age as the age of the infrastructure in texas. Like we, we have to figure this stuff out and have to be incorporate these things. Otherwise, like all these people moving here, all these businesses moving here, um, all these capabilities that are coming to the state, like they'll just leave and find the place that they can get it done in right. So it's this temporary thing.
Speaker 1:We want to be a permanent thing it's mind-boggling the, the level of obviously don't get me wrong not mind boggling level of pride, but the level of echo chamber that we all speak to. So, for example, you know, mike Umbra, you know we'll talk about stuff. People are like oh, you know, chiming in, like, oh, don't California, my Texas, don't keep that California policy. I'm like no Policy doesn't have any boundaries. California said all electric by 2035. New Jersey said all electric by 2035. New Jersey said all electric by 2035. Another place said that. So whatever poor energy policy that's based off of energy reality or expectations or virtue, whatever like that, that policy is really collapsing California's economy. Germany did the same thing Dropping coal plants, dropping nuclear, which makes sense.
Speaker 1:It's a freaking mess, but those are core energy policies derived from energy expectations. So whenever I sit at these tables and all that stuff and people are so I'm like hey, like I bring this up, like hey, like midland could get shut down because of a lizard. Oh, they're not going to shut down, they need me. I think for me it's the blind pride of thinking like they need us so much. The government can never come in and shut down a place like Midland. It's like no, like policy changes.
Speaker 2:That's why you need to be active in having these conversations that ignorance can very much lead to poor policy, that we have to spend literally years retrofitting to make sure that we don't lose some of the things that we take for granted today. It doesn't make any sense that we have this component in place where we just picked wind and solar because we liked wind and solar. Another thing that people don't necessarily realize and I was being cute with the title, but empirically it's true, it's like American coal is cleaner than Chinese solar. But when you hear coal, people are, oh my God. Well, there's actually some aspects to coal. Are you timing out?
Speaker 1:No, I was saying no. I was saying no. Coal is negative, like get that away from me. My dad's echoing you, my dad. There's aspects of coal, particularly American coal, that make a whole lot of sense. It's recording on your end too. It's what I said. It's recording on your end, so there might be gaps. Just keep talking. But no, my dad says that USs coal market's a lot cleaner than people think oh, like, and the technology like.
Speaker 2:We have coal clients like, and you know I would. I would think that anyone, in most cases, would look at coal in a sort of like, ooh, like a like, a sort of a sensitive with a sensitive perspective, like some of the technology, um, particularly from a health and safety perspective, like is not even the second place and the globe is not even close to the America's first place, like. But they don't necessarily do a great job of conveying that to the public and I know you don't want to do the cheerleader rah-rah thing, but when it comes to policy, what we don't necessarily understand or appreciate is that some environmental NGOs not all of them, but a significant portion of environmental NGOs all they do on a daily basis, literally a daily basis, is push their data, their narrative, their disclosure, their material to policymakers that don't necessarily establish any ends of the extreme. They're like look, I'm just going to take what I have readily available, I'm going to make a decision. I think those days are ending.
Speaker 2:I think the word is out on certain environmental NGOs that work at more as a political entity, but that doesn't necessarily relieve going to get their head out of their ass until something really really bad happens Like. That's just not. That's unfortunately the the case. And what's what's really really frustrating and I actually outlined this in the book is that it's it's documented that whenever California gets into trouble with the grid, they immediately go to natural gas. California imports a significant portion of their oil from Iran. Right, so when you're talking about one of the more liberal states, which is fine, but then when you talk about where they turn to to get their oil, like the social values of Iran, california aren't necessarily aligned.
