Shaun Newman Podcast - #900 - Tammy Nemeth

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Dr. Tammy Nemeth is a strategic energy and ESG analyst based in Oxford, UK, originally from Saskatchewan, Canada. With a PhD in history from the University of British Columbia, she specializes in energy security, geopolitics, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. She hosts The Nemeth Report podcast, discussing energy transition and climate policies. To watch the Full Cornerstone Forum: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] Money SummitWebsite: ExpatMoneySummit.com

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I'm talking about Tammy Neymouth. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Tammy Neymouth. Tammy, welcome back. Hi, I'm so happy to be here. Great to talk to you again.

Well, it's been a while. You know, I've got to go back to episode 640 when you were first on the podcast. And certainly I would push anyone wanting to hear more about Tammy's story. back to that that episode. I think we're, we 900 today. I think we're 900 today. Oh my gosh. You know, the podcast rolls along, I guess.

But just to bring people up to speed, Tammy, before we get into windmills and all the things, maybe just give a brief background of yourself so people know who they're listening to. Sure. I'm Tammy Neath. I'm an energy security analyst based out of the UK. I have a consulting firm there called ESG Squared Insight.

where I do research on the nexus between environmental social governance and energy security issue. But we still have the family farm in southern Saskatchewan. So I'm always very interested in what's happening in the province and what's happening in Canada. And while I was sort of researching another project, I came across some of these studies that I hope we'll be talking about a little bit that made me, you know, think about what's going on in Saskatchewan with respect. to the energy transition and the build out of wind and solar instead of natural gas and coal and nuclear. And what are the implications of that for farmers, the landowners, and the environment?

So I hope that we can talk a little bit about this briefing note that I sent to the Premier and the relevant ministers proposing a temporary moratorium on wind project developments that are already sort of in the pipeline. in Saskatchewan. Yeah. Well, okay. Well, I mean, obviously here in Alberta, they did a moratorium and put a halt.

And then there was a whole bunch of people got, you know, upset about that. A bunch of people applauded it. But I assume there was a reason for that that you can help explain on why, hey, putting a moratorium in is a good thing. Where would you like to begin on the reason for a moratorium or maybe just solar and wind? in general and what it does to, you know, what are you staring at? Because, you know, we're told it's only good. There's only good things that come from these projects. Right. And, you know, that's an interesting part of this whole energy transition conversation is that we always hear only the good part about some technologies and we don't talk about the tradeoffs because there's

tradeoffs with everything. So we only hear the good about one technology. We only hear the bad about the other technology, but we don't look at what the tradeoffs are for all of them. And with respect to wind and solar, what I found in my research is that these existing wind installations have significant environmental, ecological, and even climate impacts that haven't really been discussed, and they haven't really been monitored. And there's a few places that have been monitoring, and I have to give you. a shout out to China of all places because they've actually been doing extensive monitoring of what are the local, regional, environmental and ecological impacts of their massive wind

installations and solar installations. And I would say why is this important? Because the southern Saskatchewan is a semi-arid climate. It has vast grasslands. It has this, it's this corridor for migratory bird and wildlife, and it makes it super sensitive. And so rushing ahead with all of these projects without a full data set of understanding what the risks are for the midterm and long term of putting all these installations up, I think that there's a potential to do irreversible harm here. And if you're serious about stewardship, if you're serious about the environment, then we should maybe step back and take a look at getting the right data that's Saskatchewan specific to understand precisely what the impacts of these projects are.

And one of the reasons behind the Alberta moratorium was that they were, a lot of the wind installations were being put up on, you know, places with beautiful vistas that weren't beautiful vistas anymore. There was a lot of pushback from the landowners and the people nearby about what this would do to the environment and the birds and the bats and the insects around and whatnot. And with the solar panels, they were putting them on top agricultural land. So we're kind of in a similar situation in Saskatchewan now where there's these proposals, these very large projects that will cover very arable land with these massive solar installations and also spreading out wind turbines across the south,

which is the one project said, well, there's a massive migratory route right beside where we're going to put it, but it won't be that big a deal. I'm like, well, that is kind of important. But I think one of the key issues is that what I found in my study, was that there is no baseline data. We don't know what the normal temperatures are, what the soil moisture level content is

for these regions before installations are put up, and then what happens after they're put up. And what the Chinese have been doing is they created some baseline data for their installations, and they've been monitoring what's happened. And what's really significant for Saskatchewan is that the areas where they had, where they've been doing these studies in China, they're massive grasslands and they're semi-arid, which is very similar geography to Saskatchewan. Texas also has been doing some studies. And what they found was actually quite shocking as well, where in the, you know, Texas has put out there as, oh, look, they have oil and gas, but they have all this wind.

But what people don't understand is that what they've found is that the wind turbines actually increase the air temperature. It increases the air temperature at night upwards of 0.72 degrees Celsius. Now you may think, oh, that's not such a big temperature shift. But it's like almost a degree at nighttime. They're increasing that temperature. But the mitigation that they're supposed to be doing to keep global warming to, whatever by 2100 for Texas, their mitigation is supposed to be 0.12 degrees. So it's actually exceeding what they're supposed to be saving.

