DOE's $1B Nuke Bet, China’s Coal Loop, & Al Gore’s COP Circus | 11.21.25

Chuck and Mark crank up the camp as they riff on the Landman season two premiere, bouncing from the show’s oil-patch chaos to the real-world energy circus. They torch the DOE Loan Programs Office’s messy reputation while breaking down its latest billion-dollar moves, like the $1B revival of Three Mile Island for Microsoft and AEP’s $1.6B transmission upgrade, along with its surprisingly strong 3.3% default rate and Tesla’s quick 2013 repayment. Then it’s off to China, where a coal-to-liquids boom big enough to replace 1.3 million barrels a day pairs with thorium molten-salt reactors and plans for a 200-MW nuclear-powered mega-ship by 2035, all signaling Beijing’s trademark long-game dominance. And in peak absurdity, ManBearPig strolls into COP30 as media fawns over Al Gore’s “climate rockstar” entrance, even as new studies warn of a potential Gulf Stream collapse that could freeze Europe like Arctic Canada. All the chaos, all the laughs, all the BDE energy.

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Click here to view the episode transcript.

00:00 - Intro
02:43 - DOE LPO Funding
12:15 - China Energy Policies
19:59 - Energy Tariffs Impact
23:15 - Thorium Molten Salt Reactors
26:17 - Closing the Energy Loop
28:17 - Al Gore COP26 Speech
34:14 - MIT Gulf Stream Collapse
36:00 - Episode Wrap-Up

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