Latest / Thinking Class / #97 - Andreas Svanlund - Why The 'Energy Transition' Is Dead

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#97 - Andreas Svanlund - Why The 'Energy Transition' Is Dead · Thinking Class

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, classmate, and welcome to Thinking Class.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm John Gillam and today I'm speaking to Andreas Van Lund.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Andreas is the Chief Commercial Officer at SafeClean, a Norwegian hydrocarbons company, formerly an officer in the Norwegian Armed Forces.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Andreas joined the defense industry as business developer with a special focus on the special forces elements within NATO and Europol.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Andreas was also a proprietor of combat uniform equipment to the Norwegian Armed Forces and worked closely with the national response, counterterrorism, and organized crime units.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, Andreas and I think out loud about the critical importance of energy resilience for Western nations in the geopolitical landscape and the multipolar world in which we now live, why the so-called energy transition to renewables not only failed but never really started, what the implications to national security are of relying on foreign energy sources, why the new obsession with building AI data centers means many more fossil fuels will be required, and that we will see changes in countries' energy policies as a result, and why economic prosperity is very closely tied to energy resilience and domestic political stability and much, much more.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was a pleasure to welcome Andreas back onto the show.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: He was guest number seven on Thinking Class, and now he's guest number 97.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, Andreas.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Hope you like the show.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And before you get going, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow the show on YouTube, your podcast platform of choice and substat.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's grow Thinking Class together.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy the show, classmates, and I'm going to go to the Victoria.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Glad to be here.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Andreas, you were one of my very first guests on the show.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: You were the one uh who took a leap of faith on me when I got in touch with you uh before I'd even launched the YouTube page and uh been able to uh show you what we talk about on the show.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just came with a concept and you agreed.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So here you are again, and it's great to speak with you.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: We spoke last time about the reliance on um of vast global supply chains on minerals, which uh ultimately so many thousands of them are required to power modern society.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we've got the great powers of the world and indeed middling nations jostling for position to get hold of these minerals.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and you particularly, your professional background is in deep sea mining, which you argue and argued in that conversation that we had, that it's a cleaner, safer, and a more abundant method to extract minerals, minerals from the earth and to help nations achieve their energy policies and energy resilience.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we can begin there.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, why is it that energy resilience has come to the fore?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And why is it so important for nations to be jostling for position with these minerals?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right now we are uh reshuffling all all the all the cards.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: They are handy, they've been handed out again for the f like it was the first time.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so and that that means that the system that we used to be a part of uh will be uh very unstable, at least for a while.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then that means that it will be hard to access, or might be hard to access, both the minerals that you need and uh the energy that you need.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we used to think that uh multipolar world meant more uh democracy and more uh depolity.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but uh the really hard part is that uh that means uh more competition uh over the resources that we actually do have available.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh all the dogs start biting and they will continue to bite until uh a new leader has been established, and that is uh the era that we are entering into, and hopefully uh it will work out well.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but that will depend on us being able to feed our industry and making our people secure, and um that means that both on the oil and gas side we need to do something, and we also need to do something on the on the mineral side as well, uh, because right now uh being reliant on countries on the other side of the world is just not viable.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Andreas, you mentioned that energy resilience is going to become more and more important for nations in the geopolitical space that we're in, because there is no point in relying upon foreign powers that may be hostile to us or geographically distant from us.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Here in the United Kingdom, from where I'm standing, we have a long history of shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to energy policy.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: We've closed down mines, we've been slow to build nuclear.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: We are becoming increasingly reliant on renewables, whilst also being increasingly reliant on foreign imports of energy.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And now we pay the highest energy bills in the developed world, which is seeing our industry shutter its doors, even though we have been closing it down ourselves for years, and we're almost only focused on professional services and financial services and all the rest of it.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you believe that it is inevitable that all sovereign nations will have to come up with some sort of domestic energy resilience policy and use the assets at their disposal?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you think countries like the United Kingdom can continue on with the net zero policies that they have set out to achieve?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, that will no no that that that will not uh be possible.