Speaker 1:It is not my backyard mentality in California, right, that's been something that we've talked about. Like US, you know, obviously oil and gas is a lot cleaner than Iran. I mean they're pumping out seven times the carcinogens a year than we are in seven years. There's some ridiculous numbers like that. So let's pull back from coal. Let's pull back from coal. I want to kind of talk about your key points and kind of get in where people can find you. So right now, obviously you've been going about this. You've been at a P? P. I saw you did ESG, then you were advocate. Now you're doing something kind of you're, you're, you're kind of do this. So where have? Where has your message? Yeah, where are you at that? Number one that's opportunistic or maybe optimistic for you that you're seeing in the energy space. And number two, what's something that if you could just have everyone understand this significance, you bang your head against the wall. What would be those two Like what's the biggest thing you're optimistic about? What's the biggest thing you're like there's a huge collision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so I would say. The first thing is it's really hard to argue with data. Right, it's really hard to argue with charts, graphs and tables, and to that point, it's not necessarily. It's one thing to have the data, it's quite another to have a high degree of confidence in that data. So, if you think about directionally what is taking place, even if there's a pullback on the regulatory front from the Trump administration, there's all this technology being employed by environmental NGOs that are going to measure your emissions, for example, for you, and they're going to submit that data to policymakers, regulators, politicians, any investors, and so if you're not in a position to immediately rebut what they're inevitably going to accuse the industry of, like, you're doing the industry a disservice and to that point, context really really matters. You know, connecting the dots I think you know we got cute with the technology discussion or term, like I just had Ben Dell. He's the CEO of Cambridge on my podcast and he goes.
Speaker 2:One of the most fascinating trends taking place in the market that no one is necessarily talking about is the convergence between technology and energy. That has happened really really quick. In fact, I would even make the argument that you know expand like one of the largest US natural gas producers in the United States, is a key component within the supply chain of Amazon or Microsoft or Google. Right, it's no longer like energy is over here and technology is over here, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a great call. It's kind of like converging reliance, where expand or any producer, mind you, is a is a significant cog within technology supply chain because they need that power.
Speaker 2:And then, real quick, that third component would be like I think we got to get the water thing and the infrastructure thing fixed really, really, really, really quick. The most water intensive businesses on the planet semiconductor manufacturing, which is a route short to Arizona where there is no water, and then Texas West Texas in particular, is subject to drought all the time. And then the state of the state of the water as it's measured by the EPA, I think it's got like a D rating. It's not great. And then infrastructure like we have this tendency to just focus on generation. We need to start focusing on transmission and distribution, because they're probably more important. Like we can create this stuff no problem Getting it from point A to point B in the most efficient and quickest manner possible. Whole other story.
Speaker 1:Well, talk to let's let's, let's pull back a little bit. Talk to me about the water threat, because I think a lot of people don't understand. So I love how you're combining energy and technology, because you're seeing, whether it's SpaceX, whether you're seeing these energy companies put nuclear reactors back on or invest in natural gas. So you're seeing this. But that's the key component I don't think a lot of people, or some people, are talking about. It's the water requirements of this ai, of this technology that keeps on advanced. And here's the deal a is not slowing down, so this water component is so crucial.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to play a game, right, I'm going to put you on the spot and we're going to do a little guessing here and I'm pulling it up.
Speaker 1:I so my put me on the spot of my podcast dan thanks appreciate my, uh, my board presentation.
Speaker 2:so, like there's several boards that I've spoken to in, like the last, I don't know, call it six months probably, I don't know 10 to 12, and the whole gist of the board presentation was like what aren't we thinking about? Okay, and water was up there and so, like what I do is like with the board I play like this jeopardy game. Um, all right, on average, how many gallons of water does the does a Google hyperscale data center use? What's the average amount of annual water utilized by a Google hyperscale data center?
Speaker 1:I would have no concept. Take a guess A million, a billion, 1.2.1. I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's 164 million gallons of water per year. So it's close to far off. That's one hyperscale data center. So how many data centers are at like what's happening? Right now, we have 5,000. By 2030, we're going to have 5,000 more, right? So you just think about that in terms of magnitude, this one of these things, just to put things in perspective, and I'll like, one Olympic-sized swimming pool has 660,000 gallons of water. So if you think about how much water one hyperscale data center uses, it's about 109,000 Olympic swimming pools every year. That is crazy. When you tack on the estimated amount of hyperscale data centers that it's going to be here in the next five years be here in the next five years that 109,000 Olympic swimming pools goes to 450,000 Olympic swimming pools. That means that on an annual basis, data centers alone will use the same amount of water that is in Lake Tahoe.
Speaker 1:So I have a question yeah, that's going to be a requirement. Is that a reality then?
Speaker 2:man, not unless we get the water thing. That's what I'm talking about. Like, like, are we going to be able to facilitate using lake tahoe every single year? Like, probably not. There's no water technology, water efficiencies, water treatment, like all these other things I've had. I've had no joke. Executives look me dead in the eye and be like, why, why is water such a important thing? And once again, to be fair, it's three years ago, um, but here I'll give another example. So here we go. Um, how much water does it take to produce one semiconductor chip?
