“The Cost Of Pushing Green Energy” - Energy Prices EXPLODE As Natural Gas Costs SPIKE
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
196.68803
Summary
Brandon and Tom talk about why your utility bills are out of control, and why it s not just the Arctic blast that s making things worse. They talk about aging infrastructure, natural gas price swings, and data center demand, and much more.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Why your utility bills are out of control. It's not just the Arctic blast. One in five Americans
00:00:05.920
can't afford their heating bills this winter as people are blindsided by utility costs. When I
00:00:11.660
find that California story, I'll go back to it. So let me read this to you. I'll read both of them
00:00:17.840
because they kind of go hand in hand. And then Brandon and Tom, I'm coming to you with this.
00:00:22.420
Energy costs are surging nationwide and out stripping overall inflation. Last year,
00:00:28.520
consumer prices rose 2.7 percent. Electricity costs went 6.7 percent. The primary heating source in
00:00:36.120
the Northeast was up 7.4 percent and gas spiked 10.8 percent. Why? Aging infrastructure, many of the
00:00:44.500
components that go into delivering power were built more than 50 years ago and are nearing the end of
00:00:49.600
their natural life. The cost of replacing and updating technology like wires, poles, transformers, and
00:00:55.300
towers ultimately end up being passed on to consumers. Battle Group, a consultancy that worked
00:01:01.040
with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last year to identify factors influencing retail electricity
00:01:07.000
prices, estimates that spending on aging power transmission infrastructure has topped $10 billion.
00:01:13.700
And it goes into explaining a couple different things. One of them is climate change they talk
00:01:18.360
about. The other one is natural gas price swings and then data center demand. And the last one talking
00:01:23.780
about one in five Americans can afford their heating bills because of what's going on. Over 200 million
00:01:29.200
people in America were hit by the storm that came in snow and the rain and Arctic. The winter gas
00:01:37.700
electric bills in these region could climb by 10 percent or more over last year according to national
00:01:43.800
energy. Winter bills for electricity heated homes will exceed a thousand dollars across the country. So
00:01:49.860
I can go on read these other numbers that they have here. Brandon, why do you think this is happening?
00:01:54.900
Yeah, so things are a little bit different in the Northeast. And I was talking to my parents about
00:01:58.860
this because, you know, they live in the Northeast and it's 80 percent of all the homes are heated by
00:02:05.500
oil, as I mentioned there, are in the Northeast. So very different than the rest of the country. And
00:02:10.380
what's happening right now is that since it's like it's been 10 to 0 degrees there for the past month or so.
00:02:17.040
So, um, for example, most houses will have a 300 gallon heating tank and oil is about $3 65 cents a
00:02:23.460
barrel or excuse me, um, a gallon. And for example, uh, you got to fill the thing up like once every
00:02:29.340
two weeks or every three weeks. So it's like $2,000 a month right now for my parents home to fill the
00:02:34.160
heating tank. And like, you really don't have a choice. $2,000 a month. Yeah. What was it before?
00:02:38.980
Uh, and it's like half of that when it's, um, it's less cold, you know, it's normally like around 30
00:02:42.920
degrees there or so, but it's, but there's been a cold streak. So, um, part of it's like, uh, aging
00:02:47.600
infrastructure. Yeah, sure. Part of it's, um, just a bad stretch of cold weather, but it's fascinating
00:02:52.340
to me how we spent a couple hundred billion dollars a year over the past couple of years from this, um,
00:02:57.960
inflation reduction act, like where the States are cramming solar installations and wind turbines down
00:03:04.200
the people's throats, you know, giving you every incentive in the world to fortify that. But, you know,
00:03:09.040
like I said, a third of the entire region in the Northeast is, um, their heat comes from, uh, the
00:03:15.400
oil tanks. So, you know, that all that stuff's old. So why is the government like pushing these
00:03:20.300
things down our throats that aren't efficient ways to, um, to generate energy? They're like, they're
00:03:25.180
letting these aging things, these aging tanks, uh, be the main source that people have. And, and a lot
00:03:30.080
of people can't afford to fill their tank up twice a month. So, um, it's, it's funny where like the
00:03:34.920
priorities go. It's funny that, um, like we, uh, spent, sent all this good money after bad
00:03:39.900
investments, but we're letting, you know, the vast majority of people literally can't heat their
00:03:43.160
house right now. Like they're relying on like fireplaces or wood pellet stoves. Tom. Well,
00:03:48.240
I find it very interesting that how Yahoo finance writes a story. Energy costs is something we need
00:03:53.740
to talk about. Energy costs is something that needs to come down for Americans. The Yahoo finance story
00:03:58.360
was quoting four different places last year, last year, last year, last year. So it was talking
00:04:05.540
about the last Biden winter. Isn't this interesting? And they're trying to lay this at the feet of
00:04:10.900
Trump and data centers. Although the article goes on to say that there are more things there's aging
00:04:17.040
infrastructure and stuff. Well, this is true. And this is why one of the first things that the
00:04:21.780
president said, and we were at the inauguration and he got huge applause. What did he says? And as for
00:04:27.200
energy drill, baby drill. And so he's trying to look what he's done with Venezuela, look what he's
00:04:33.200
done with permitting permits. There we go for additional drilling in the Gulf of America and
00:04:39.620
in the Permian basin and places everywhere, except California that has been forcing oil producing
00:04:46.360
companies out of the state through regulation. This is where the president can have traction on getting
00:04:52.920
heating oil costs down this winter. And then he's already said to Microsoft and he negotiated with
00:05:00.720
them and said, hey, look, if you're building a data center, you cannot dump that increase in cost
00:05:06.780
onto the consumer. So he's already aware of it and already drawing a line on it. So we need help for
00:05:13.800
the people that live in the Northeast. We need the power companies and we need the supply of oil to come up
00:05:19.520
and the barrel costs to come down a little bit. Those people with stock and Chevron and Exxon on
00:05:24.880
the exploration side will disagree with that, but that's what we need because that will help.