So this is significant for Saskatchewan because it's a semi-erid place. There is significant grasslands. And the more recent studies that say from 2018 till the present, but there's been significantly more between 2023 and 2025. They're showing that there's a 4.4% reduction of soil moisture where these wind turbines are. Now, if anyone has gone through southern Saskatchew and it's kind of like southern Alberta,

where it can be very dry and it's prone to drought, and the studies that have been showing that the soil moisture is reduced says this can exacerbate drought conditions. That's the last thing Southern Saskatchewan needs is to exacerbate drought conditions. So I put all of these different points into a briefing note to the Premier and said, look, it would be wise if you're serious about stewardship to maybe put a pause, to have a moratorium so we can collect the data now. So we can monitor what's happened in these really big facilities that have already been installed, like the Golden South Wind Project near Siniboia

and the really huge one that was built by Swift Current, that we need to be monitoring what's happening with the soil there, what's happening with the birds and the bats, and in particular the insects. Because what they found in Germany is that they were wondering why the efficiency of the wind turbines were diminishing so quickly. And so they sent the engine,

up to the wind turbines to find out, you know, is their bearings wearing out? Why is it, you know, why is the efficiency dropping so fast? And when they got to the top of the, the turbine and they're looking at the blades, it's absolutely caked with insects, with bugs. So imagine your car going down the highway when it used to get all filled with bugs and stuff. Imagine that several inches thick on the blades of wind turbines. And the engineers came back and they did their calculations and they said, well, this is kind of bad. We think that the wind turbines might be responsible for the 75% drop in insect biomass in the European continent. And maybe we should do something. And the state that commissioned this study from the engineers, they just put it on the shelf. And nothing was done. And they keep building more wind turbines. So we should learn from that and say, okay, if southern Saskatchewan has a lot of canola that grows and it requires pollinators, and if we install all these wind turbines in these roots, because insects migrate, we could be decimating our pollinators, and then that would affect agricultural production.

So I put all these different things into this memo, and I'm advocating for a moratorium while we can generate the baseline data that ought to be, you know, people should be saying, yeah, we should have this data so we can understand what's actually going on before we commit to doing more of it. You know, the word that caught my attention is tradeoffs, I guess, right? I remember being in college and, oh, to date myself, you know, late 2007, well, I mean, late 2007, I graduated in 2011, but I remember being in a in a class and a very climate focused school and them talking about, you know, like getting rid of all the oil and gas. Now this is well over a decade ago. And it was interesting to me coming from, you know, oil and gas country. And the professor said something that, you know, basically I'll never forget. He's like, well, everything has a tradeoff. He's like, you want everything to be wind and solar. And lots of the class said, yeah, that'd be great. He said, well, what about all the things you just said, although there's a few in there that, you know, certainly we didn't talk about. And he went through all the different technologies and what you give up and what the tradeoffs are because there's tradeoffs on any time you do anything with, you know, this much, I don't know, lack of a better word force, you know, you put all these giant projects in the play.

Let's start with the temperature thing. It's like less than a degree. What does less than a degree matter at night? What would like is that just drying things quicker or what would a degree do? That's a really good question. The big concern is that the whole earth and in particular the different areas of North America and everything else has increased in temperature. And they're trying to say we need to stop the earth warming two degrees. So they're saying two degrees will is creating all of the different bad weather that you get and stuff like that.

So actually, a degree does matter. In the larger scheme of things, when they talk about, we have to reduce the amount of global warming that's happening. Now, it's unclear precisely in those particular regions, what that temperature increase is doing. But when it happens at night, that affects the different wind patterns. It affects the different rain patterns. And, you know, honestly, what I find shocking is that no one's really, paying attention to what all of the different wind projects around the world and the cloud seeding operations and the solar arrays that actually warm the land around them, what impact is that having on the global climate? If they're concerned that people are having an effect, well, actually, maybe all this wind and solar is also having an effect, not just CO2 emissions. Because if you have the way there was a really great study out of Harvard by David Keith and his group back, I think it was in 2018, where they looked at the different wind projects that were already in place in the United States and how it alters those air currents and how it changes the temperature and how that changes actually the regional climate. And it's when the temperatures are warmer during the night that it can have a greater effect on those microclimates in the regions. But you know, the regions don't have walls.

And so this is the big problem when they talk about emissions or any of this other things. The stuff that we do isn't, there's no walls around it. And so it doesn't stay in one place, but it actually changes to a greater, extent the areas around it. So when we have all of these different wind projects all around North America, around the world, we don't know what those amplified effects could be. Now, I do know, for example, offshore of the European Union, Belgium wants to sue the Netherlands because they're saying that the Netherlands or vice versa is stealing the wind from their wind turbines. Because when you have all these wind turbines in a row, the first ones get most of the energy to spin and it takes the

energy out of the wind. So by the time it gets farther down the line, there's less wind there to make energy. And so they want to sue each other. It's really kind of funny. But when you think of it that way, it's funny. But when you think of it as, what's it doing to those larger weather patterns? We don't know. They're not really studying that yet. I think that should be one of key things they study. So if we look at, say, for example, when I talk about how these temperatures are changing in Texas, what would be the impact of keeping the air warmer in Saskatchewan at night in the summertime? I'm not really sure what that will do, but I think this is something that ought to be explored a little more carefully because it could have knock-on effects