Speaker 1:how much water? Two Lake Tahos.
Speaker 2:No, I don't know. I don't know. One semiconductor chip requires a thousand gallons of water.
Speaker 1:Man, I saw something where someone like a simple hey, fix my email chat GPT was like. I think it was like obviously you probably know more. It was like I think I actually read it off of your thing it was like 15 gallons of water for like one. Hey, can you fix his grammar on my email?
Speaker 2:well, let's just, let's just put it in context of power demand. So you know you need about, for every kilowatt hour of power that's generated, you need five gallons of water. So if you think about the incremental demand just from power that we're going to meet and you're going to marry that with water demand, and then you're talking about, hey, we have these geopolitical tensions which it actually makes a lot of sense to reshore. You know very important critical industries, semiconductors and then you combine the fact with, just like you said, like chat, GPT. You know there's not enough water, that right now we will figure this out, I'm confident of it. But when you talk about like well, who are the companies that do it really, really well and that can act as the blueprint for other companies to utilize, not to steal their IP or their technology, but certainly to understand where we're at tracked water?
Speaker 2:And when investors started asking about, well, give us your water policy at least, initially there was some contingent in the oil and gas space. There was like like, really like this left wing environmental, like big brother looking at yeah, it's like no, no, no. Like smart investors and once again, this is this is them conveying it to me. Smart investors were like look, China's not going to become any less aggressive. That means a couple of different things. Mostly, Taiwan is increasingly in peril. If Taiwan is in peril, that means the United States has the potential not to get all the semiconductor chips that they need. Like that provides a variety of bottlenecks in the supply chain. That's a big deal.
Speaker 2:If we reshore that, which we should, it looks at like that's way, especially when Trump was, you know, climbing up in the polls Like we want to understand who's doing a really, really good job, because they have an incredible competitive advantage. Like let's put our money not just there because of the water metrics, like the whole financial profile, but you talk about, you know, a very competitive landscape. There's these tidbits here and there that provide a competitive differentiation, or at least in an element of comfort, as to like well, why should we invest in company B as opposed to company C? So I I think it all comes back down to like the pursuit of capital. But particularly when you talk about, you know, our ability to compete, not today, but in 20 years, almost everything is predicated upon generative ai, and if you don't have semiconductor chips because you don't have water, we don't compete on generative ai.
Speaker 1:it's just not capable I feel like as and I be wrong, it might be with my pay grade, but I feel like, um, uh, the U? S system is based on terms versus forward thinking down the line. Um, I mean, that's that's what I, that's what I have to listen. I think we can keep on talking for an hour and a half, but I want to, I want to talk to you about your kind of ADD, creative side right now. So you've been, I mean, listen, man, you, I remember you sent me something before we even met. You're like, hey, dude, we're going to meet.
Speaker 1:Here's like my presentation. Like you sent it. Like at 10 PM at night I stayed up looking at it's like 1130. I loved it. I geek out on stuff like that. But, um, man, so like, I feel like in the past, like three or four months, like you've been really, uh, applying your I I don't know if it's again we talked about this boredom, waiting for delayed slides or whatever like that. But talk about each of these little projects that you're doing and how people can find it, and kind of not just the inspiration, but like I guess we're like what were they? What are?
Speaker 2:they all about. Yeah, I mean, and look, I think this is a testament to how, uh, dan Pickering has sort of organized his firm right. He wanted people that were researchers at heart. Like Dan, at heart is a research analyst. Like he's going to kill me for saying that, I think at his core. Like he still walks around with like the legal pad and the pad and he writes literally everything down and he'll research it ad nauseum. Like we are kindred spirits in that regard. So I think I just have this natural tendency to be curious about things that I think are interesting and I want to figure it out. There's also this overlap with the common denominator question that clients are asking us, like why is water important? Like we're getting all these water questions from investors, like, but like it's not because an investor found environmental Jesus. There has to be some rational, reasonable, financial decision.
Speaker 2:Financial reason. Investors are in the business of making money. There's got to be something to that. We heard a lot of people are like American coal, we don't need coal. Then you talk to Console, for example, who just rebranded I can't remember what their new name is but they're like look, dude, 80% of our sales is foreign. Like, oh, wow, okay, like there's something to that.