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for several reasons.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of them uh uh is that we will be in in the competition with China going forward.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: We will be uh we must uh bring our production back.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: That means that we uh and we must be able to uh produce at scale.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we in order to do that, we must have energy to feed our industry, you must have the materials to feed our industry, and we in an ideal world we should also have the the mocking and the demography to to feed to feed um uh the industry, uh but we at least have to ensure that we have the energy and and the and the materials and uh and uh do the best we can with what we do have for and and that means uh that we need to sacrifice uh some political promises, uh but we do that in order to make people more safe and to uh make them uh trust their leaders and trust their governments because as soon as they don't, we have an even big bigger problem.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So uh ensuring that we have the materials and energy we need is also about the keeping the countries that we we live in stable uh in the next decade.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're talking about stability and countries keeping themselves stable, are you referring not just to economic and energy-related factors, but are you talking about internal pressures as well?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I don't want to put words in your mouth, but to paint that picture a little bit more, the never-ending conversation here in the United Kingdom, and indeed in many Western European countries like France and Germany, uh, if you're allowed to talk about it, is about mass immigration, the impact that it's having on social cohesion, that it's making the societies that we live in low trust, that multiculturalism is deeply unfair to uh the native population of these countries.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And indeed, most political battles now between the main parties in these countries are centering around this issue.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there are people we have um uh a professor here who's a Canadian called David Betts, uh, who is a professor of war studies at the Imperial College London, sorry, King's College London, and uh he has been putting probability on civil war breaking out here in Britain as being something like 8% chance per year, but it could break out any time.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So are you talking about stability in just the energy sense, or are you saying that actually if we're going to be able to deliver on all of these things, it's not just about economics, it's not just about energy, but we need to start thinking seriously about demography and culture, or am I just reading into things too much?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're absolutely right.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the system that we've been a part of over the last several decades has been very unique in in many ways.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it was the first time that uh small nations uh were able to go going back to uh the Imperial age, uh a nation needed oil, coal, um, food, water, uh, and energy uh in uh order to have economic uh growth.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh after the second world war, it has been sufficient having one resource, and that allowed the small nations to feel important, but also to have economic growth because of the system.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: You could have take the one resources that you did have, if that was oil, as it was for Norway's sake, you could trade it with everything else.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: The same applied for the Middle East.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you had uh a young working age uh population that you were not able to feed, you could ship them abroad.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that was the first time in in history that was possible, and uh and we and we did that.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so so when the system now is showing severe uh weakness, that means that everything that we took for granted is is not rent so we we cannot expect that to be the case going forward.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we also know that democracies are dependent on ekonomik growth in order to stay demokratic, uh, in order because that is the only way you can give more to more people without taking from any one.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as you start taking as we as we must, uh that will lead to more instability between uh inside the nation between the people and all the cultural uh issues that you uh that is there but are now uh not that visible because at least people get their fundamental needs covered.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: They will grow more intense, uh go um in the next few years, and that is why it's very very important that our our leaders they stake out the course, come with some clear goals uh create an inspiring vision that uh people can unite uh around.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there I see no clear signs that we have the that types of leaders that are able to to inspire and motivate and and unite.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have too much of the management managerial class.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they are used to uh just managing uh the system um making sure everything runs smoothly, but uh that is a totally different type of leadership than um than what it it's not it's not even lead leadership.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh leadership is about uh staking out a new course, uh getting people behind you to join you and uh create new systems, and uh that is the type of people that we are going to to need uh the next uh decade.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you mentioned the professional managerial class, and I suspect uh there is much for that particular class of people which I found myself a part of in adult life to atone for.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there have been many ideological projects which have been bandied around as um the solution to societal ills, and sometimes they're not recognized as being ideological, but they are, and there's a utopian angle to it.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And in the line of work, which I suppose you're in uh when you're dealing with politicians, you've probably come across it.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: But we've touched on net zero being one of them.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of these goals and targets were made before we even knew if we had the technology or the means to be able to deliver on the targets, but also it was a classic case of management by spreadsheet without considering the practical realities of what it was they were trying to achieve and whether it was possible, the impact it would have on people, and indeed on the nation.