in terms of drought and reducing the soil moisture. Most Canadians would take a few degrees warmer at different times, I think. But, you know, I guess, you know, coming from a farming background, when you talk about, and forgive me, what was the percentage you used on dryness in the soil? It removes upwards of 4.4% of the soil moisture. I am far from a scientist on this one, but any percentage of moisture removal in agricultural land,

whether we're talking cattle or whether we're talking grain, that could be a make or break on pretty much any year. Am I wrong in thinking that? Yeah. And what they found, interestingly, from the Chinese study of Inner Mongolia, is that in the grasslands where the soil moisture was being reduced, it actually reduced the plant biodiversity.

And they found that only certain shrubs or whatever would be able to grow with that reduced moisture. So I think that's a very... Sorry, sorry, just so I'm hearing this correct, by reducing the moisture, actually one of the effects that you have is you have certain plants that can need X amount of moisture. And I'm sorry that I'm making this way too simple. and when that gets reduced, they start to lessen, which means the plants that can survive in a more drier content start to thrive, which changes what your actual landscape looks like. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, I mean, when you reduce the moisture, then you reduce the yield if you're planting regular crops, but it would also affect, let's say you just leave it as grazing land or something like that, then it would change what plants would thrive. in those conditions. So, you know, that's a tradeoff. And then, well, then, but then you said cloud seating in there.

So then you try and counteract that by going in cloud seating so you can assume, get more precipitation so that you can counteract. Like, it just feels like. Right. And so then those have knock on effects, right? Because if you're, if you're like, I need to do cloud seating, well, if you're taking moisture from some clouds, then what? what's happening to further down the line.

Further down the line. And so there's been cloud seeding going on for at least 50 or 60 years. There hasn't really been a good analysis and assessment of what the long-term impacts of that is. So it's like, do we know how those things are echoing down the road? So if the Middle East is taking, because we know that Qatar and the other Middle Eastern countries

have been cloud seeding quite significantly over the past 20 years. How is that changing the climate patterns in that region? And if that changes there, how is that affecting the Pacific? How is that affecting the Indian Ocean and so on? And then with Europe doing what it's doing in the North Sea with so much offshore and onshore, we don't, you know, I don't think there's been an appropriate study of how these are all interacting. And if it's, you know, how they're acting on one another, is it amplifying certain things? Because quite often what I hear is that oil and gas is drying out the air, that emissions from using oil and gas is drying out the air.

And there's been these attribution studies put out there trying to blame oil and gas companies indirectly for the forest fires in British Columbia, saying that the air was drier from using fossil fuels, from using hydrocarbons, and therefore the companies are responsible for the fires. But how do we know that all of these other things aren't playing a role? And so... Well, as you pointed out, there's no borders when it comes to what you're talking about, right? Right. Right. Yeah. So if you're, you just like I just, I'm, I'm scratching my head because I'm just like, you know, you're, okay, so you put windmills up because you want to get away from the polluting cars and all this, you know, industry that's polluting. And I'm putting that in parentheses. Because they're trying to lower this emissions. But, you know, then that doesn't take into the full cost, what it takes to build said windmill. And then it doesn't take into effect all the things that happen. when you put a windmill in. And you know, like the number that, that I think he said that's staggering is like 75% of, of like bugs, like, you know, like that.

To a farmer, I'm sure they're going, what? Like, I mean, if you killed all the rodents that, uh, plagued a field for or a crop from being successful, I think they did, oh, that sounds great. But anytime you change something like that, that significantly, there will be, I would assume large consequences to that. Right. And so what's interesting in the European context is that for many years now, they've been saying that the reason for the decline in insects in the European sort of continent

is because of pesticide use. So they were blaming agriculture. And they went after the farmers through various EU legislation to diminish the amount of chemicals that they can use, different pesticides. and whatnot, claiming that that was responsible for the destruction of the insects. So when this study came out and it was by like a university engineering department, and the title is quite interesting, it's called Interference of Flying Insects on Wind Parks. And they wrote it in German and English.

So you can look that one up and see for yourself what they found. but the European officials didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to hear that it was potentially the wind turbines as a major contributor. They just wanted to go after farming. Chemical bad. And let's be very clear. I'm not saying that spraying every field with chemicals is good. Certainly you have to look at what the effects of that are.

But when it's green energy, it kind of gets a pass in all these. lanes like oh no it's having no effect even though everybody knows it's having an effect like a 75% decline huge it was huge and you know we could see it and um when my brain my brain sorry to interrupt like but my brain has a hard time it's like less than a degree on heat i'm like i don't know does that do anything like i i don't know i sitting here i'm like less than a degree i'm like okay you know you go 4% the soil i'm like well i know you know you know you know like parts of where I'm from right now, we just got a bunch of rain. I'm sure the farmers are just excited.

