Energy 101: We Ask The Dumb Questions So You Don't Have To

AI can write your resume, your LinkedIn post, and your birthday flyer, but should it? Shiva Swaminathan, an AI product management leader doing fractional work across mining, edtech, and robotics, joins Jacob to make the case for keeping your brain switched on. They talk Uber drivers lost without their app, 100 identical resumes, CDs in the car, and why Shiva writes his own song lyrics and comic strips before letting AI touch a thing.

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Maps quietly run the entire oil and gas world, you just never noticed. This one breaks down GIS without the jargon, from Google Earth doodles to the software that decides exactly where to drill. Richard Webb and Zach Harlan of Exprodat explain how mapping tech places wells, dodges the neighbor's boundary, and powers everything from Zillow to the military. Plus drilling on Mars, conspiracy toll roads, and why there are no dumb questions when the whole planet is your dataset.

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Those giant pyramids of sand at every frac site exist for one reason, and it turns out the industry might be quietly running short on the good stuff. Curtis Wilie and Josh Johnson of Superior Energy Services break down how a coal byproduct called fly ash is shaking up the proppant game, why something three times finer than sand outperforms it, and how pulling forgotten barrels from legacy wells could matter more than drilling new ones. Plenty of analogies, zero shame about the dumb questions.

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Methane is invisible, odorless, and far more potent than CO2 in the short term, so how do you actually catch it leaking? Brendan Smith, CEO of SeekOps Inc., explains how technology built for the Mars Curiosity rover ended up flying on drones over oil and gas sites here on Earth. We get into spectrometers versus satellites, why offshore detection is so tricky, what EU methane rules mean for US operators in 2027, and how SeekOps turns an invisible gas into something you can finally see.

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Getting laid off twice taught Yogashri Pradhan, founder of IronLady Energy Advisors, that staying visible matters as much as staying technical. She traces a career running from UT petroleum engineering to Devon, Endeavor, Coterra and Chevron, the downturns that reshaped it, and why she got married in front of a pump jack. There is also honest talk on the Diamondback merger, the wildcatters she looks up to, where AI fits in the field, life in Midland, and her new book Fueling Impact.

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Micro turbines hitting 83% efficiency could replace flares and turn stranded wells into tiny neighborhood power plants. Mark Ronkin of Grid Energy Solutions came down from Edmonton to talk with Jacob and guest host Britt Breaux about jumping from five years in the Canadian Army to wireline to running his own MWD shop, then stumbling into the tech at a gas show in Milan. Plus getting sick next to a flare, the oilfield marketing problem in eastern Canada, and why a 9 to 5 and entrepreneurship can coexist.

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Building software inside a frac and wireline giant is a different beast than doing it at a startup. Ben Dickinson and Raleigh Bumpers from NexTier Completion Solutions get into life under the Patterson UTI umbrella, the EOS platform, the Vertex automated pump control system, the shift from diesel to natural gas powered fleets, agentic AI in the field, and why the world genuinely stops if oil and gas stops. Plus Pittsburgh shale stories and a Colorado School of Mines reality check.

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Dan Grech, Founder and CEO of Global OTEC, swung by from London to break down ocean thermal energy conversion, a technology that turns the ocean's heat into 24/7 baseload power. Jacob asks the dumb questions about warm surface water meeting cold deep water, why Jimmy Carter is the unsung hero of ocean energy, how OTEC stacks up against offshore wind and Peter Thiel's new wave bet, and why Hawaii and the Caribbean might lead the way.

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Three decades of front-row energy seats and takes you genuinely can't argue with. Mark Meyer gets into the Strait of Hormuz mess, Heathrow's jet fuel shortage, countries sitting on hydrocarbons while importing them, the IEA's net zero detour, BP's expensive U-turn, and why 2 billion people still cooking over dung deserves more airtime than another COP summit. Astros predictions and a Joe Rogan tangent included.

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Andrew Richard, CEO and Co-Founder of Automated Rig Technologies, flies in from Calgary to break down why the oilfield spent 70 years optimizing brute force instead of rethinking the process. He gets into the jointed pipe injector that strips 97% of operator input out, what rig hands call the "barbecue basket," why everyone in oil and gas wants to be first to be second, and the IKEA chatbot that accidentally solved the automation jobs debate.

