Energy shocks don’t just raise prices, they can end expansions. We sit down with Tyler Goodspeed, Chief Economist at ExxonMobil and author of “Recession,” plus energy analyst Robert Bryce, to map how oil, natural gas, and geopolitics can turn into real-world recession risk. Along the way, we test a question we remember from the 1970s: are we watching another classic energy-driven downturn, or something structurally different because the United States is now a major oil and gas producer and a leading LNG exporter?

We get specific about the split personality of global energy markets. Oil is broadly priced as a liquid global commodity, but natural gas can be a completely different story when pipelines, LNG shipping, and regasification costs create massive regional gaps. That’s where Tyler’s idea of “patriotic recessions” comes in: a shock can hit Europe or parts of Asia far harder than the US, even when everyone is watching the same headlines. We also revisit 2008 through an energy lens, asking whether record household energy bills and energy-intensive goods like fertilizer and food helped push the economy over the edge.

Then we turn to the next wave of demand: data centers, AI compute, and the electricity grid buildout. We talk about what’s really driving incremental gas demand, how LNG exports compare in scale, and why the energy stack changes slowly even when technology moves fast. If you care about energy security, inflation, industrial competitiveness, and recession dynamics, this conversation connects the dots.

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This show is presented by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, which focuses on research and analysis of global, national and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results ov...