Saskatoon got absolutely pumped with a huge storm. I'm sure there's some farmers not excited about that one because that probably wrecks some crops. So 4%. I'm like, that seems like it's close to doing some real dangerous things. But 75% of insects, yeah. 75% biomass decline. Yeah. Because what they found was it's not just that, okay, these wind turbines are there and the insects are crashing into them and whatever.

It's because we don't really, most people don't know this, but insects migrate. And they use those wind currents where they put the wind turbines to migrate. And so at certain times of the year, when the insects were migrating, they would be in these wind currents where the wind turbines were. And that's how they would get destroyed in the wind turbines. So if we're going to be doing this in southern Saskatchewan, have they paid attention? Because they'll look at where are the main wind currents in the province in order to put the wind turbines? Well, what else is using those currents? Now, there's been a significant decline in monarch butterflies.

But if you trace their route from Mexico all the way up into Canada, and then you plot along that route where they put lots of wind projects, there is a correlation there. I'm not saying that the wind turbines are killing the one are butterflies, but what I'm saying is they need to maybe do a little more research to study how these different insects use these wind currents and where are we citing wind turbines that could, you know, take out those insect pollinators.

That's, you know, kind of important. We're a place like Saskatchewan. It's funny. I'm thinking of an episode of, the Simpsons. You remember the Simpsons they had, I was just checking it quick. It was, it was a Wacking Day. They had all the snakes and they, they, they whack them out. Yes. And then I, so it says, this is what it says. The Simpsons episode was Wacking Day from season four. This is going way back to afternoon school or after school cartoons. It said, it released in 1993, Springfield celebrates an

annual tradition called Wacking Day where residents drive snakes out of town to be beaten to death. Bart and Lisa concerned about the cruelty, uncovered that the tradition is based on a dubious historical event to address a pigeon problem at the school. Superintendent Charmer suggests a after wave of pigeon. Pigeons eating rats to get rid of the birds when Lisa points out they lead to a rat problem. Charmers casually suggest introducing rat eating snakes and then the snake eating gorillas and it just goes on and on and on. I'm like, like, it's, It's, we do all these things with like, I don't know, maybe not good intentions, maybe good intentions, but then when you don't address all the problems, the tradeoffs that come

with them and actually like look at it like for what it is, then you get to where your cloud seating so you can have rain, but you're, you're doing the wind thing because you don't want to use this because that's bad. We're only going to talk about that. And I'm just looking at what you've given me today. And I'm like, it just seems like, I don't know, lack of a better term, at times we're just trying to play God, which is a wild thing to try and do. Yeah, and it's all those unintended consequences, like you point out with the Simpsons episode

analogy. And, you know, the thing is a lot, I think a lot of people do have good intentions. They think that somehow wind turbines and solar panels will make everything great with respect to energy. And, you know, some people might say, why should we have a moratorium now when we have all these net zero goals looming and whatnot. And I would say, you know, they might seem harmless, but in drought-prone areas, they could actually make things worse and that we need to build on these, you know, we have to look at these impacts. We have to get the baseline data so we can make an

informed decision because honestly, I don't think people have enough information to be able to decide whether or not these tradeoffs are worth it. Because all they're being told, is we have to have the wind and solar for the net zero goals because Ottawa has passed these different laws or rules or whatever to say that we shouldn't have oil and gas and coal anymore. So, you know, if we're going to walk down an energy transition, we need to have all the information. And what I found absolutely shocking is that I don't think there's been any local research any local studies for the existing operations in the province. So they just opened up this massive wind farm near a Sinaboa, which is either in or right beside a national park. And I don't think

they did any baseline studies to determine whether or not, you know, what the potential impacts might be. And I think before we go forward, we should have that information so we can make the informed decision. If I go back to what you said about Texas, if you're really concerned about the environment and hitting the goals, right? You're like, we got to hit it by this time. You just pointed out right at the start of this that they're supposed to reduce their, you know, down by, and you can give me the numbers again. and by introducing solar farms, they've actually increased the temperature. I mean, right there, it's a non-starter.

It's, it's, so we can have the best of intentions. But when you try and go into this game of like, we're going to try and do these things, none of it makes any sense. Like, I get being a good steward for the environment. You know, once again, come from a farming background. If you're tossing, sorry, toxic sludge on your ground while trying to feed cattle and grow a farm and everything else,

chances are you're not going to be successful. Farmers are pretty smart that way. Yeah. When you're talking about these massive projects, what comes to mind is a boatload of money. And maybe I'm wrong on that. Maybe I'm way too cynical on this side. But I just hear they didn't do any studies.

Since when can we do anything in this society, from building a house to putting up a whatever, to starting a business, drilling a new oil, well, et cetera, where we don't have like a hurdle that's almost impossible to jump over to do. And it seems like with these projects, it's just like green light, giver, not a big deal. You're saving, you know, we're hitting our targets. But everything you're telling me today tells me that in whether it's a year or 10 years time, which I've heard this before, but you're

just giving numbers to it, the impacts that we're going to have on our areas are going to be, not great. Not great. But, okay, to be fair, there is an environmental assessment process that the wind and solar projects do need to comply with. And it does mean a lot of consultation with the landowners, the RMs, and the people affected in the communities where they're being, want to be constructed.