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Chlorine is in your pipes, your microchips, your drinking water and somehow nobody talks about it. Roxanna Delima, Co-founder and CBO at Rushnu, breaks down why this overlooked chemical is critical to US manufacturing and how her team is flipping the script on a 100 year old industry by using heat instead of electricity and turning waste carbon into actual product. No government subsidy dependence, no gigaton fantasies, just hard tech with a real business model.

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David Holt, President of Consumer Energy Alliance, sits down to unpack 20 years of fighting for affordable, reliable energy for regular Americans. From NIMBYism and lazy politics to the data center power surge, nuclear's comeback, carbon capture, and why the price of eggs is actually an energy story, this one covers a lot of ground and makes it all make sense.

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Shawn Cutter, Founder & CEO of EnergiAcres, went from sixth-generation Ohio farmer to Discovery Channel reality TV star to selling his oil and gas software startup to Quorum before Series A. Now he's building circular energy infrastructure that pairs power plants with data centers and greenhouses to make energy count twice. We get into the grid crisis, the cloud vs on-prem debate, and whether data centers will ever make it to space.

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The Beetaloo Basin in Australia's Northern Territory is one of the most exciting shale plays nobody is talking about yet. Jason Finlay and Aiden Anderson-Barr from Vantage North Group, both former NT government officials, break down why Australia had a fracking moratorium, how a left-leaning government lifted it, what the East Coast energy crisis actually looks like, and why US technology is the key to unlocking it all.

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Offshore driller Justin Forrest of Valaris Limited joins Jacob and Mark Meyer to break down what it actually means to sit in the driller's chair on a seventh-gen drillship, why managed pressure drilling is the offshore equivalent of horizontal drilling, what 28 days on a rig really looks like, and how Justin has been quietly documenting the hidden world of offshore drilling one black and white photo at a time.

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The Collide team takes over Energy 101. Jazmia Henry, Canisius Rozario, Jon Slominski, and Sam Texas from Collide break down why they went all-in on Claude, how they are building AI tools specifically for oil and gas, and what agentic workflows actually look like day to day. Plus, Sam once took down Candy Crush for 15 minutes and he is still employed.

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Pressure testing, cold calls from Wendy's parking lots, and a family logo that goes back generations. Clint Wagner, Owner of Wagner Energy Services, Juan Macias Jr, Operations and Business Development Manager at Wagner Energy Services, and Peter Brecht, Commercial Insurance Broker at Falcon West Energy Insurance Solutions pull up to the NAPE edition of Energy 101 to talk about what hydrostatic testing actually looks like in the field, how TikTok comments turned into real business relationships, getting kids excited about energy careers in Ohio schools, and why the oilfield might be the most accepting industry out there for anyone willing...

Sean Hanrahan, Founder and Managing Partner of Platypus Brewing in Houston, spent 25 years in global minerals and oil and gas before trading the corporate world for a brewmaster apron. From offshore exploration in Australia and the Gulf of Mexico to opening a craft brewery in the First Ward, Sean breaks down what those two worlds actually have in common.

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Prabhdeep Sekhon, CEO of Eclipse Energy, breaks down the hydrogen rainbow and why it doesn't tell the whole story about cost, carbon intensity, and water use. From farm boy in Canada to petroleum engineer in the Bakken to clean tech founder, Prab explains how his team is using microbes to eat leftover oil in abandoned fields and produce hydrogen without water, turning billion-dollar liabilities into clean energy assets. He walks through their first-of-a-kind California project that hit 40% hydrogen production, the West Texas deployments coming next, and why co-locating data centers in oil fields solves both the molecule transport problem...

Austin Draughon spent nine years at BP keeping Gulf of Mexico wells producing tens of thousands of barrels per day from floating platforms in 6,000+ feet of water. He breaks down why offshore is ten times more expensive, takes ten times longer, and involves ten times more people than onshore drilling, from robots tightening bolts on the seafloor to the ice problem that can kill a well in eight hours. Jacob and Julie learn why you can't just build 6,000-foot concrete pillars, how Christmas trees got their name, and what happens when asphalt buildup shuts down a 10,000 barrel per day...

Texas electricity is way more complicated than flipping a switch. Brittany Devlin from DOB Ai breaks down the deregulated energy market where customers can actually choose providers and save serious money, but most people just overpay out of laziness. From how the grid physically works to why your AC destroys your summer budget, she explains the whole pipeline. The real hack? Like energy aggregation companies that negotiate contracts for you, breaking deals when better rates appear. Plus: why unplugging appliances matters, how battery storage is fixing solar's sunset problem, and the truth about those "free nights and weekends" billboard...

