On Monday, President Trump asked, “Why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation?”

Few American voters give much thought to the U.S. Navy’s role in ensuring safe passage for seaborne trade around the world. This interactive map, although seven years old, provides a fascinating picture of the volume and location of merchant ships. Choke points such as the Straits of Hormuz look like commuters at the Times Square subway station.

The U.S. has protected shipping lanes for decades, picking up from the British Navy’s historical role. The world benefits from free trade, but America bears more of the cost of security than any other country, and perhaps most of it. American taxpayers who considered the issue would likely seek some burden-sharing. Trump’s supporters and critics alike can agree that when he asks simple questions like this, he understands the prevailing mood of the electorate.

It reminded me of Paul Kennedy’s 1987 book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers; Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. Kennedy chronicled the challenges faced by the Spanish, French and British empires as they successively succumbed to “imperial overstretch.” This is the inability of any great nation to support sufficient military power to retain control of its conquered territory. Kennedy’s central premise that Japan was about to surpass the U.S. was spectacularly wrong, but his concept of imperial lifecycles is provocative.

The U.S. does not occupy foreign countries. There is no American empire analogous to the historical versions. But the U.S. leads an empire of culture, values and economic liberalism. Soft power, along with hard.

Military power flows from GDP, and in 1945 America’s share of the global economy was at its peak. Today, China and India enjoy faster economic growth which inexorably diminishes America’s share of world GDP. In time, relative military strength must reflect this, and the U.S. will once again contend with a multi-power world. Today, the U.S. defense budget is more than 2X China and as much as the next seven countries combined. Military dominance is not in doubt.

But Trump’s comments reflect an isolationism that questions the need to be the world’s police force. It’s a rational adaptation to a world in which many U.S. allies have prospered under security provided and funded by the U.S. Enough already.

The seductive simplicity of problem-solving by tweet glosses over complexity. Trump’s comments were likely prompted as he cancelled a planned military strike on Iran and wondered why the U.S. was in the Persian Gulf in the first place. The two stricken tankers were from Japan and Norway. The lost U.S. drone was patrolling the area. Is it really our job? Chinese warships aren’t about to start patrols there, but Trump’s sentiments were valid.

Here’s where the Shale Revolution provides geopolitical flexibility. The U.S. is on the verge of becoming a net exporter of crude and petroleum products.  For decades, we’ve maintained a significant military presence in the Middle East and fought two wars there in part to assure the world’s continued access to crude oil. Without this resource, the region would be governed like Somalia and we wouldn’t care.

U.S. energy independence affords geopolitical flexibility. This includes the freedom to be more selective about our military commitments. It reduces our vulnerability to supply disruptions. It lowers our exposure to Paul Kennedy’s imperial overstretch. America’s energy renaissance has many benefits. Add to that list increasing burden sharing among other countries in providing global security.

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund,  please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com).

You might think that using a crane to place steel boxes so as to block all the entrances to a global energy corporation might attract some attention before completed. Nonetheless, Greenpeace successfully demonstrated a gap in business continuity planning, just hours before BP’s annual general meeting. Even at 3am, BP’s global headquarters should have had some security staff on site. They might be expected to notice the unplanned delivery of five steel boxes so as to block access to the building. Perhaps they were taking a nap. It must have led to a lively exchange between the head of security and senior executives.

People sealing themselves inside a chamber with several days of food and water should perhaps be allowed to languish for somewhat longer. One imagines that, had this imaginative protest occurred in Houston not London, the authorities’ response would have been different.

The steel boxes and the fuel for the cranes were enabled by the type of petroleum products BP produces, but this well-worn criticism of environmental activists (do protesters ever cycle to their protests?) is not our point. The energy industry is under attack by a small but vocal group who deny science to try and impose their own quirky vision of 18^th century living standards on the rest of us.

Enbridge (ENB) told us last week they would not attempt a new, “greenfield” crude oil pipeline in Canada given the unpredictable approval process. New York recently denied Williams Companies (WMB) permission to build a natural gas pipeline connecting the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania with consumers in New York City. Boston relies on Russian imports of liquefied natural gas in winter, because new pipelines to bring domestic natural gas have been successfully opposed.

