New Forbes on regressive energy policy, Zion Lights on the podcast, Say's Phoebe

Mar 19, 2021

New Forbes piece, Zion Lights, Say's phoebe

Happy Friday!
It's been a busy week. But I'm happy to be back at work and reporting on the political and financial mess that has engulfed the state in the wake of the Texas Blackouts. Several items today:

Forbes piece on the regressive nature of "electrify everything"
Zion Lights on the podcast
Juice is still free. Yes, free! on Roku
My Zoom presentation on the Texas Blackouts on the 24th
Media hit: Austin American-Statesman web panel
My first Say’s phoebe and “life birds"

This morning, I published a piece in Forbes that revisits a continuing theme of my work: the regressive nature of the decarbonization policies, and in particular, the natural gas bans, that are being pushed by some of America’s biggest environmental groups. I began the piece thusly:

On Wednesday, a short item in the Federal Register underscored the regressive nature of the “electrify everything” effort that is being promoted by some of America’s highest-profile environmental groups, climate-change activists, politicians, and academics. The item, published by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy, forecasts the “representative average unit costs of five residential energy sources for the year 2021.” The forecast shows that on an energy-equivalent basis, electricity will cost about $39 per million Btu. It also projects that one million Btu in the form of natural gas will cost about $11, propane will cost about $19, No. 2 heating oil will cost $20, and kerosene will cost $23. Thus, electricity will cost nearly four times as much as natural gas and twice as much as propane, a fuel that is commonly used by rural Americans in their homes, and on their farms and ranches.

In addition to concentrating our energy risks on a single network, the electric grid, these bans are also a form of regressive taxation. I continued:

Indeed, the risks to our energy security, resilience, and reliability are obvious. But the bigger, and more immediate issue is the regressive nature of forcing consumers to use electricity instead of energy sources like natural gas and propane that sell for a quarter, or half, as much as the energy that consumers can get from the electric grid.

I concluded it with this paragraph:

In short, the people of the world need more electricity. Lots more. But the Texas Blackouts proved that we need diverse and resilient energy networks that can deliver huge quantities of energy during extreme weather events. Attempting to electrify everything is a recipe for increased inequality and decreased energy security and resilience .

Read the whole piece here.

Zion Lights on the Power Hungry Podcast talking apocalyptic environmentalism and nuclear energy

Zion Lights is a British author and climate activist. Over the past two years or so, she has gone from being a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion to helping found a new group called Nuclear For Net Zero. This week on the Power Hungry Podcast, I talked with Lights about her decision to quit Extinction Rebellion, apocalyptic environmentalism, the threats that wind energy poses to bats and birds, the parallels between the marketing efforts used by tobacco companies and renewable promoters, and why the nuclear industry “needs rebranding.”

It was good conversation. Give it a listen.

Reminder: You can still watch Juice for free on Roku!

If you haven't seen our documentary yet, here's a quick reminder: you can view Juice: How Electricity Explains the World, on Roku, for free. Just click this link. If your friends haven't seen it, send them a link!

Blizzards, Blackouts, and Bankruptcies webinar with IPI next Wednesday

On Monday, Lorin and I drove up to Dallas so I could do a live event with the Institute for Policy Innovation. After so many webinars and digital events, it was a joy to talk to real people (socially distanced, of course) and to have in-person conversations. IPI's Tom Giovanetti liked my presentation well enough that he invited me to do a webinar next Wednesday, the 24th. If you are interested, by all means, tune in. Please use this Zoom link to log in. Passcode: 322897

Media Hit

The Austin American-Statesman held a "digital roundtable" on Tuesday to discuss the Texas Blackouts. I was among the three panelists. The others were Rep. Donna Howard, a Democrat from Austin, and Michael Jewell, an Austin-based lawyer who represents clients with energy-related interests at the legislature. It was a short event, less than 45 minutes, but it offered a good overview of the issues. I repeated many of the points I’ve been making for weeks: the state narrowly dodged a grid shutdown that would have been disastrous; the failure of the grid was due to misallocation of billions of dollars in capital spending; and finally, the state will have to pass legislation that will reward grid resilience and reliability. You can watch the event here.

Say's Phoebe: A new "life bird" in Big Bend

I’m an avid birdwatcher but I’m not much of a bird-list keeper. I will occasionally note sitings of new species in my bird book (or, rather, bird books. I have a shelf-full of them) or in the iBird Journal app on my iPhone. But I’m not obsessive about it. While in the Galapagos a few years ago, I saw five species of Darwin’s finches, but I didn’t record those sitings on a “life list” in the way that some bird obsessives do.

That’s a somewhat long prelude to the point: Last week, I saw a new “life bird” in Big Bend: the Say’s Phoebe (Sayornis saya). Click here for the photo credit.) The bird is named for Thomas Say, the American entomologist, conchologist, and herpetologist, who died in 1834. When Lorin and I first spotted the phoebe along a rough road a few miles north of the ranger station, I could tell by its size and flight pattern that it was a flycatcher. But its coloring wasn’t familiar to me. It wasn’t until the next day, after we’d made another visit to the ranger station and got a checklist of common birds in the park, that I matched the name with the bird. That matching process can be a trick for several reasons: the observed bird may have different markings or be smaller, or larger, than the photos or illustrations in the bird book. Plus, it could be a juvenile, or it could not fit the range specified in the book. But after seeing the Say’s phoebe on the checklist, and looking it up in my book, I was able to have that surge of satisfaction that comes with seeing and identifying something new. I don’t “own” a Say’s phoebe now that I’ve identified one, but I will, from now on, recall when and where I saw my first one.

At the risk of sound pretentious, I’ll end with these four lines from William Blake, who, when he wrote them centuries ago, probably wasn’t thinking about birdwatching. Nevertheless, the sentiment aptly describes the ineffable joy of birding and identifying new birds:

He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
Have a great weekend.

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