Brandon Wamsley from Flatirons Chemicals joins the show to explain how the $100 billion oil and gas chemical industry actually works - from killing bacteria that sours wells to keeping pipelines from corroding in minus 58 degree North Dakota winters. He shares his journey from laying tile in construction to becoming a field technician in Williston during the Bakken boom, where people literally camped in tents chasing oil field opportunities. The conversation breaks down why chemicals are cheap insurance for producers, how bacteria creates hydrogen sulfide downhole, what H2S scavengers actually do, and why the industry churns through chemical providers...

Joe Natale from Knight-Chemstar joins the show fresh off pulling off something pretty remarkable in Massachusetts - successfully running the first 100% renewable diesel pilot program for commuter rail locomotives in the country. He breaks down the wild logistics of moving renewable diesel from Midwest producers to New England, why heating oil is basically diesel's cousin, the bacon grease problem that happens when biodiesel gets cold, and why drop-in fuels make way more sense than ripping out all our infrastructure for electrification.

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Building startups turns into a rapid fire philosophy session on founders, culture, money, and why velocity beats speed when Jacob asks the dumb questions we all think about. Collin McLelland of Collide breaks down how real companies get built, why talent density matters more than headcount, how power, AI, and energy collide, and what actually keeps teams motivated when the grind gets real.

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Trying to make geophysics cool again, and honestly Peter Duncan from MicroSeismic, Inc. makes it easy. We bounce from a bear encounter in Newfoundland to why geophysicists are basically treasure hunters with pricey toys, then land on the simple difference between seismic and microseismic, why sound travels so freakishly well through rock, and how listening to tiny underground pops helps fracking and now geothermal get smarter without wrecking nearby wells.

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Growing up in New Zealand somehow turned into mud logging the Aussie desert, rigging up deepwater tech in the Gulf of Mexico, geosteering off Scotland, helping figure out nuclear waste storage in Swiss clay, and finally landing in subsurface risk and insurance where “nothing moves without coverage” starts to make way more sense. Jacob asks the dumb questions, Rodney Garrard from Arch Insurance International answers with real world stories, and the conversation ends on a pretty grounded idea: energy realism beats wishful thinking.

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Tyler Wilson at Altor Solution breaks down why corrosion quietly eats wells alive and how his team fights back by lining production tubing with stainless steel, plus a wild path from ski instructor dreams to Australia farming to freezing roughneck days in Alberta and eventually running North America ops at Tesco. We get a clean, plain English walkthrough of tubing vs casing, annular flow, why joints are 32 feet, and a few oilfield stories that make you thankful for modern safety.

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Seismic data is basically ultrasound for the Earth, and once you hear how it works, you can’t unsee it. Colton Dudley from richroc consultants breaks down how sound waves travel underground, bounce off rock layers, and come back with clues about what’s hiding below, oil, gas, faults, and everything in between. From thumper trucks and geophones to how geophysicists turn squiggly lines into real decisions, this conversation keeps things simple, visual, and occasionally funny. It’s a plain-English look at the science beneath our feet and how modern tools (including AI) are changing the way we explore and un...

Lawyers are the behind-the-scenes operators who make energy projects actually happen, and Kerry McGrath broke down what that world really looks like. She’s spent more than 15 years helping companies get pipelines, wind farms, mines, nuclear plants, pretty much anything that produces or moves energy, through the maze of permits, regulations, and agency sign-offs. We talked about everything from negotiating with federal regulators to dealing with endangered species rules to how legal teams keep up with new tech like carbon capture. It’s a side of the industry most people never see, but it’s the difference between a projec...

Rare earths, battery tech, and global supply chains sound intimidating, but Dr. Robert Miles somehow makes all of it feel like story time, with the occasional plot twist involving AI, robotics, and why China basically owns the rare earths game. We got into the headaches of lithium-ion batteries, the promise of modular recycling, and what the future of critical minerals really looks like, all while Jacob and Julie asked the wonderfully dumb questions the rest of us are too afraid to say out loud. It’s nerdy, funny, and surprisingly easy to follow, exactly the kind of energy talk th...

Diana Elizabeth Lima Sagui’s story takes you across borders and industries, starting in Mexico, winding through Germany, and landing in North America with a perspective you don’t hear every day. She breaks down what it’s really like building a career in the chemical world, finding her footing in oil and gas, and navigating culture shock while proving herself in STEM. It’s a mix of grit, curiosity, and those “figure it out as you go” moments that shape a career more than any degree ever could. Her path is full of leadership lessons, cross-cultural surprises, and a refreshing...

