Episode 984: Dan Doyle on “Of Roughnecks & Riches”
Newt's World
Gingrich 360
4.6 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Newt talks with Dan Doyle, president of Reliance Well Services and Arena Resources and author of the new book, “Of Roughnecks & Riches: A Start-Up in the Great American Fracking Boom.” They discuss his decision to found a fracking company in 2009 amid the post-2008 financial crisis, despite severe industry volatility and personal setbacks. Doyle recounts his early fascination with oil sparked by family drilling projects in northwestern Pennsylvania, his shift to geology at the University of Pittsburgh, and his early career raising money for wells in Pennsylvania and Texas. He characterizes the broader oil and gas sector as a high-risk, “cowboy” culture that persists even as the industry becomes more corporate. Doyle explains that he wrote “Of Roughnecks and Riches” because the chaotic, risk-filled story of his startup, from volatile partners and a truck builder who pulled a knife on him after receiving substantial funds, to visits from the Attorney General’s office, was too dramatic not to document.
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:08.0 | Welcome to New World Podcast on the IHeart Podcast Network. |
| 0:12.2 | The Trump administration has an interesting plan to provide Cold War era plutonium to nuclear power plants. |
| 0:19.9 | Fact is, we have a great surplus of plutonium developed during the Cold War when we had |
| 0:25.0 | many, many more rockets that we have today. |
| 0:28.2 | That surplus is available, and the administration is looking at the idea of converting it |
| 0:33.2 | from nuclear warheads to companies that actually want to use it to fuel nuclear power plants. |
| 0:39.3 | The Energy Department has more than 50 tons of surplus plutonium |
| 0:44.0 | left over from nuclear weapons programs, |
| 0:46.7 | and the agency previously planned to dilute and bury the material. |
| 0:50.9 | But if it's worked this way, they'll become the first time. |
| 0:54.6 | The U.S. government has made weapons-grade plutonium available for private companies in order to |
| 0:59.6 | provide power to the economy. On Tuesday, the Energy Department said it selected five companies |
| 1:06.7 | to enter into advanced negotiations to potentially receive surplus plutonium. |
| 1:12.7 | Some people have criticized Democrats in particular and some nonproliferation experts |
| 1:17.5 | who argue that the plutonium can be used to create nuclear weapons. |
| 1:22.0 | But if it is disposed of correctly and if it is distributed in such a way that's no longer useful, |
| 1:29.6 | then, frankly, it becomes a very, very useful fuel, and it really economically would be |
| 1:37.4 | very helpful. I should also point out that one of my favorite people, Jared Isaacman, |
| 1:42.7 | the administrator of NASA, has warned that a Chinese |
| 1:46.6 | crude mission around the moon could come in 2027. Isaacman's warning that Chinese are serious, |
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