And there is environmental assessments that are done by various consultants and whatnot to say what, basically, how, putting it up could affect at that immediate time the different wildlife or whatever. But almost always, they say, oh, well, the environmental impact isn't going to be so great. They don't look at soil moisture. They don't look at what the average temperature is in the area before. They don't look at what the average temperatures are after. There's no ongoing environmental monitoring in that sense after a project is completed. So what I'm saying is that, you know, there is a process

there, but it's incomplete and isn't necessarily looking at the right information that we need to have to make the informed decision. So what I suggested was that the Department of the environment in the in the Saskatchewan government put together a team of neutral scientists which would be difficult these days but people who actually care about the land and the birds and the insects and the bats and the soil that that they put together a team to actually go and monitor and put together the baseline data because like for example when you look at the oil sands the oil Sands had to have various baseline information before they started operation in the 70s. That subsequently the scientists and the activists said that wasn't the right information

to be collecting and that we needed to have X, Y, Z. So you need to start collecting X, Y, Z, so we can have a better understanding of other issues concerning the tailings ponds or how extraction is done and all this different kinds of stuff. And so the Alberta Energy Energy, regulator has been trying to have this baseline information for the oil sands development. So there's nothing wrong with saying, okay, it's great that you have these environmental assessment processes now, but we need to add these things to it so that we can get at least five years of data to understand what the longer, potential longer term impacts are of the existing projects before we approve new ones. I think that's just a reasonable, um,

thing to do if you really care about the land and the future economy of the province in the area where it's like such a massive crop growing part of the province. I think this is something that's a reasonable limitation for now to understand precisely the data that we have, the changes that are going on, and then people can make a decision, an informed decision of whether or not this is something they want to do if the trade-off is worth it. Have you had any feedback from the Saskatchewan government? The reply I got was from one minister was that the companies do these assessments. And then the other one was really long-winded but basically said, we're not going to do this. We have a process in place and we will follow the existence.

process. So I was very disappointed that they wouldn't even entertain the idea of convening a set of scientists to try and even get data on the existing installations. I found it just in trying to locate information, like is there any monitoring going on, what sort of readings were done before and after? There's nothing that I could find. Now, maybe companies are actually keeping track of some of that information. I know that some American companies in Texas do that. The Chinese government is doing it because they're the Chinese government and whatnot. But there's no reason why Saskatchewan can't.

They do have the capability to do so. I don't think this is something that should be left to the company. I mean, everybody complains that oil and gas companies will be biased in coming up with their environmental assessments and therefore they need a sort of arms-leg. third party, whatever, to do it. So why can't the same be for wind and solar? Why do they get treated differently? And to just say, well, the company will do the study.

Well, how could you trust what a company is doing? If you extend the logic to how oil and gas companies are treated or any other manufacturing company, they don't provide their own data. There's usually a third party that does that. And that's what I think needs to be done in Saskatchewan. when it comes to large solar um solar i mean wind sorry large wind projects where like i mean maybe you know this maybe don't but like in the world was there like like a better term patient zero of like a country that started it and from there it expanded and expanded or or did everybody just kind of

start at the same rough time with these monstrous solar farms, wind farms. I keep saying solar, I mean wind. UK and Germany, we're the first ones. And did they do studies on all this? No. So China, China, you know, I'm trying to be in China. Okay. But they were smart enough or controlling enough.

We can use whatever word you want to go, we should just take a look at what this is going to do to our land. Right. And Texas is the only other one. The Texas has been the only other one that's had reasonable data. Oklahoma's had a little bit, but usually it's not, they didn't do any baseline data, but it's what they've been analyzing since. So Oklahoma's done some.

Texas has done some. But I would just like to point out that in the Western world, particularly in North America, it would be very difficult for scientists and, researchers to get funding to do this kind of research, which is why there are studies, but there's not as many studies as you might think for something that is considered super important for the energy transition. You'd think that we would be paying attention to what its impacts and effects are, but there's not as many studies as you think there should be, most likely because it's very difficult to get funding in order to conduct those studies.

Why is it difficult to get funding? Because it's how the funding gets distributed, or how it gets determined who gets the money. Because normally in an academic situation, the federal government in Canada has pots of money that they give out for various scientific research projects. And they have a lot that deal with climate change. But almost all the money that goes towards climate research is about how we have to do it faster. and looking at different things in order to facilitate the energy transition away from hydrocarbons. And so there's committees that are formed of certain people who then decide who should get the project proposals are put forward, and then they decide who should get that money.