00:05:30.340
But this article has a lot of stats from last year and there is a reduction in heating oil cost
00:05:37.220
this year. Is it huge? I want to see a direct comparison. And by the way, while that's happening,
00:05:42.920
you see reports at some places, gas prices are hitting a buck 99 in the States. Some places,
00:05:48.740
definitely not in California, but some places, Californians may need to drive 800 miles to get
00:05:53.820
it for a buck 99 and then come back to California to save some money on that gas because of where
00:05:58.660
the prices are at. But it's a nice drive. Folks, once a year, we host an event called the Sales
00:06:05.180
Leadership Summit. That event is coming up in the next two months. It'll be in South Florida at Trump
00:06:12.740
Doral. And it's for those of you that run a business because sales is king. Most people
00:06:18.080
don't understand the power of developing sales leaders that develop sales people. This video
00:06:23.980
will break down what's happening at SLS. And hopefully those of you guys that are doing a
00:06:27.460
million plus, you'll get a chance to get a ticket for yourself. Go ahead, Rob, play the clip.
00:06:31.560
So many years ago, I realized the size of your income, your network, your lifestyle is a pure
00:06:35.800
reflection of the size of problems you solve. So for me, going back 20 some years ago, I was a good
00:06:41.280
salesperson. I learned how to sell. I knew if I ran three, four appointments a day, I could sell
00:06:46.060
two, four, six, maybe eight insurance policies on a given day. Then I asked myself, how do I sell 50
00:06:51.760
in a day? How do I sell 100 in a day? There's no way I can do it by myself. I had to solve a big
00:06:56.760
problem and go from being a salesperson to being a sales leader. By the way, it is very different
00:07:01.900
being a salesperson than being a sales leader. That's a massive problem to try to solve.
00:07:06.220
What happened later on? I went from selling two to three policies a day personally to eventually we
00:07:12.360
sold 1 million insurance policies with our company. And we sold that company for $250 million
00:07:17.740
three years ago, licensing 60,000 insurance agents. We solved a massive problem, got paid massively.
00:07:25.800
Let me bring it back to you. In America today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we have
00:07:30.180
13.4 million salespeople in America that go out selling every day, working for commission.
00:07:34.520
We have 132,000 VP of sales, according to LinkedIn, and we have roughly 8,000 chief sales
00:07:40.500
officers in America. Now, when it comes down to putting the hat on of being a sales leader,
00:07:45.880
it's a very different accountability, tough conversations, challenging, transferring your
00:07:50.620
knowledge on how to get referrals, how to follow up on leads, how to properly follow up where you
00:07:55.520
don't offend the person, the script you use when you DM versus when you email, which is when you make
00:07:59.800
a phone call, how to give better presentations, the types of phone calls to make, the types of contests
00:08:04.340
to run, how to hold them accountable and drive them and not upset them. And they still want to come.
00:08:08.760
How do you steer competition? All of this are things companies that solve big problems that
00:08:15.000
become multi-billion dollar companies do. So once a year, I host a conference called a sales
00:08:20.620
leadership summit. This happens once a year. To attend this, you need to do a minimum of a million
00:08:26.120
dollars a year and have five salespeople that report to you. If you want to join us at this
00:08:32.040
year's sales leadership summit that happens in the March, we'll go through a 200 page manual
00:08:36.580
together on how to go through A through Z of being a great sales leader. Click on a link below,
00:08:41.920
fill out the information. One of our representatives from the David Consulting will reach out to you
00:08:46.480
and tell you more about the sales leadership summit.
00:08:48.460
Rob, what is the website to go to this? Do we have it in the link?
00:08:52.880
We do. It's in the description. It's also in a pin to the chat.
00:08:56.380
Can you click on a link just to see what it looks like? So everybody sees it. So go, if that's you,
00:09:00.480
click on a link. We'll spend two days together at Trump Doral and we go through A through Z and
00:09:04.900
it's a great place to network with other performers that are also doing well. There you have it. So
00:09:14.260
Beautiful. All right. Fantastic. If you enjoyed this video, you want to watch more videos like
00:09:18.200
this, click here. And if you want to watch the entire podcast, click here.