Speaker 2:Um, so American coal is cleaner than Chinese solar. Um, the U? S energy needs a larger boat, right? So I was watching jaws cause it's movies Awesome, and I'm like, wow, like we need a larger boat, right. So I was watching Jaws because it's movies Awesome, and I'm like, wow, like we need a larger boat. The tech bros are calling the energy shots, which you know. We're talking to a lot of the tech bros and, like my question was like we have this sort of pivotal shift in policy perspective that emphasizes the importance of not necessarily focusing exclusively on climate. Like what are you guys going to do? And they all say, like, from you know supply chain to policy, to every you know investor relations, they all will say every one of the tech pros except Tesla, interestingly, don't point at me.
Speaker 2:I've spoken to, almost all of them are like we're not. We're not backing down on the climate stuff. Number one we can't because we have a european supply chain and this stuff is qualified in europe. And then there's the argument of like well, why doesn't europe just get rid of it? Dude, if you thought european bureaucracy took forever to get stuff done, it takes even longer for it to repeal so they're at the mercy of the bureaucracy either way.
Speaker 2:Um, so yeah, there's these questions that come about where, if there's enough of the questions, I think it's worth my time, um, to sort of get a reasonable answer that's based on research and data, uh, and in in objectivity, and I just like dude, I just like writing to kill the time. I've actually got a pretty nice little system going where it's like so.
Speaker 1:So number one, dan, you gotta get I'm doing this out there for the listener you got a sub, a sub stack, I believe no, no, I post everything on my linkedin like just what do you do, yeah? Posted, and then the podcast is there as well so you write articles, you'll do blogs, you'll do whatever you want to call that right. And the second thing you just started doing can you name your podcast?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's petranoia, so, um, the upright digital guys are great. Oh yeah, josh lowry, josh is legit, he's dude, he's such a good guy, he's. He's like I mean this ralph, ralph, ralph over there. No, I mean the guy I'm working with is mostly josh. But okay, me and josh were sort of just like shooting the shit, and not that we were like we had a couple beers, like whatever, and he's like you should do the podcast. I was like, yeah, man, totally didn't think twice about it. It was like he was like you know whatever. Um, and then he called me like two weeks later, he's like the studio's ready, like let's go.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, you gotta love josh, for that you gotta love that I mean just totally sporadic, but you know there's a method behind his madness and it makes sense. He's been a great partner. But you know, one of the things that I wanted to do like I'm a I you know whether it's working out, or like you're at my kids football practice or walking the dog, whatever, like big podcast listener um, one of the things that I thought was missing within the space was a lot of the podcasts in the space talk to people in the space and I don't want that. Like I've had I'm gonna have a couple environmentalists on.
Speaker 2:I've had, you know, people in the space like mike howard. Yeah, is a you know for howard, uh, energy partners and the interesting thing about mike is he's obviously a massive proponent of the space but he's actually really fair and objective in his thinking and his perspective on anything, on everything, is really refreshing. And if you look at like his background, the dude's a self-made man and so he just brings a unique perspective to that. So what I want to accomplish on the on the Petronoya podcast was yeah, oil and gas is bad-ass and there's, you know, a whole group of people who are awesome that work in the industry. But I want something that counter sort of like what everyone is doing on the consensus side with the echo chambers I think about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a hundred percent. Like Ben Dell was just on, he's the CEO of Kimmeridge and you think I could talk for two hours. Good Lord man, I could listen to that guy talk for like days like just super interesting perspective on where the world of energy is going.
Speaker 1:Don't you love running across people like that Like?
Speaker 2:Dan, I've seen you with one of those people.
Speaker 1:I've seen you with Mike Umbro as one of those people like friends of mine. I love having people that you just kind of like sit down with and they just like geek out and they're passionate about it, but they're giving you not the edward chamber business that we all have, they're giving you like outside perspective.
Speaker 2:So I love how you're doing that, talking outside the industry the best, I mean the best advice, the best career advice I got so, like when I was at nasdaq. You know, I was lucky enough to be selected in this group where, um, they would have board members kind of like sit you down and basically explain to you the way the world works. And at the time, one of the guys on the NASDAQ board was Steve Black. Steve was the right-hand man to Jamie Dimon during the financial crisis. So Jamie Dimon was the one who gets credit for, like, getting JP Morgan through the crisis and expanding the bank the way that it was. But it was actually Steve. That was like his mercenary right. Steve was like Jamie, what do you want to do? And Steve was the one that actually got it done.