So you're going through, I don't know, probably two or three committees because if you're a researcher, maybe you have to go through your department first before you get put forward or maybe you go directly, but you have to have like a certain team and you have to have like a very detailed proposal on on what it is and what you hope to achieve. And anything that sort of is, you could say, I'm trying to understand what's happening with these wind turbines. But like even when David Keith at Harvard put forward his research, he didn't, the reception he got was very chilly. It was like, how dare you point out that this could be affecting wind temperature? And he has since left Harvard and set up a new geoengineering department at the University of

Chicago, which is a whole other topic. And he started a direct air capture company, which was bought by Bill Gates and earned him a lot of money. So it's interesting that, you know, he, the response he got was really low-key. you know, you didn't see very much other research come after that, that was investigating those things, except for certain researchers who were concerned about what was happening in Texas and certain people who were concerned about what was happening in Oklahoma. But quite often it would be smaller, smaller organization. I think it was the USGS. The U.S. Geological Survey had done a bunch of studies on the impacts on bats and birds. but it's really it's really hard to find those people researching these things and all I can say is that it's probably due to how you get funding I hate to be way too cynical on this but what what I hear and maybe you can disagree with me is okay your government you got these goals you want to meet and you've got this great technology and wind

we'll stick to wind and anything that might slow down the process of pointing out how great wind is and that we should just transition everything to wind. If it contradicts that maybe we're not going to fund it. Even if it's for environmental

purposes of like, you know this kid like hurt our farmers could hurt our biomass diversity like could hurt all these things. All they hear is well that's actually going to paint wind in a poor light and we want it to be, we have somewhere we need to be. So it's almost like you just kind of, we're just not going to give funding of that. We're not going to look into that. But in 10 years,

whatever it is, it's going to come anyways. Like, I mean, you don't get away from the, the problems of what this technology is going to do, correct? Well, yes and no. So on the one hand, I wouldn't be surprised if that was going on. Of course, there's no clear evidence that that's the case, but it seems to be. Who knows? The thing is, if you're not studying what these installations are doing, then it's really easy to blame hydrocarbons. Everything is the fault of oil and gas companies. And the thing is, you don't know. So if you're not, they will say, some people might say, while it's using all the jet engines and having a natural gas power plant and having a coal power plant in Saskatchewan, that's what's drying out the land. That's what's creating the changes in the climate.

That's what's causing the changes in weather patterns. Because if you're not looking at a potential source of it, you're just omitting one set in particular, like wind and solar, and you're only looking at one thing, you know, because almost all of the studies on attribution is based on correlation. So, oh, it so happens that this has increased over the past 40 years, and we've had lots of cars, therefore it's the fault of cars. Instead, it's like the single variable correlation. Oh, it's got to be just because we're using hydrocarbons. But based on this attribution study that I mentioned about drying air, well, at the same time frame that they're talking about has been an exponential increase globally of wind projects, wind installations.

So how do you know that it's not the wind installations that have actually been drying out the air and not the use of hydrocarbons? Maybe it's both together. We don't know, but by just focusing on one thing instead of looking at the broader spectrum of what could be a problem, that does a disservice to the to the future to the future landowners to the future farmers or or the lack of it because the land might be so dry you won't be able to grow what you think you should grow maybe it doesn't provide as much grass that's nutritious for for cattle if you want to run cattle or whatever and i i would put in there because you mentioned money earlier and i would say one of the most problematic aspects of a lot of these projects is that landowners and RMs are sort of tempted

by the amount of money that they will make from these installations. And it can be quite significant, whether it's through taxes or through whatever agreements that a developer makes with a landowner. But I would say try to resist that temptation to try and open up and think longer term about what happens if, say, that developer sells the project onto somebody else who then is responsible if that project owner goes bankrupt for cleaning it up afterwards. And what are the impacts on the land and who will be responsible for compensation maybe of having dried out the land or killing the insects or, you know, killing off the birds that would normally migrate and, you know, add to your wetlands or something.

So, you know, there's a lot of temptation there for landowners to getting these different contracts with the developers that, you know, it's something that they should really think twice about because the money can be very tempting and I get it in today's agricultural market where input costs increase every year, where commodity prices decrease every year. and at some point, you know, the farmers are thinking, well, if I just put on my three sections of land, a bunch of wind turbines, they're going to pay me this money every year. It'll be like having an oil well on my land, except it isn't. You know, it's like it alters the different microclimates and whatnot possibly. And I think we really need to be studying that. Not to mention the tariffs that are on canola right now and other things. You know, that like I, once again, my cynicism when it comes to the Canadian government probably knows no bounds these days. Because I hear what you're saying and you go, you're focused on a sole goal, but I'm like, yes, focusing on a goal, fair enough, but you're ignoring.

It's even more than that. It's like a blatant disregard for all the things. It used to be a couple of years ago, wind and solar are the greatest thing under the sun. Yeah. And oil and gas, awful. Then somebody's like, well, wait a second. Well, how do you build? Like, what do you use to build?

Like, how do we do that? Right? What is the output that a windmill can do versus oil and gas? And how is that going? Right? This is taking the entire problem and looking at it almost holistically, like the entire problem instead of just like, well, we're aiming for here and we're going to forget about all here. We'll destroy the world, but we're going to save the world.

It's almost that mindset. Like, you know? We're gonna, we gotta lower the, the, the, the temperature of the planet. Meanwhile, you're telling me windmills are increasing the temperature. Increasing the temperature. Like I mean, I know, I know. I'm sorry, but that, not you being dumb. That is maybe the dumbest thing I've ever heard, not from you, just in like,

trying to, uh, explain how these are gonna save the planet and reduce things and everything else. I'm like, well, right there, it's counterproductive. But when you don't listen to that set of data points, to me, that is, well, it's become very indicative of what our government has done and continues to do. Like, it's just, we're going to, we're going to forget all about this. We're just going to focus over here and we don't care we're getting there. And that.