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: So let's let's stick with net zero for the moment and what was referred to as the energy transition.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we were all told in 2020, and basically for the next three years, non-stop, that there's a new economy on the way, there's an energy transition, it's going to be clean, we're going to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and uh we're going to go mad on renewables.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: So there's going to be lots of solar parks, so they're going to be wind farms offshore and onshore, and all the rest of it.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I suppose if you start looking at news items, that you can see cracks in this.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, I think a week ago, California uh had announced that its$2.2 billion solar facility in Ivanpa is shutting down.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I suppose a broader lens in the United States is that since the Trump administration has come back on the scene here in uh in in 2025, net zero has taken a battering.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh it's certainly wafting across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom and Europe, whether the leaders are listening or not, but there's certainly a big clamouring for getting rid of net zero policies because of the increased prices.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that the energy transition is dead now, or do you think there is some future in which it somehow exists but on a different course?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've never never had one.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was never a solution in in the first place, and uh everybody also inside the industry they they knew that uh looking at the so then if you are going to transition the economy from a fossil-based economy into a mineral-based economy, then you will need the minerals.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we didn't have the minerals.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh according to most estimates, that in order to come close to the goals that the politicians they uh they uh had set, uh we at least needed to increase the uh production of minerals tenfold.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh we did not see any new investments into this uh this industry, and the the the investments that we we did see was into the existing system uh into the um the system that all already gave uh China the leverage uh leverage uh and it was obvious for everybody that uh that was not going to be an option for the United States to just give away its global dominance.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: So every uh every everyone they understood that w we are going to uh uh reach an endpoint quite soon, no matter what.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And but of course, all of the the uh the political leaders that stood behind the energy transition uh goal, they will try to blame Donald Trump as much as they can.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's very easy to blame.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but uh the the the struggles that we are now seeing they would have uh uh come uh anyway.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you mentioned China there, and I occasionally read uh articles, substacks on the topic of battles over energy policy, and China has been one which has been hesitant to keep themselves uh honest when it comes to the targets that they've been set, or they haven't been setting the same pledges as others, but they're also one of the great big manufacturers of pretty much all the technologies that you would want for any supposed energy transition towards wind and soda and all the rest of it.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a a quote from an article which I'll include in the links, um, about Europe and the West, but the US accepted because they they're not part of the Paris Climate Agreement and they've they're moving on with their own agenda.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: So there is this suggestion that Europe and the West are being led to the slaughter on energy by China.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: So here's the quote, and it'll be good to get a response to see what you think here.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: With the US not at the table, our mental models suggest that the Conference of Parties 30, COP30, which is usually put together by the UN, is set up to be a BRICS-led guilt and pressure campaign to get Europe to commit to even deeper cuts in CO2 emissions.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: These would be more than offset by increases in China's emissions, as long as the latter is allowed to burn coal with impunity under whatever pretenses the Paris Agreement allows.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is a path to even deeper economic and living standards cuts than the one Europe is already well down.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Led by China, the BRICS countries know this and are baiting Europe to commit to 90% reductions in CO2 by 2040, effectively walking the EU, the European Union, to the gallows to hang itself with its green virtue and willingness to sacrifice its largest economies on the altar of climate change.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: What do you make of that?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you agree, or is this conspiratorial thinking?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: European leaders, they are very easy to lead in a way that they they are.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you start with our schooling system, uh the the kids causing prob problems, uh we take them out of class.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we get the the people leading us are the are extremely narrow in their thinking.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they are all about optimization and uh efficiency.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and when you have a linear mindset, then there is no better role model than China.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the all you have to do is walking in line.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but and and that is also wh why I believe they bought into the Um climate change narrative because it was a scalable solution.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just build more of the technology that you already have.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Use the supply chains that you already have.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just trust the system and it it will work.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it it makes very much sense to those types of people.
• 22:31
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• 22:37
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• 22:45
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• 22:48
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• 23:01
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• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing.