80% of the energy that supports modern life comes from fossil fuels and it’s never been cheaper. Living standards and longevity in developing countries are improving due to greater energy use. In spite of this undoubted success, the energy sector has lost the PR battle. Providing the world with what it clearly wants draws the smug opprobrium of those whose fixation on solar and wind power includes opposition to nuclear energy. Bill Gates, who writes thoughtfully on big subjects, has questioned the focus on R&D for renewables instead of more on cleaner use of fossil fuels: “Should you really be funding the intermittent stuff with all the money and putting no money in the stuff that works all the time?”

The tobacco industry has no claim to improving well-being, but does share with the energy sector a constant need to apologize for its existence. 25 years ago, big tobacco was being sued by U.S. states and individuals for the terrible health outcomes caused by its products. In 1998 they entered into a Master Settlement Agreement with almost all U.S. states, agreeing to pay billions of dollars over many years.

We are no fans of tobacco companies and the morality of energy companies is wholly different. But it’s worth noting that much-reviled tobacco stocks have provided strong returns since, as shown in the chart. The Wall Street Journal has included Altria (MO) in its “30 best-performing stocks of the past 30 years”. It’s just behind Apple (AAPL). MO also made the top 25 S&P500 stocks of the past 50 years.

Midstream energy infrastructure offers predictable cashflows that are growing, and will always be out of favor with those who like to inhabit steel boxes. It’s a recipe for attractive future returns.

We are invested in ENB and WMB.

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund,  please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com).

JPMorgan’s recent Eye on the Market: Energy Outlook 2019 is the best analysis we’ve seen of the Green New Deal (GND). Author Mike Cembalest, whom I know from when I worked there, as always takes a balanced approach supported by insightful research.

Cembalest breaks down the challenge aided by figures and charts to pick the GND apart. Suppose for example, by 2030 the U.S. achieved:

• Primary energy use back to 1988 levels
• 11X more solar generation
• 5X more wind
• 90% decline in coal use
• 40-50% of passenger cars being electric (today 1-2%)

These and related objectives would represent a “Herculean effort” that is unfathomable over the next decade. Even with the necessary political and public support, this would be a path to a 40% drop in CO2 emissions by 2040, versus the GND’s goal of 100% by 2030. If anything, the GND’s unattainability should drive support for significant spending on flood remediation projects, as Cembalest suggests.

The conversion of electricity generation to solar and wind receives lots of attention. But electricity represents only 17% of primary energy use. A sobering related statistic is that 2/3rds of the primary energy used to generate electricity (coal, natural gas, renewables etc.) gets lost through thermal conversion, power plant consumption and transmission.

The three big end user sectors of energy are industry, transport and residential/commercial buildings. Industry is more than half – production of cement, steel, ammonia and plastics are the “four pillars of modern society.” Many industrial processes require high heat and temperature, and while electricity can theoretically replace natural gas, it’s 3-5X more expensive. Moreover, that’s based on today’s electricity, which is itself 2/3rds derived from fossil fuels. A 100% renewable electricity supply would be even less competitive.

Lowering greenhouse gases globally can’t happen without China’s active participation. They produced more than half of the world’s cement in 2017, half the steel, and a third of the ammonia, all substantially used domestically. 85% of ammonia is used in fertilizer, without which the world could only feed half its current population. 40-70% of ammonia used in fertilizer is lost due to leaching or erosion. Its production causes 1% of global Greenhouse Gases (GHGs).

The world currently generates around 34 gigatonnes of CO2 annually (a gigatonne is a billion tonnes). The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects global GHGs to increase by a third over the next two decades with unchanged policies. Rising living standards in emerging economies, led by China and India, will swamp greater energy efficiencies in the developed world. Use of plastics (produced with methane, naphtha and ethane) is forecast to rise by 150% over the next thirty years.

The GND promotes planting more trees. U.S. forestland of 750 million acres captures 10% of emissions. A 2017 study found that replanting trees on 20 million acres of cleared land could offset almost 1% of U.S. GHGs. This would be challenging; current U.S. Forest Service efforts are 120 thousand acres, around 0.5%.

Germany’s “Energiewende” has impressively lifted their renewable share of electricity generation to 38%. However, emission reductions are disappointing. Phasing out of nuclear power, and renewables intermittency (it’s not always sunny and windy) have increased use of coal. Further use of wind requires substantial investment in transmission infrastructure to link the windy north with population centers in the south.

