140. Oil's Last Lavish Party: The 2022 World Cup in Qatar

Two hundred billion dollars of oil and gas money to through The World Cup in Qatar. Turns out Qatar is 'new money' and yet has a huge sovereign fund of $300B. Even they know the transition is coming. The governor of Tokyo suggests turtleneck sweaters for saving on energy. Will the trend take off? Donate to The Clean Energy Show via PayPal! COP27 was a big, fat compromise and we need to do better but it does seem the world is slowly coming together to oppose fossil fuels. The sexy new Prius is fast and sporty. Too bad it isn't an electric vehicle. We predict continued bad sales for Toyota. Biden pours billions into aiding the U.S. power grid to transition to renewable energy. Canada begins a program to replace oil furnaces on the East coast with heat pumps.

Other topics: GoComics, Carlos Ghosn, Unilever to make precision fermented ice cream could be the blow to dairy we've been predicting, Mazda might be the only Japanese auto company to get serious about EVs and Volkswagen may be dropping the ball. A listener bought his first EV and is worried his reduced winter range won't come back. Don't worry, it will!

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Transcript------------

Hello, and welcome to episode 140 of the Clean Energy Show.

I'm Brian Stockton.

I'm James Whittingham.

This week, with the World Cup underway in Qatar, we look at what might be the peak of petrol state decadence.

I mean, what does $200 billion even get? Dennis a soccer tournament without beer.

Hell, even my kids pee wee soccer tournaments had beer.

The governor of Tokyo has solved the energy crisis.

The solution? Turtleneck sweaters.

Speaking as a Canadian, wait until they hear about Tukes and woolly socks.

Well, the Cop 27 climate summit was a bit of a wash.

You know, like standing in the middle of Miami.

Domino's Pizza is moving to Chevy Bolt electric delivery vehicles.

They've ordered 800 bolts from GM, and if they don't receive the cars in 30 minutes, they're free.

All that and more of this edition of the Clean Energy Show.

Holy brian we're back with another show, another week.

We're nonstop robotic machines here.

Yeah, a lot is going on.

And also this week, will I fit into the surprisingly sexy new Prius? The answer will sadden you, I think.

Biden gives billions to the US power grid, and Canada follows the US.

And installing heat pumps in regions where oil furnaces are popular.

And I still can't figure out why oil furnaces are popular.

They just didn't want to run the they just became popular, I think.

Rural areas where it's hard to get them on the grid, I guess.

And how are you this week? I'm going to tell you right now that I'm not well.

I've been sick.

You sound terrible, James.

No, I'm not possessed.

That is, my lungs.

I've had illness.

I flu since last we met.

Brian pretty much okay, but it's not going well.

Here's what I did.

I tested my family because they're all sick.

They gave it to me.

My daughter brought it home from high school, and I knew I was going to get sick, so I just tested they tested.

My wife and my daughter tested, and they're negative.

So I thought I'm like I was singing at my nose.

It's not like I have something different.

I don't go anywhere, as you know.

Anyway, I've had a hellish number of days, so I am barely able to be here today.

And by the end of the show, I will be soaked in sweat.

Oh, dear.

Because I'm still doing anything is like a chore.

I skipped lunch yesterday because I couldn't go downstairs.

Oh, no.

That maybe answers my question, because the pet peeve of mine.

People often say they have the flu when what they really mean is that they have a cold.

So you said you have a flu.

Do you really believe it's, the damage, or is it a bad cold? I was going to jokingly bring the CDC chart on this to the show, and I thought, no, I'm not going to.

But now I wish I did.

Yeah, well, people say that all the time.

Oh, I had the flu.

And no, you just had a bad cold.

If you've got the flu, it typically means you cannot go to work or go downstairs for lunch.

Yeah, well, there's overlaps, okay? But having fever and severe aches is very uncommon for colds.

You can have a mild fever.

You can have a brief fever.

But to have a long fever and severe aches, which I did, even with pills, I've been thrown down pills left and right until yesterday when I decided I've had enough.

But I took one for the show, so maybe it'll kick in halfway through.

We'll see.

Anyway, I had to do some harrowing things, like go drive my family home from the gray cop, the super bowl of Canada, because they were volunteering there, because my daughter is going on a school trip, and that was one way to fundraise.

Well, it killed my wife.

She was a little bit sick still, and she had to work 10 hours one day serving rich people, which is always fun.

Then my daughter asks, dad, is it legal to quit high school and go get a job? And I said, look, young lady, you want to be the people getting served, not the servers, okay? You want to stay in school.

You want to be those rich bastards getting horse Durham served to them by people like you raising money for school trips.

You don't want to be the person who's 30 years old, has six kids, and is trying to serve.

I mean, we need those people.

Those people will exist school and becomes an entrepreneur and starts a million dollar web company.

Well, sure.

I think she's more likely to start a bakery or something.

Yeah.

Not a huge amount of money in that.

No, but people do do that.

There's a lot of people who do that.

In fact, there's a number of successful local businesses which are at least popular with people who rave about their goods.

Yeah, there's some great bakeries.

Finally, there's great bakeries here.

There never used to be.

It was always ironic because we're surrounded by fields of wheat.

There's just nothing but wheat around here.

But 20 years ago, you could not get a decent loaf of bread in the city.

It was crazy.

But now there's some really great places.

Okay, so breaking news.

I think we're probably the first podcast to deal with this important topic.

There is an important website on the internet that has been down for four days now.

It's not Twitter.

It's not Twitter.

It's more important than twitter.

It's GoComics.com.

GoComics.com.

Yes.

This is a website I go to every single day to get my daily comic strips.

You know, I was always a newspaper guy, and one of the reasons I like newspapers was reading the daily comics.

Now, many years ago, I switched to reading the comics online because you can get whatever comics you want.

You don't have to just settle for the ones that are in your newspaper.

So I go to this website every single day, GoComics.com to read a handful of comic strips, and it's been down for four days.

When was the last time you had a website you visited and it was down for four days? People don't have patience for that anymore.

No, 4 hours would be pushing the limits for most people.

Four days.

And you can get a lot of the comic strips in other places, but there's a handful that are only on GoComics.com.

It drives me crazy.

I've been looking into it, and cyber security apparen