Speaker 2:And great guy, total no bullshit whatsoever. And he sat me down and he's like if you want to be successful in life, he's like you will listen to everybody that disagrees with you. You will just sit down and you will shut your mouth and you will listen. And it's hard and it's difficult and it sucks and you're not going to like it, but what that's going to facilitate is the ability to think more critically, to offer better solutions, to understand the world from outside your lens. And he goes because your lens I was like I think I was like 30 or whatever.
Speaker 2:Whatever it was, I was younger. He's like. He's like at this age, at this level, he's like your opinion doesn't mean shit, okay, man. And like I really took that to heart. I mean the other thing that he said too, which I really took to heart, and it doesn't apply to this. He's like, whether you like it or not, you're always in sales and so, like, those two pieces of advice were great, like, and I'm like man, why don't I go to, why don't I go to business school? I could have, I could have called Mike Howard and drank like two or three beers with Mike, and I could have called Steve and had like the, you know, the martini or whatever fashion drink they do. That's my move, yeah, right, whatever.
Speaker 1:No, mike, mike, Mike came to a dinner. We I had a shoemaker advisors, uh, Ryan Walker, obvious up there. He, uh he came to a dinner that we had, uh in Houston last year and I was like, first off, this cat is cool as hell. Second off, I'm like this guy's got a leader Like he was. I'm really he's very down to earth.
Speaker 2:Very down to earth, I mean. I mean I mean the, the leaders that I've worked with. I mean they all have a variety of interesting attributes, but the. The one thing that they all share in common that I appreciate the most is how personable they are.
Speaker 2:Like me, like, for example, adina, she would go like where do you go shopping? I'm like, well, what do you mean? She's like I really like the suit. I'm like I actually go mannequin shopping. She's like what the hell is that? I'm like, well, I go to a store and I look at the mannequin and whatever mannequin I think is dressed the best, I said I'll take that and then I get it and I leave. She's like like that's amazing, like I'm gonna have my husband do that. And so, like two weeks later we're at another meeting, um, and you know she's obviously running it. But before the meeting she's like, hey, come here, come here. She's like mannequin shopping, it's the way to go. I was like, oh, share that, yeah. But I mean, and then you know thing about mike um, you know, sneaky undercover, really good at dodgeball, like dodgeball, dodgeball.
Speaker 1:So when the hell do you? When does a dodgeball circumstance come up that you know he's good?
Speaker 2:so he's got a leadership conference that he hosts internally for his people who are director and above um, and he invited me to speak at this leadership conference. It was like the us needs a larger energy boat. Um, and he invited me to speak at this leadership conference. It was like the U? S needs a larger energy boat. And he's like, well, if you want, you can stick around. I was like, okay, well, like what do you got going on? He's like, well, there's these presentations and he had a couple other people. I'm like, wow, yeah. And he's like and you know, I I think you should play dodgeball. And so he separates the team into fours and they have a dodgeball tournament and he plays in it. Man, he did a couple moves. Once again, I don't want to sound like too cheerleader, but I was just impressed. He had a matrix move. Someone just darted the ball in the matrix and then he's got three or four of the guys played college baseball.
Speaker 1:So you're just trying to dodge you, so like you're just trying to throw shoulders out Our heaters.
Speaker 2:coming at you with a dodge ball, you're like, okay, just a little bit different. But it was all I haven't thought of dodgeball strategy since probably 1992. So I've got to see you kind of yeah, back, let them all throw and then hoard it, and then, when they go on the on the defensive, you charge, and then you just throw it as hard as you can.
Speaker 1:And then you have to have a real believable face Like that didn't hit, that didn't hit, that didn't hit yeah.
Speaker 2:It looks pretty dicey pretty quick because they're smaller. So if you hit it it could look like it would hit your hand. But you get the benefit of the doubt. But in any case, All right, talk to me.