The report is full of fascinating facts like these. Vaclav Smil is JPMorgan’s technical advisor. Smil is the author of 40 books, such as Energy and Civilization: A History. He’s a highly regarded thinker and his writings on energy development and use are absorbing. Smil, who is Bill Gates’ favorite author, describes the GND as “…not a useful foundation for a serious policy discussion.”

Energy Outlook 2019 ranks among Mike Cembalest’s best pieces of work. It’s highly readable.

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund, please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com)

Environmental activists who are against all fossil fuels often accuse their opponents of being “climate deniers”. They claim a scientific basis for their often extreme views, asserting that rejecting their solutions for climate change is to reject science.

In fact, the Green New Deal (GND) and its supporters use science selectively to support their objectives and reject science where it suits them. The GND has been widely criticized for its extreme and implausible call for the elimination of fossil fuels (the House resolution calls for, “eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible” (italics added). Note there’s no mention of economic feasibility or any consideration of cost/benefit tradeoffs. It seeks, within a decade, “meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” which isn’t technologically feasible today, and certainly is economically implausible.

The GND also threw in a socialist economic agenda, including a Federal job guarantee. Its critics seem far more numerous than its supporters, and include us (see The Bovine Green Dream).

Any serious effort to limit Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) must incorporate nuclear energy. The GND House resolution is silent on the topic. The infamous FAQ document that was released and then disowned by Bronx Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio Cortez (AOC) called for decommissioning nuclear power.

The scientific evidence supporting greater use of nuclear energy is strong. The world has built a powerful safety record. Accidents at Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) promote widespread public fear of nuclear reactors. But per Kilowatt Hour (kWh) of energy produced, the European Union and the Paul Scherrer Institute, the largest Swiss national research institute, found that nuclear power is safer than coal, oil, gas and even (by a slight margin) wind as a cause of deaths.

Coal power stations, for example, expose the public to nuclear radiation because coal ash typically contains uranium. The journal Science noted that living near coal-fired power stations exposed people to higher radiation doses than experienced living near nuclear power plants.

Because a nuclear accident carries such potential for devastation, the industry has developed a culture of redundant safety and continual improvement. Knowledge is widely shared within the industry globally, and the record bears this out.

A nuclear incident provokes images of Hiroshima, with enormous loss of human life and widespread radioactive contamination. But nuclear physicists argue, with plenty of evidence, that the process by which nuclear energy is harnessed doesn’t involve this risk. Apparently, during the Cold War neither Russia nor the U.S. targeted the other’s nuclear power plants because the likely damage would be modest.

The main risk with a nuclear accident is the release of radiation. Any death is tragic, but all energy production carries risks and a dispassionate analysis must consider the benefits and risks of any fuel source in combination.

Those who claim to care about climate change but reject increased use of nuclear power are rejecting science. Mike Shellenberger, who writes thoughtfully about such issues, has said, “The problem with nuclear is that it doesn’t demand the radical re-making of society, like renewables do, and it doesn’t require grand fantasies of humankind harmonizing with nature.”

Radioactivity occurs naturally all over the world. Embracing sunlight and wind as more natural than uranium is a belief system but isn’t a scientific solution to meeting the world’s need for power.

The GND has probably set back serious efforts to address climate change, because its wild extremism shows its supporters to be more interested in demagoguery than solutions. It may fire up a minority, but it betrays little interest in debate.

The Sierra Club, which also opposes nuclear energy, continues to work against any fossil fuels. Over the last decade, the U.S. has achieved a greater reduction in CO2 emissions than any other country (see Guess Who’s Most Effective at Combating Global Warming) because of power plants switching from coal to natural gas.

AOC’s hypocrisy is on full display, as she shuns the New York subway and defends her frequent Uber use: “Living in the world as it is isn’t an argument against working towards a better future.” The GND’s main author lives Animal Farm egalitarianism (“some…are more equal than others”).

At SL Advisors, we are helping finance America’s use of cleaner fossil fuels like natural gas in favor of coal, which we avoid. We are doing our bit to lower GHGs and make a better planet. We’re doing more than the Sierra Club, AOC or the GND supporters, because we’re focused on solutions that are effective today. The debate about climate change would benefit from more scientific rigor.