• 23:06
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• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy the rest of the show, classmate.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: What what is remarkable about the objectives and the outcomes of the education system which has become so predominant in the West, and not just in English-speaking countries, but across Europe and all the affiliated countries, is that besides that optimization and efficiency you're talking about, is everyone has been imbued with the utilitarian ideal of the greatest happiness for the group for the greatest number, which then translates to the global good.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it always seems to be the global good being put before the national interest and the common good in the realm of the sovereign nation.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Every single decision always seems to be made on the basis of helping out other people than those people that you govern in your country.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that has been having such crazily bad effects on the common person in these countries, which is why you have the blowback to all of these policies in what we call populism, which then the only way that we turn around and tell them to supposedly engage with these people who are giving the blowback is that they're racist, they're stupid.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: We just need to bite the bullet a little bit longer, pay the price for a better future, and all the rest of it.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And in reality, when you look around, you see the likes of China and India and the BRICS nations that continue to, in the case of climate change, produce more and more and more and more.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: At the same token, they also get to offload quite a lot of the people they don't want to our countries who are engaging in mass immigration experiments.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's interesting when you start to wonder when a change will come.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we can talk about regime change, and then sometimes you wonder how possible the regime change is when you know that so many people who've gone through the political class have ultimately been matriculated through this system of thinking.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, those people do exist, but um how far are they going to get through their new programs when we have whole bureaucracies that proper modern systems of government, which are staffed with all the people who think the way you and I have just described, supposedly there to execute the new regime's plans?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: It seems to be that whatever you want to do, you're almost set up for failure.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's such a legal apparatus, a bureaucratic apparatus to frustrate any attempt to deviate from the path you you've just described, which is focused on climate change.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose the other point I want to raise is how interesting it is that the economic efficiency point or economic opportunity point, even amongst those who supposedly think about their own virtue in terms of focus on the world, is every policy decision seems to be based on what they think is going to be economic growth.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And they they get it wrong, but the the big energy transition was meant to be the new industrial revolution.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's meant to be this big boon.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then once that fizzled out a bit, all of a sudden the Ukraine-Russia war kicks off.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And within a couple of years, the same people who've been involved in environmental, social, and governance activities, ESG, are all suddenly saying to themselves, oh well, you know how we tried to exclude investment in defense companies before out of uh moral reasons.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, maybe there's a case to include it within ESG policies, but it's because they can make a whole bunch of money out of it by including that in their investment portfolios.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I find it remarkable.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Where am I going with this?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: I find it remarkable that our educated, highly educated elite class has just put its foot in it on so many levels for so long, and almost everything they've tried has failed.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then uh you have the Harvard professor uh Michael Sandel.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of work around on the tyranny of um meritocracy.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and when you you see how or the the results of how the meritocratic class uh have led, uh it's not very impressive.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you if you look at the political uh lead leaders that we do have today, they are very, very highly educated, but uh uh if you measure them in economic growth compared with uh the guys that we used to have with uh no schooling at all, uh they uh performed terrible.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: So and and and the I think the reason is quite simple.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you have in the beginning of a system, whether it's in business innovation or uh developing some kind of new technology, or if you are creating a new national or world order, uh you you have these people that they come to power because they challenge the system, they they create something that does not exist, and by doing that uh they have a higher margin, uh they have high economic growth because they do something that have not been done before.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: But when success is achieved uh then you very soon start to try to stabilize the success.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: You get some institutions in place, you get some uh regulatory framework in place, and you get more uh bureaucracy, you get more lawyers, you get uh more uh economists, you you get all the linear uh thinkers uh and and you try all the time to get the most of out of what you already do have.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: You uh and you try to take the technology that you do have and expand it to a wider market, and that is what we if if you look at the United States and the technologies that they introduced after the after the war with uh with uh nuclear power, with uh hypersonic uh airplanes, with internet, with uh they're they were all new technologies, but as soon as the uh Soviet Union fell, then we tried to take the the technologies that uh made us uh prosper in the first place and expand it to a greater mor uh market without actually the we modified on these technologies, but when we just copied and modified the more margin decreased every time uh and very soon you ran out of market and uh then uh then uh economic uh growth is no longer possible, at least not without wealth uh transfer.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we uh moved the production uh where it was uh cheaper, uh, and uh when you no longer have real value creation, then you need to print money, and then you have uh social inequalities within the country, and uh and then you end up in the situation that we are in right now.