Yeah, yeah, because, you know, what you're saying is so true. It's like the number one priority is lowering CO2 emissions. That's all they care about. They don't care about what the actual environmental impact is. And it's, it's like what you said. it's a contradiction because, for example, the Canadian government has signed on to protect and conserve nature through the Montreal Acumen Biodiversity Agreement.

And we've committed to setting aside for conservation purposes 30% of Canadian land by 2030, 50%, half of it by 2050. But if these wind turbines are in the national parks, how are you exactly conserving nature? And if it's diminishing the biodiversity of the land, because it dries out the soil and reduces the amount of biodiversity within this, because what can grow, and if you look at, I haven't talked much about the solar panels, but if you look at the soil impaction under solar projects, and the, you know, what happens when the sun doesn't reach the ground, because it's all being captured by the solar arrays, that alters the biodiversity underneath the solar installation. And don't get me started on how do you recycle all this stuff. So on the one hand, it's like, yes, we're going to conserve nature by destroying nature. We're never going to recycle them because they're going to work for the next 100 years,

5,000 years. We're never going to have to worry about solar ever. We're going to build them and it's going to be great, Tammy. It's going to be great. Yeah. So actually, you mentioned something really important and that's about power density. I know you didn't say that term. but it's like super important. So power density is like how much electricity you can squeeze out of a certain amount of space.

And if you think about it, for power plants, we normally measure this by watts per meter squared. So how much energy are you getting out of a particular square meter of land if you have like a wind installation, a solar installation, a natural gas power plant, a coal. power plant and nuclear. And so I'm going to give you some numbers here. I hope your eyes won't glaze over or whatever. So wind power, the power density is the lowest out of all of them. So it provides less than one. So 0.8 watts per meter squared. So if you imagine, you know, it's like not very much. Solar power gives you a little bit more. It gives you 10 watts per meter. squared. But solar only runs, you only get solar when the sun is shining. So you'll get maybe half of that, right? Because, you know, when the sun goes down, you're not going to get any solar power.

Coal gets you about 600 watts per meter squared. So, you know, you go from 0.8 to 10 to 600 watts per meter squared. Natural gas gives you a thousand, a thousand watts per meter squared. And then nuclear is the best of them all. It gives you 1,500 watts per meter squared. So there you have to put so many windmills up and they don't turn all the time. And when you need them the most, they're not going. And then with solar, it's like half the time. I don't really know how it works in the wintertime. Who's cleaning them off? When it's dusty, do they go out there in the summertime and clear it them off? I don't know. But with coal and natural gas and nuclear, we kind of know what the impacts of those are.

And if I can give you an example, one of the most controversial wind projects right now in southern Saskatchewan is the Enbridge project by Weyburn. Now, they're saying they want to do a 200 megawatt capacity. And they always say capacity. So it's like if they were going 24 hours a day with full wind, it would be producing 200 megawatts. But it never actually produces its capacity. It's usually about 25% of that. So you might get a quarter of that. And it's going to use approximately 25,000 hectares.

So that's like 250 square kilometers. That's 125 times more than a natural gas power plant. and about 75 times more land than a coal power plant. So, you know, it's when you look at it from that perspective, and you're concerned about what is the actual impact on environment, there's more to the environment than CO2 emissions. And I think people have forgotten that. And I'm so glad you talked about the entire supply chain

because it's more, it's more than just CO2. there's environmental impacts that need to be studied when you summarize it that way all i can think of is there's money involved because i hate to make it so you know like i don't know not dark but just like oversimplistic but you know you go okay i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna read off what you wrote wind 0.8 magua or watts per meter squared correct yeah point eight 10 600 1,500 it goes okay then take into effect what do we have a crazy amount of natural gas it isn't it's not even remotely close we sit on a giant giant reserve in the world yeah so it only makes sense to use that and then study it out the wazoo when it comes to their environment try and make

you know and um you know i can bring somebody on here folks that can tell you you all about the hoops that we jump through with environment right like when it comes to natural gas production but like it just doesn't make any sense you you're you're you're talking about you know like i even think of solar for a second 10 watts and i remember thinking if you could find a way to put something out in the atmosphere that grabbed all the energy the sunlight is bringing in and channel that in that'd be brilliant be you know like almost a ceaseless amount of energy and there'd be no harm from it. Except if you took all the energy from the sun, you think folks of all the benefits we've been hearing on here that the sun gives human beings, let alone plants, animals, the earth,

everything. It's like, that's probably a poor idea too, right? Like, I mean, honestly, like, you know, what is that doing with sitting under the solar panels? You know, you think it, and I'm not saying all solar's bad, all winds bad, don't, don't for one second sit here and let's go down that road. I'm sure there are great applications for all of these in different parts of the world and different applications. But as like a one size fits all, if you're truly going to try and power a nation like Canada, natural gas makes a ridiculous amount of sense. And the fact that we're in this transition to wind that is the lowest. And then you rattle off every everything Tammy's been telling us and that we don't study any of the harms. It's just like to me,

I just go, it's money. I, I'm oversimplifying it, but I don't see how it can be. You won't fund the studies that will show that maybe some of these things are not that great. Maybe we need to think about where we're putting them or how we're putting them or and other things. You're not going to fund that? No, this is, this is something more than just people not going in eyes wide open. I mean, they're not allowing the studies. They're not funding it. Nowhere in the world where, you know, like you said, Germany and, forgive me, was it the UK? UK.