LA has its own flavor when it comes to venture capital, and Andrew Chan breaks down exactly why it works. Instead of trying to copy SF or New York, LA mixes deep tech, robotics, space startups, and pure creative chaos into one ecosystem that actually makes sense once you see how it all connects. We got into the quirks of raising money there, why energy investing hits different in LA, and how the city’s culture shapes the kinds of companies that thrive. If you’ve ever wondered how beaches, studios, and space hardware all end up in the same...

What if the same CO₂ that’s warming the planet could actually become the stuff we use every day? Jacob and Julie sit down with Aaron Fitzgerald from Mars Materials to break down how their tech flips captured CO₂ into carbon-negative chemicals like acrylonitrile, the backbone of everything from carbon fiber to water treatment to, yes, diapers. Aaron walks us through how this process slashes emissions, opens the door to making fresh water from thin air, and why the future of materials might look a lot cleaner than the past. We even ran a live flocculant experiment that somehow landed...

Public data in energy is basically the Wild West, a mix of outdated systems, inconsistent reporting standards, and layers of bureaucracy that make it nearly impossible to use efficiently. In this episode of *Energy 101*, Jacob and Julie chat with John Ferrell, the brains behind WellDatabase, to unpack how all this chaos came to be. From dusty microfiche records to confusing state databases that can’t agree on formats, John breaks down why accessing “public” data often feels like solving a puzzle with missing pieces. He also explains how WellDatabase is cleaning up the mess—turning scattered, messy datasets into tools th...

Ever wondered what really goes into keeping oilfield workers safe? We put an HSE specialist on the spot with all the “dumb” questions, like what happens if there’s H2S in the air, or whether bison herds are actually a thing on site. David Valerio from DNOW breaks down safety in plain English, mixing serious insight with plenty of laughs. From OSHA rules and environmental compliance to the realities of working in the freezing North Dakota fields, he explains how safety shapes everything in oil and gas. It’s part education, part storytelling, and totally eye-opening for anyone curious...

Refracs might sound like something out of an engineer’s fever dream, but Bob Barba makes it surprisingly simple and honestly, kind of fascinating. He breaks down how giving old wells a “second frack” can unlock massive untapped potential, boost production, and make better use of what’s already in the ground. Jacob and Julie throw their usual mix of curious (and occasionally dumb) questions his way, and Bob answers them all with patience, clarity, and a few laughs. It’s a fresh, no-BS look at how refracs are changing the energy game, one well at a time.

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AI and Bitcoin mining’s gotten a bad rap when it comes to power use, but what if it’s actually helping reshape the grid? We sat down with Haley Juarez from Pioneer Miner to unpack how mining, AI, and high-performance computing are shaking up energy demand and what that means for grids like ERCOT and MISO. From nuclear to hydrogen, vertical farming to smart thermostats, this conversation connects all the dots between tech, energy, and the way we power our lives. It’s a laid-back, surprisingly fun chat that makes sense of one of the most misunderstood corners of the...

Coring is one of those parts of energy that doesn’t get much spotlight but makes everything else possible. Courtney Rubin from Baker Hughes breaks it down in a way that’s easy to follow, showing how pulling rock samples tells us what’s really happening underground and why that matters for oil, gas, and even the future of energy. From wildcat wells to offshore rigs, she shares stories from the field, what actually happens to those cores once they’re out, and how new tech like AI is starting to change the process. It’s a mix of science, r...

Philip Reed, better known as the "OFS Finance Guy," isn’t afraid to tell it like it is when it comes to money in the oilfield. Between explaining invoice factoring in plain English, sharing war stories about sketchy collections, and breaking down why AR headaches can make or break a company, he had us laughing and learning the whole way through. His path from Michigan to Texas is full of detours, lessons, and mustache-worthy moments that give a raw look at how OFS companies actually stay alive. We got into startups, Midland love-hate stories, and why finance in this in...

Well control is one of those topics that sounds super technical, but it’s basically about keeping a well safe and under control when you’re drilling. Dana Varisco and Ryan Hays from Well Control School explain it in a way that makes sense, even if you’re not living on a rig every day. We cover why blowout preventers are such a big deal, how teamwork makes all the difference when pressure spikes, and how today’s training and tech are shaping safer, smarter operations. Think of it as the ultimate mix of safety, science, and staying calm under pr...