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe maybe shortly we can start thinking about how nations like ours, but I think it's particularly felt here where I'm standing.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I know Norway has a big sovereign wealth fund, which it's uh very sensibly set up to um to um take in the profits from the North Sea oil.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And Britain, we have uh as as large a number of deposits as you do, and we never set up a sovereign wealth fund, and we let it all go out onto the open market, and now we don't even want to drill for it, so we we can't even have that trust fund, so to speak, for the nation.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but perhaps we can we can think about what things might look like in the future if we were to try to bring back some sense of prosperity.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: But let's focus in on the next big thing, the next golden calf that everyone is worshipping, which is generative AI.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, since ChatGPT was launched, uh almost every private business, every government in some respect has said, how is it that we uh really drive investment and growth in this area so that everyone can be more efficient at what they do?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got lots of philosophical views on that and the impact on humans, but that's for another conversation.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's going crazy now for building AI data centers to support that.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're being promised everywhere, places like Nigeria, Norway, here in England, all over the world.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I imagine these are quite resource heavy and quite energy heavy.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe Andreas, and I don't mean to put you on the spot because I know you haven't prepared for this kind of question, but this new this new object of worship, AI, what do countries need to be able to achieve their goals in building all these data center centers and going on this generative AI revolution, what what's required to build at scale?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's it's uh start with uh fundamentals like everything else.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: We need uh materials and we will need energy and we will need a lot of both.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh on the energy side, I think um the um the data centers that we have uh in operation right now, they require the same amount of energy input as the nation of Japan uh in two years that is going to double.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so so um for sure windmills will not do the job.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we also know that uh the um uh building a nuclear power plant will at least take 15 years, and if we do build them, uh we need uh to have the competency to build them.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: We the last uh nuclear power plants were built in built in Europe was several decades ago.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh and if we get them up within the next two decades, uh we will need to ensure that we have the uranium supply we have to so we need to keep them running.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And right now uh we get most of that uranium from uh from Russia.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we also know that uh China has about 15 new new nuclear power plants in production.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: They they plan to have 150 in operation by 2035.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: That means that the uranium that we that we hoped was going to go for uh for for Europe, that will uh most likely due to the China-Russia uh partnership not go in our direction.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: So so we need to uh start uh crushing some rocks.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's a pretty stark picture, isn't it?
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Looking looking where we're at now, so we obviously have the Russia-Ukraine situation and our nations are obviously part of NATO.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there is clearly a lot of antagonism between the West and Russia right now, and by extension, China.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: So given that pretty much, with the exception of the United States, the West more broadly seems intent on still trying to push along with these this idea of an energy transition, even if it's not really happening, but they're they're trying to make things happen and they're refusing to pull their own hard resources out of the ground.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Effectively, maybe I'm looking at this too simplistically, but effectively, the West is on a hiding to nothing in the next 10 to 20 years' time when it comes to economic prosperity, when we're taking into account what China's doing and who China has in its back pocket.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: So do you think it's, you know, not necessarily with regards to the US?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think do you think it's just a US and China supremacy that Europe is effectively receding into being a backwater uh because we're we're just going to effectively be an open-air museum for all the world's tourists, but we won't have uh uh well-paying jobs, we won't have a lot of prosperity because we don't have the energy.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time we've figured out that we need it or we've uh decided to change political course, it's too late because all the bases have been covered by the the big guns.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a fair uh prediction or too pessimistic?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not too pessimistic, it's unfortunately a very uh real observation.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um we still have have a chance as a United West, but then we we we need to unite.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: We need we need to pick side, and uh even though there's much to be said about uh Donald Trump and uh and uh his his team, but at least we know that somewhere deep down below they are raised with the same value set as as we do.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: We we know that uh uh we like the Americans.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: They they are they are uh good people.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they they it is much easier to have and we will at some point we we need to pick side uh anyway.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to be on the side with uh someone that does not allow you to uh take the subway without giving blood.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm not interested to be a part of a nation with more than six million uh six hundred million surveillance cameras, uh making sure that I uh do not uh cross the street when I'm not allowed.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when we we see what uh how China just erased the democracy in Hong Kong built over over six decades in six months uh and with the degree of linearity and uh that we we have inside those systems, I don't think that is not a good way to go, and it's not a safe way to go because in in a world and in a in a universe where things are changing all the times uh all the time, we need people that challenge consensus and and see things in new ways.