Yeah. And they didn't do any studies? Not really, no. Like, I live in the UK right now and they want to expand. They've been very good at stopping onshore wind turbines in England. Scotland has gone crazy. They've cut down, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of trees in order to put up wind turbines. and they put them lots offshore, but now they're saying it's not enough, and we need to,

because they've shut down all their coal pretty much. The nuclear is taking forever for lots of reasons, a lot of environmental roadblocks. Like there's a badger set where you're going to build, so you have to wait until the badgers are done or something, and then there was a special bird and whatever else. And so there are all these delays to construct nuclear, which they desperately, need because they've retired the coal without really having a replacement. They're now struggling to install natural gas, but they're shutting down their natural gas fields in the North Sea. A court just ruled that total energies can shut down this hub that they have for natural gas fields

in the North Sea. So they're shutting down their production. They're struggling to build new natural gas because the environmentalists get upset. And now they want to put wind turbines and they've been buying up, installing solar all over farmland. UK doesn't have a lot of farmland. And the really good stuff that they do, they've just been, you know, it's crazy around Oxford. I live near Oxford. And they're putting it all over the place. And the local farmers are kind of like, why are you doing this?

We've done so much to preserve our nature in a densely populated area. And now you're just going to cover it with solar panels and wind turbines. And they're already complaining that there's maybe an issue with bird migration in the UK. And now they're going to put wind turbines without really, without the studies to find out, you know, what is the, what's the temperature and the soil and everything else like in the UK. Any final thoughts? I don't even know what to ask anymore because I'm just like this seems, you know, it makes it sound like I'm so against all these different things. But, you know, like coming from the farm and different farms had windmills, you know, individual ones for different applications, right? Lots to do with water.

And so like I know there's applications for it. But these massive projects, it just seems like they're not a good idea. and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's good applications for them in certain regions. But like the more you talk to me, the more I'm like, this makes no sense in Western Canada for sure. You know, with what Saskatchewan sits on, what Alberta sits on, and the possibilities of what we can do energy-wise for the country, let alone the world, or the world, let alone the country. Yeah. Yeah, in summary, Sean, I think I would say that the more it's the more.

Proposal is about informed stewardship. And, you know, this is an opportunity, actually, for Saskatchewan to take the lead. It could be the one place in North America to actually set out an appropriate fact-gathering system. And wouldn't that be great if Saskatchewan was able to lead with facts? And then, you know, any questions about further installations or whatnot, if you have this baseline data and you can try and determine what the impacts have been, what they potentially could be, then that would allow.

the citizens to make a more informed decision instead of being put, you know, I would almost call it high pressure sales tactics when they meet with the developers who are like, yeah, you know, this is going to be so great for your income, you're going to have a steady stream, and RMs, you're going to have lots of tax revenue, and this will be so awesome for you. And, you know, they're talking for RMs millions of dollars. And, but, you know, if you do these kinds of data collections and you could look at what the, you can weigh the short versus long-term impacts, then I think that would be better for everybody. And so, you know, if the Saskatchewan government would just kind of get their stuff together and get a nice group of scientists who could actually create this

data set, they could be setting the precedent for the entire continent. It would be amazing. You'll have to forgive me for laughing on this side, but governments and actually getting the facts and using common sense. Those things don't seem to really go together these days. But hey, Saskatchewan could take the lead and I could be proven wrong and I would love to be proven wrong. But I have to chuckle on this side because, you know, most of this show, it just seems I stumble on to more and more where the government doesn't use the tools it has everywhere to. prove out all these different massive ideas that we're transforming our society with. Yeah. And you know, for your listeners who are from Saskatchewan, I would say contact your MLA,

contact Jeremy Harrison. He's the head of SAS Power, the minister responsible for SAS Power, and contact Premier Moe, and say, look, why can't we have a group of scientists who can do a nice, neutral, fact-based baseline study to determine whether or not these wind turbines and solar panels are a good fit for southern Saskatchewan, where there's agricultural land that could be unintended consequences if we don't study this properly. If people want to find you, Tammy, I know you have substack. Where would you direct them? I direct them to my substack where that's my sort of non-business writings and whatnot, and that's the Neymouth report. substack.com.

If you subscribe, you'll, I try to post weekly and different things about the energy transition, energy policy, Canada, US, UK, Europe. Well, the next time you're on, we're going to discuss the carbon border adjustment mechanism. You just let me know when you're ready to go down this rabbit hole. And we'll discuss that more because that was one of your latest articles. And I look forward to, I actually don't know if I look forward to learning more. about it because it's but but in fairness when you're ready to come on and talk about that we can certainly get into how that's going to play out and how it's going to affect people here in canada

and abroad okay we'll do and it'll tie into the wind and solar conversation too perfect well thank you again for for hopping on thank you Sean thank you so much