Speaker 1:Howard, sneaky good dodgeball player. Talk, talk, talk to me about this book. All right, let's wrap it up here and let's give people how to connect with you. And also, I guess, when it comes to guidance, when it comes to, uh, your I guess your what you focus on at picker and energy partners where and why would someone reach out to you? So let's get to the book and actually talk about your. Keep talking about your book, like I'm listening because I want to go get something else. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean the g voices in the room and like that becoming that became increasingly irritating. Um, because you would go and do these talks and for a time, like for a short period of time, all it seemed that people were doing were they were taking bits and pieces of the presentation and they were like moving it over to their side to just fight fire with fire. And like what I wanted to do was like I wanted to appeal to like a younger audience, so like my kids. Um, because what really resonated in addition to that story I talked about, where, like the lady was, like electricity comes from electricity. Like my kids are learning about this stuff in school and, frankly, it's crap. Like and I and I live in Florida, dude, like I live in the epicenter of like school should be like a very certain way. And you know my son I actually told the story to Chuck Yates. My son came home one day and he's like you'd be so proud of me. I'm like what happened? He's like they're talking the teacher was in science class.
Speaker 2:They're talking about, like the power of renewables and my son, who was probably 10 at the time, 10 or 11, goes no, no, no. Like renewable power is not. He goes renewable power is not baseload power, and the teacher goes well, what do you mean? Like baseload power, like no, and like the teacher herself did not know the concept of baseload power yet she was teaching this class about some merit of renewables and I was like, I was like I I don't know if I won't say I like certain super like certain really frustrating that that brush?
Speaker 2:like gosh, darn it. I'm so upset with this, um, and I was like, well, I'm proud of you. So I took him to get like some ridiculous mound of ice cream, um. But then I was like, man, this is it. And so, um, I knew in the back of my mind I was going to write it. It was a function of like, when am I going to find the time? Yes, and like, literally, serendipitously, you know the the oil and oil and gas gods must be on my side, cause, like a week later, I'm sitting in the airport and it's one of those United things where it's like delay, delay, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes. And then it's like, well, we don't have pilots. It's like, all right, dude. So instead of like getting worked up and pissed off, I just started doing it and then, sure enough, like it, just one thing led to another, um, and I had written so many other things to like shorter thought leadership pieces like five, six pages, and just aggregated that into one thing.
Speaker 1:And do you have this book on your? Uh you, you can go check out Dan R-O-M-I-T-O, dan Romato over at Picker and Anypart. The book is called the Radical Middle. Yeah, the Radical Middle how Fossil Fuels and Renewables Can Collaborate on the Future of Energy. Dan, I love this buddy, and what age group is this for? I?
Speaker 2:mean it's for any age group, but I mean I have kids as young as like 10.
Speaker 1:So I bought this and I'm not going to be with those guys. I bought it just to obviously take a. I mean I dig this shit, so I'm going to take a look at this. I haven't read it yet, but I got it on my Kindle. And also, this isn't for everyone, but I also wrote a children's book called energy for everyone, yeah, so, uh, I need to get back to doing that stuff, man.
Speaker 1:the fact you're doing this just two very established authors having a conversation we're just having author talk, like that's just author talk, like we're just like, just like where's my journal?
Speaker 2:like where's my biggest thing, like when, when the kids so like obviously, every now and then the kids need help with their homework and traditionally, like I've taken the math and my wife has taken like anything other than like so, like English and all that other stuff, and she actually got a little bit pissed right Because the kids are coming to me with like their English homework. She's like, well, why don't you come to me? And they're like dad wrote a book, mom, and she's like I wrote a book, honey.
Speaker 1:Like sorry you know, yeah, no, that's now you gotta start introducing yourself, because I am damn an author. But uh, hey, buddy, I I appreciate your time. I know this is an hour of your life and I know you gotta step off, but, buddy, I'll be seeing you uh. If I don't see you, uh, sooner than later I'll be seeing you at the crew club operator round table. You'll be leading another great discussion, which I'm excited about, which kind of is kind of the base on why we had this conversation right now. And the conversation you're been giving and that's going to be in Houston on May 22nd, is the energy, power and water paradigm for Texas and the U? S and the world has changed. So check Dan out. The book again is called you find on Amazon, it's called the radical middle how fossil fuels and renewables can collaborate in the future. I'm sure you've seen Nick Adelis is a book as well he's got. I love seeing all these authors. I know there's Kyle Wagner that has his book, there's Tyler Thompson.