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is the type of people that have uh won all the wars uh in history.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that is all the people that have come up with a new solutions after an earthquake or a storm or uh catastrophe of any kind.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: So so we we need the the we need a democracy and uh and we need to to unite around thinking outside of the box.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: It has never been more important than right now.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as you're talking there and you were uh making the point that we require people who will challenge conventional thinking.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: It took me back to a conversation I had recently with uh uh uh another friend of the show, he's called Lorenzo Warby, and he writes an excellent substack on all matter of topics, but typically it's about human behaviour and what it means with with regards to institutions and what we're seeing um in the cultural changes we've become accustomed to since the 1960s through to today.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things he was talking about was the professional managerial class and how institutions so rapidly became captured by uh all of the ideologies which have become so prevalent today and which you could classify as woke, but on top of that, um how the infiltration of whether it's political correctness or whether it's uh um uh a suppression, particularly, of um men and males, um, is that what we've created in this um drive for inclusion and safety in the workplace, which is pretty prevalent in the corporate world, which is where the money is made and jobs are earned and all the rest of it, is that we have now crushed dissent.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: So most of these organizations which are responsible for our economic growth and prosperity don't have any meaningful governance because they don't allow dissent to take place.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: They all nod along to these orthodoxies that have become accepted.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so if they're responsible for the investment in the next big thing or even coming up with the next big thing, how could they ever possibly do it if they don't even want someone to challenge them based on policy or what they're thinking?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's no wonder, really, that the West finds itself in in such disarray.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: And perhaps you even find someone like just looking at some videos coming out today, Pete Pete Heggsith in um in the United States, he's the um uh Department of Homeland Security, I think.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe it's uh not that, but it's to do with the military.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: And effectively he just delivered a speech which said, all of those ideologies that have been running rampant, they're all done.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: We need to get back in shape.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna have no overweight generals, we're gonna have this, that, and the other.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, long story short, he just said all of the things that no one was allowed to say for perhaps the last 10 years, and maybe even longer than that.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And overnight, bump.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: The game is up.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's a total regime change.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whilst we don't have the same thing going on, I guess that's what we're looking for in in Europe, right?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: We need someone to be able to come along and just turn everything on its head so we can go again.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to prioritize.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Effect of a process in everything we do.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have time to go uh all in on process anymore.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in going back to the mining industry, it in average takes 26 years in order to get a new mine into operation.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: In uh Norway, close to where I grew up, uh we have uh the biggest rare earth uh mineral field in Europe.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: The the politicians that they they didn't wanna want to step on any toes, so instead of ensuring it was open, they gave uh veto rights to all the landowners uh 301 of them, and uh still calling it uh a good idea and um and saying that it this was a lucrative place to invest your money uh for the future future, and the only thing that uh will make that uh mine uh come on track is is a war, it's quite a crazy situation that we are leaving ourselves in scenarios where we'll only use things in the event that we go to war, and by then it's probably too late because they're the kind of things that are gonna actually generate the manufacturing ability to prepare for war.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're just gonna rely on all of your potential foes and enemies or neutral people who are gonna be no use to you until you and then you go to war, and all of a sudden you're 15 years behind schedule and you know you've lost before you've even picked up a gun.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: So and but but these people they will they will sacrifice everything to be re-elected for a new end for the next period.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh that is why, even though uh I'm skeptical to much of what I I'm seeing over in the United States.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh at the same time, I'm extremely glad that someone is taking responsibility trying to to uh to reroute the the the ship because uh right now it's uh it's uh heading for the uh the world ice uh the iceberg, yeah.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody sees it, but uh no bar uh no one seems to be interested in in in doing anything.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: So so right now I'm I'm it's it hurts a little bit to say it, but right now I'm glad uh we have uh Donald Trump.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I know he has a very, very strong team surrounding him.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh hopefully he will be replaced by uh people that also are interested in in challenging uh the the course that we are on.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but hopefully they will be uh bit more, uh much more about making the best for the people and not so much about making the best for themselves.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, on that note, Andreas, um you're bringing up things you've had doubt about uh with the current American administration.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a perfect segue into the question that I ask all of my guests, which you didn't ask you last time because I wasn't asking it then.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: But it's about things that have changed in your mental architecture.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the question, Andreas, is what have you changed your mind on during the course of your life and what was it that made you think differently?
