Utility Worker Union rep says Indian Point closed because of "fear," Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Final episode of Indian Point Blackout Week, webinar and media hits, Yellow-billed Cuckoo often heard, but seldom seen
It has been quite a week. On Monday, our youngest child, Jacob, graduated from St. Edward’s University. Not only did he graduate, he did it in three years. Needless to say, Lorin and I are crazy proud of the kid and more than a little happy that our college-tuition-paying days have ended. Add in family visits, online events, media hits, ongoing home improvement projects, multiple visits to Home Depot, and the release of the final episode of Indian Point Blackout Week, and well, I’m ready for the weekend. Thus, a rather short blast this week:
James Shillitto of Utility Workers Union of America in the final, and shortest, episode of Indian Point Blackout Week on the Power Hungry Podcast
Webinars and media
Yellow-billed Cuckoos (pictured above) are zygodactyl
Reminder about my Not In Our Backyard report
James Shillitto, president of Utility Workers Union of America Local 1-2: fear closed Indian Point
I'm still mad and sad about the closure of the Indian Point Energy Center. As I wrote last month in Forbes, the closure of New York City's most important source of electricity is a shameful milestone in American energy and climate policy. I wrote:
My cynicism about climate policy in America can’t keep up because the climate catastrophists’ rhetoric about the potentially cataclysmic effects of climate change doesn’t match their actions. If climate change is — as President Biden’s “climate envoy” John Kerry recently claimed “an existential crisis” and that “life on this planet is being threatened” — then Kerry Biden, Cuomo, de Blasio, and America’s biggest environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, should be fighting like hell to keep Indian Point open and operating for as long as possible. That is not happening.
In the wake of the closure, Tyson Culver, the producer of the Power Hungry Podcast, and I decided to commemorate the foolishness of the closure by doing five episodes focused on Indian Point. We kicked off Indian Point Blackout Week with Mark Nelson, the managing director of the Radiant Energy Fund, which advises non-profits and industry groups about nuclear energy. The second episode features my talk with Mayor Theresa Knickerbocker, who has been the mayor of Buchanan since 2014. As you may recall, Knickerbocker appears in Juice. The third episode features Reiner Kuhr, an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, who explained why keeping nuclear plants open is the cheapest way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The fourth guest, and arguably the one who brought the most passion, was Madison Czerwinski, the founder of the Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal.
Our fifth, and final, guest for Indian Point Blackout Week is James Shillitto, the president of Utility Workers Union of America Local 1-2, which represents many of the workers at the nuclear plant. Shillitto told me that “Indian Point closed because of fear...fear of the unknown, fear of what people see in a movie” and fear prevailed even though the plant operated safely for “58 years with no real problems.”
Shillitto spent the bulk of his career for ConEd working as an electrical lineman. When I mentioned the dangers of that job he replied, "t was challenging at times. But like anything, if you know what you’re doing, don’t get too cocky and work safe, you’ll go home."
Regarding Indian Point, he said "It ran before it closed for 758 days, I believe, which was a record for nuclear plants running consecutively in the world. It was a well-trained and dedicated workforce." The union workers at the plant were also making good wages, with the average nuclear plant operator making about $65 per hour. Now those jobs are being lost. For all of the talk coming from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and President Joe Biden about their desire to create union jobs, the closure of Indian Point shows that nearly all of that talk is just that, talk.
The episode with Shillitto is the shortest in Blackout Week, just 17 minutes. Please give the episodes a listen and share them. The easiest way to find them: powerhungrypodcast.com
Media hits
On Tuesday, I was on the Stu Does America show talking about the “kidnapping” of the Colonial pipeline. (You can watch it on YouTube. My segment begins at about the 12-minute mark.)
On Wednesday, I was pleased to do a virtual presentation at the Oklahoma State University Energy Conference. My presentation was captioned “Renewable Dreams, Hydrocarbon Realities, and the Fuels of the Future.” My father, brother, and one of my nephews all graduated from OSU, which made the invitation to speak to the group that much more gratifying.
On Thursday, I had a radio segment on the Boston-based Howie Carr Show, talking about my Not in Our Backyard report and the article I wrote about the backlash against Big Wind that was published last week in the Wall Street Journal.
Cuckoos on Barton Creek and a bit about zygodactlyly
Yellow-billed Cuckoos (Coccyzus americanus) are furtive. I’ve heard their call dozens and dozens of times. But I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve gotten a good look at one of them. All About Birds notes their furtive nature, saying the Yellow-billed Cuckoos “are slender, long-tailed birds that manage to stay well hidden in deciduous woodlands. They usually sit stock still, even hunching their shoulders to conceal their crisp white underparts, as they hunt for large caterpillars... Fortunately, their drawn-out, knocking call is very distinctive.”
On Wednesday evening, while hiking on Barton Creek, I heard that knocking call high above us. Lorin and I stopped and scanned the live oaks and sycamores, but we only caught a brief glimpse of a cuckoo as it flew over us, perhaps 20 feet above where we were standing. There’s no doubt it was cuckoo. I would recognize that loud, staccato call anywhere. I was hoping for a better look at it because it was the first Yellow-billed Cuckoo I've heard this year. Further, they are rather majestic and the black-and-white spotted pattern on their tails is striking. Yellow-billed Cuckoos are also interesting because as a member of the cuckoo family, they are related to another bird I associate with Texas: the Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus.)
That relationship is odd given that Roadrunners seldom leave the ground while their Yellow-billed cousins are seldom seen anywhere but in the tops of trees. As Texas Parks and Wildlife Department notes, “one of the strangest families in the bird world is the one that includes the roadrunner, cuckoos, and anis.” Add in the fact that “all cuckoos have zygodactyl feet (two toes forward, two backward),” and you have another thing that makes cuckoos worth considering. But I don't have the bandwidth for a disquisition on zygodactyly today. The contractors are here and I have to stay focused on things like vapor barriers, electric wires, and ceiling fans.
Have a great weekend.
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A reminder to share this report
I have been pleased with the response to my recent report about land-use conflicts and renewables. "Not In Our Backyard," was published on April 21 by the Center of the American Experiment. The center is also the home of the Renewable Energy Rejection Database, which includes details on the roughly 300 times that local or regional governments have rejected or restricted wind-energy projects. Please share both of them. As I said last week, the only way to bring sanity to the decisions being made by policymakers is to relentlessly pound the facts. Here's a link to the full report. Please share it.
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