Biden should save existing reactors; More from Madison County.

Happy Friday afternoon to y'all. Three quick items today: 

• Enverus' Bernadette Johnson on the Power Hungry Podcast

• My presentation to the UT Energy Institute 

• Virtual screening of Juice tomorrow night

Energy economist Bernadette Johnson on Asian LNG and the "fundamental disconnect" between reality and what people like to believe about renewables 
This week on the Power Hungry Podcast, I had a fascinating conversation with Bernadette Johnson, the vice president of strategic analytics at Enverus, an Austin-based energy-data analytics firm. Bernadette, an energy economist, explained why LNG prices in Asia recently hit more than $30 per million Btu at about the same time that the price of natural gas at Henry Hub here in the US was trading for less than $3. (Cold weather in Asia was the main driver.) Bernadette is sharp as a scalpel. She made a number of interesting points, but a few of them stood out. When I asked why natural gas demand continues to grow globally, she said,

• natural gas is a key part of power generation all around the world. So if we're going to increase electrification, generally, renewables are going to grow. We know that. But natural gas is very important in terms of balancing the load in terms of peaking...So natural gas is generally winning when you think about the pressure on the liquid hydrocarbons.

We also talked about renewables. Bernadette said that renewables will continue to grow. But she said that wind and solar only provide about 5 percent of our energy needs. 

• Are we anywhere near taking that 5 percent to 100 percent in our lifetimes, with today's science? with today's battery capability? with today's land space? Could you put in enough solar and wind to offset what you get from hydrocarbons? You couldn't. So there's a fundamental disconnect between what people want when they hear clean energy, versus what is actually possible

Bernadette said that while hydrocarbons are continually demonized, "There's really been nothing that's brought as many people out of poverty and advanced economies move people into the middle class than hydrocarbons." We also talked about the "resource curse," why coal continues to be a key fuel for electricity production in China, and the future of oil. Talking with Bernadette at about the same time the Biden administration was moving to restrict drilling on federal lands made for an interesting contrast. "The market always wins," she said. That may be true, but under Joe Biden, the hydrocarbon market is going to be under a lot of regulatory pressure. Please give the episode a listen.

My presentation at the University of Texas Energy Institute 
On Tuesday, I gave a talk, "Electricity and the Wealth of Nations," to the University of Texas Energy Symposium. I covered some of the points that I make in A Question of Power and Juice, but in this lecture, I used a few slides that I have not published before, including the one above which shows the difference between the growth in natural gas use globally and the increase in hydrocarbons. I include it here because it bolsters some of the points that Bernadette Johnson made on the podcast. Yes, renewables are growing. But natural gas is growing faster. You can watch my presentation on YouTube. As always, I'm happy to get critiques and feedback. 

Generation Atomic is sponsoring a virtual screening of Juice, Saturday night at 6:30p CT
Our friend, Eric Meyer, the founder of Generation Atomic, is sponsoring a virtual screening of Juice on Saturday at 6:30p CT. (You may recall Eric was a guest on the Power Hungry Podcast a few months ago.) More than 100 people have signed up to attend the screening. Afterward, we will have a panel discussion, with me, film director Tyson Culver, Eric Meyer, Promise Nwogu from Nigeria, and Jesus Nunez, an engineer and native of Puerto Rico, who is a co-author of a recent report by The Nuclear Alternative Project which explores the feasibility of nuclear energy in Puerto Rico. 

It will be a  fun event. If you are outside the US, this will be a good opportunity to see the film. The panel discussion will start at about 8p CT. You can sign up here.

OK. That's it. Have a great weekend. 

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