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: So uh when I grew up, uh my my parents they moved a lot, and so I was always an outsider.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we never spent more than uh three or four years on each uh place, and that made me quite good at understanding or reading how system worked, uh, but I never saw it as uh and I never understood that that was uh uh that I saw the world differently uh before now.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because what is obvious to me is clearly not obvious to everyone else.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but now like I think people that do think differently, like yourself and the guests that you have on your uh podcast, we are all uniting because we we we we see see that there uh is a need uh for people like us.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um I don't know if that was an answer to the question at all.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I think we will be needed going forward.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, let's let's hope so.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's hope we uh we get the call and we continue to step up to the plate.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I myself often think about how I can be more effective.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not only about a YouTube channel and conversation, so it doesn't become only a talking shop.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: And whilst I'm very glad that people listen to this and it helps shape the conversation and they in some very small way and they'll go on and speak about those things and think about and perhaps apply it, is um when it really comes down to it, what you realize you're railing against is political power and political systems.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so in the end, you ask yourself, do you do you just have to go and step in and get involved?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh that's the question I'm always grappling with.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um, maybe, maybe one day uh I mean things are things are bad in my home country.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um at some point I I think we all need to wake up that we can't expect that the adults, the grown-ups are suddenly going to appear and everything's gonna be okay.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: If anything's if I've learned anything from following politics uh over all these years, is that so much of it is smoke and mirrors, and you pretty much can't rely on any one person or group of people.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe instead of allowing inferiors to rule you, you actually end up having to step up to the plate in some way um and and wear your heart on your sleeve.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: But that's a story for another day.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um Andreas, you're you're you're in deep sea mining.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: You also have a a bit of an online presence.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe you can tell the viewers, the listeners where people can find you, whether you're working on anything at the moment.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh over to you.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: So right now I'm not in deep sea mining anymore, but I follow the the industry very, very closely.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh right now I'm in oil and gas, and I think there will be a huge demand for oil and gas going forward as well.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because of the failed green transition, as well as the the time it takes in order to get nuclear up and running.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we will see more gas uh powered uh uh power plants.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we will see a lot of them, especially in in uh in the United States, but but also in both uh Britain and in Norway.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh those will come online fairly soon, I think, because we we need to uh get our production back and we need to power the the data centers and uh and we just cannot wait for for for uh the uh world to stabilize again uh before doing something.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so but uh uh in uh so where people can find me.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm on um on Substack.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: My name at uh substack.com.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I do not a very frequent uh writing on Subs at Substack, but uh sometimes uh get a lot of positive feedback on the work I do there.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I'm most active on LinkedIn.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I use LinkedIn more more or less as a diary uh and try to write down what's on my mind uh that day.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh yeah, people can follow me there.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Andreas.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's been an absolute pleasure to be able to speak again and to speak to one of the first thinking class guests um as I approach the hundredth episode.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: And let's let's do it again.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: Very glad to have done it.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh same likewise.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: To keep up to date with all that I am doing, please subscribe to the Thinking Class YouTube channel at Thinking Class and follow me on X at Thinking Classes.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thinking Class seeks to understand the civilizational issues we face and why what our leaders do in response matters.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: Here I seek to explore the ideas, values, and culture that made our civilization, those that are unmaking it, and how leaders at our public and private institutions should respond.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: Engage with me on YouTube or X or write to me at thinkingclasspod at gmail.com to tell me who you want me to speak to and what topics are important to you.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: I look forward to seeing you there and for joining me on this journey.