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund, please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com)

Like Warren Buffett’s legions of followers, we enjoy reading his annual letter. He writes as clearly as he thinks. Buffett’s also a great interviewee, and his TV appearances with Becky Quick on CNBC are engaging – although it’s quicker and almost as illuminating to read the transcript.

Buffett is quick to admit mistakes, which simply highlight how few he makes. Overpaying for Kraft was a recent, big one. The company was combined with Heinz in 2015, creating Kraft Heinz Corp (KHC). Berkshire (BRK), in partnership with Brazilian investment firm 3G, had taken Heinz private two years earlier. Buffett still thinks it’s a great business, but what caught our attention was his comment on brand erosion. In Buffett’s own words, from his CNBC interview:

“Heinz was started in 1869. So it had all that time to develop various products, particularly ketchup, things like that.

“They’ve been distributed worldwide through tens and hundreds of thousands of outlets. They’ve had hundreds of millions…they spend a fortune on advertising. And their sales now are $26 billion. Costco introduced the Kirkland brand in 1992, 27 years ago, and that brand did $39 billion last year whereas all the Kraft and Heinz brands did 27– $26 or $27 billion. So here they are, a hundred years plus, tons of advertising, built into people’s habits and everything else, and now Kirkland, a private label brand, comes along and with only 750 or so outlets does 50% more business than all the Kraft Heinz brands. So house brands, private label, is getting stronger.”

Part of Buffett’s success has been improving upon the Graham and Dodd principles that defined his formative investing years. He recognized that demanding a discount to intrinsic value overlooks the intangible value of brand. His 1988 purchase of shares in Coke (KO) was an early example of this. KO currently trades at 11X book value. Their consistently high return on equity supports this high multiple. The brand is KO’s “moat”, generating far more profit than an unbranded carbonated, sugary beverage would.

Kraft Heinz has iconic brands too, but they’ve turned out to be more vulnerable to low cost competition than many expected. Buffett’s overpayment for the Kraft Heinz combination was in some ways caused by the enduring success of the Coca Cola brand.

Buffett again:

“Now, the interesting thing about Kraft Heinz is that it’s still a wonderful business in that it uses about $7 billion of tangible assets and earns $6 billion pretax on that. So on the assets required to run the business, $7 billion– they earn $6 billion– roughly after depreciation pretax. But we and certain predecessors, but primarily we, we paid $100 billion more than the tangible assets. So for us, it has to earn on $107 billion, not just on the $7 billion that the business employs.”

KO has unrivaled distribution — think of all the places you see bottles of Coke on sale. And tastes are shifting away from some KHC products, such as Oscar Meyer hot dogs which countless households ban because they regard as containing carcinogens. But the broad success of Costco’s Kirkland shows that brands can be more vulnerable than previously thought.

3G’s reputation for aggressive cost cutting led some to suggest they’d damaged the KHC brands. But Buffett noted that cuts were mostly overhead, “… they cut costs not in innovation, or in product quality, or anything like that. They just took it out of SG&A basically.”

The erosion of KHC’s brand value reflects the growing power of WalMart, Costco and Amazon. It didn’t just happen during the 4Q18 period for which KHC took its write-down, but the issue just gained more attention. It’s probably altered Buffett’s thinking too. Moats need to be harder to breach.

Energy infrastructure is one sector that’s invulnerable to brand erosion from new competitors, which ought to make it appealing to Buffett. An installed pipeline is unlikely to be threatened by a new one. Tomorrow’s winners in this sector will come from today’s big firms.

Climate change is the big uncertainty hanging over oil and gas pipelines. Buffett believes electric vehicles are, “…very much in America’s future.” While the energy sector grapples with the consequences of these shifts, U.S. energy infrastructure enjoys three benefits:

• increased electricity generation will drive demand for natural gas
• uncertain long term demand for crude oil is reducing the capital invested in big, conventional projects in favor of short-cycle, precisely what U.S. shale offers
• U.S shale produces a lot of natural gas liquids, approaching 5 million barrels a day, used as feedstock for the petrochemical industry

U.S. energy infrastructure has an enviable moat. Rising dividends, for the first time since 2014, are drawing new investors.

We are invested in KHC.

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund, please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com)