Speaker 2:I love all this, the other one, the other one that I like, and I don't even know if we know him. I don't know him personally, but it was given to me. Like I'm reading this one it's the conservative environmentalist Dude. It's actually really, really good. So I was in Oklahoma. I gave a speech at the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma and this guy was here and I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but he just wrote it. But it's pretty crazy. He's like he's got a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger on it. Like I want to know how this guy got to know Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I don't know who he is. He was at a conference that I was speaking at, but that's like I want to get solutions for a sustainable future yeah, so I don't want to do like the why my vote thing, whatever.
Speaker 1:I'll do it buy.
Speaker 2:Dan's book. There's a couple other ones that are actually really, really good. The other one that I like, this one good lord, I mean, I got all these Apocalypse Never by Schellenberger that's a really good one too. That's the reading list that I got going on.
Speaker 1:I got to say this You're probably the worst author to promote his own book. Thank you for being the worst author to promote their own book, not your book, buddy. I'm pretty bad at it.
Speaker 2:All the writings that we do are on my LinkedIn page. All my writings are on LinkedIn. I'm happy to take questions, like I said. In terms of the business itself, I would like to say that we are problem solvers, operate within the capital markets. So, even if it's just conversation or, frankly, if you just don't agree with anything I said, like I said back to Steve Black's advice, I'm actually much more inclined to listen or to take those calls and people are like, yeah, this is great. I certainly love talking to people on that regard, but, like I said, it's fascinating to listen to people. The tractor mindset I'm not saying it's not frustrating, but it does provide us with, like a great understanding of where the tea leaves may be heading and then putting in place, you know, guardrails to ensure that it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:But I also think it strengthens the ability to communicate um uh across the aisle.
Speaker 1:It strengthens the ability to kind of understand, have some empathy, because at the end of the day, the more you tell someone that they're wrong or that they're idiots and stuff like that, you're just pushing away your, your, your set camps up so the more constructive conversations and the more of these conversations you have that are against kind of whatever position you have, the easier it is and the kind of the more exciting is to start having these uh across the table conversations, yeah, and even in the book, not to give like, but I spent a lot of time like my brother-in-law's dad was a psychologist for like 40 years, um, and so I was just.
Speaker 2:I called him up, I'm like, walk me through why people do this, and he basically gave me all the talking points. I incorporated that into the book just how people, or how people digest information and then mold it in a way that they want, and then what to do, not to change their minds but to at least have them entertain different perspectives Like there's a whole chapter dedicated.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a very difficult thing because most of the times when there's something that's contradictory to your own personal beliefs or something like that and just as you said, it's whether it's ego, whether it's you don't want to hear something that that doesn't align with your beliefs. People don't want to hear something that doesn't align with your beliefs. People don't want to hear it too. So the fact you're having these conversations outside the echo chamber again, you're having this on your podcast called Petro, petronoya, petronoya and R-O-N-O-I-A yeah, and you can find that at Spotify. All that fun stuff, obviously with video. I'm sure you signed at Upright Digital, right? You're doing the video.
Speaker 2:Our studio is bad-ass, dude. I mean, they did a fantastic job, so it's like half in studio and then half remote, like we're doing right now I dig it.
Speaker 1:So, everyone, I'm saying Dan, obviously I appreciate any moment with you, buddy, but the fact that you're just keeping blowing and going, I love watching kind of your travels and what you're contributing and the conversations you're having, Because at the end of the day, shit man, if we're not having conversations, we're not progressing as an industry. So I appreciate you again, check out his book, and again that book is called the Radical Middle the Radical Middle and reach out to him, connect with him on LinkedIn and stay plugged in, because he's having conversations that are obviously evolving about where the not just the energy industry, but kind of everything infrastructure, power, war, I mean, it's just he's a great source of a lot of things. Now, dan, always appreciate you, buddy, and, uh, baratics for the moment. I know last minute. So we were on a team's meeting and said let's hop over and just do a podcast, man, we were bullshitting enough. So, hey, buddy, appreciate you, have a happy Easter and, man, if we know in the meantime, let's connect and be good.
Speaker 1:Brother, I appreciate it. Talk soon, bud. All right, talk soon. Thank you. Everyone out there, if you like it, give us a shout, connect with Dan and we'll talk to you, thank you.