58 Podcasts in 52 weeks! M Angwin back for the 3rd time, CA's soaring elec prices, Bald Eagle in OK

A year of podcasts & Meredith Angwin on for the third time, my RCE piece on California's tattered grid, I'm testifying before Congress next week, & a Bald Eagle siting

The last year or so has gone by in a flash. Since the start of the Covid lockdowns, I have joined the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity as a visiting fellow, an affiliation that provides me with the bandwidth I need to focus on energy affordability. In addition, over the past 15 months, I’ve released a book and a documentary, and along with my colleague, Tyson Culver, launched the Power Hungry Podcast.

Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of the podcast. Plus, Lorin and I were blacked out for 45 hours during the deadly February blizzard. I launched this “news” letter, which allows me to share my passions, which as you no doubt noticed, include birds and birdwatching. In addition, over the past few weeks, Lorin and I have celebrated two milestones: our youngest child, Jacob, graduated from college; and on June 7, we toasted our 35th wedding anniversary. I could brag about the other good things that are happening, but I will desist. My punchline: I’m a fortunate man. Thanks to all of you for following and supporting my work. I am grateful for it. Four items today: 

• 52 weeks of the Power Hungry Podcast

• My RCE piece on California's blackouts and soaring electricity prices

• I'm testifying before the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis

• A Bald Eagle over the Arkansas River and GISS  

Fifty-eight episodes in 52 weeks. To celebrate #58: Meredith Angwin! 

Tuesday marked the first anniversary of the launch of the Power Hungry Podcast. We celebrated the occasion by posting another interview with Meredith Angwin, the charming author of Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid. Of the 57 episodes we published over the past year, the February 17th episode with Angwin was our most popular one. Thus, we (producer Tyson Culver and me) invited her back – for the third time -- to talk about the “new kinds of blackouts” that are hitting the grid, how lavish subsidies for renewables are making it more fragile,  the “fatal trifecta,” and how many of the decarbonization efforts being promoted by climate activists are, in her words, a new “way of enforcing energy poverty.” 
 
I love having Meredith on the show for several reasons, the most important one is that she is a bona fide expert on everything to do with the electric grid. But she wears her expertise lightly. There’s no braggadocio or ego in her analysis. She doesn’t have a fancy title or tenure at an elite university. She’s not getting paid to be an expert. Instead, she is engaged in the debate over the future of our electric grid, the Mother Network, because she understands at a visceral level how important it is that we have abundant and reliable power. At the end of Shorting, she writes: 

• The grid is becoming more single fuel, more vulnerable, and more expensive. Insiders make the rules, and the public cannot participate in a meaningful way...If we are not concerned with the grid, we will not have a safe and happy country to leave to our children. I can’t say it more starkly than that. We must take the grid away from the insiders, or our children may be outsiders in some very unpleasant ways.

She is, of course exactly right. And I admire her a great deal. I hope that I can age as gracefully as Meredith has and continue to contribute in a meaningful way in the manner that she is doing now. 
 
Given that we are celebrating the anniversary of the podcast I’m duty-bound to acknowledge Tyson's work. He was, as you likely recall, the director of Juice. He’s been a reliable and productive partner. I must also acknowledge the many great guests we’ve had on the podcast. I can’t list them all, but I had wonderful conversations with Steven Koonin, Michael Shellenberger, Madison Czerwinski, Theresa Knickerbocker, Joy Ditto, Mark Nelson, Tucker Perkins, Lee Cordner, Dr. Chris Keefer, Jennifer Hernandez, Robert Apodaca, Geraldine Thomas, Asm. Jim Cooper, Bjorn Lomborg, and many others. 
 
The response to the podcast has been very positive and the number of downloads continues to grow. Please share it with your friends, family, and co-workers. If you have a guest who you think would make for an interesting podcast, please let me know. And if there are other podcasts for which you think I would be an appropriate guest, by all means, please connect me. 
 
Thanks again for tuning into the Power Hungry Podcast. We have a lot more great guests lined up for Year Two. 

On Friday morning, Real Clear Energy published my latest piece. I began: 

• Two inexorable energy trends are underway in California: soaring electricity prices and ever-worsening reliability – and both trends bode ill for the state’s low- and middle-income consumers. Last week, the state’s grid operator, the California Independent System Operator, issued a “flex alert” that asked the state’s consumers to reduce their power use “to reduce stress on the grid and avoid power outages.” CAISO’s warning of impending electricity shortages heralds another blackout-riddled summer at the same time California’s electricity prices are skyrocketing.

I went on, explaining that “In 2020, California’s electricity prices jumped by 7.5%, making it the biggest price increase of any state in the country last year and nearly seven times the increase that was seen in the United States as a whole.” I then underscored the regressive nature of California’s decarbonization policies:

• The surging cost of electricity will increase the energy burden being borne by low- and middle-income Californians. High energy costs have a particularly regressive effect in California, which has the highest poverty rate – and some of the highest electricity prices – in the country. In 2020, California’s all-sector electricity prices were the third-highest in the continental U.S., behind only Rhode Island (18.55 cents per kWh) and Connecticut (19.19 cents per kWh.) Before going further, let me state the obvious: California policymakers are providing a case study in how not to manage an electric grid. Furthermore, that case study shows what could happen if policymakers at the state and federal levels decide to follow California’s radical decarbonization mandates, which include a requirement for 100% zero-carbon electricity by 2045 and an economy-wide goal of carbon neutrality by 2045.

I concluded the piece thusly:

• In addition to the raging land-use conflicts, California policymakers are facing a growing backlash from California’s Latino population, which is the largest in the country. As I reported last year, the state’s Latino leaders have sued the stateover its housing, energy, and climate regulations. Jennifer Hernandez, the lead lawyer for The Two Hundred, a coalition of Latino leaders, told me those regulations are “incredibly regressive” and are bringing  “Appalachia economics” to California’s “non-coastal elites.” Robert Apodaca, the founder of United Latinos Vote, a non-profit group, told me recently that the ongoing electricity price hikes in the state “will be crippling for low- and middle- income Californians, particularly for those who live in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire. They are going to really feel the heat, in more ways than one.” The punchline here is clear: the blackouts and high electricity prices that are plaguing California provide a neon-lit warning sign about the electric reliability and energy affordability crises that loom if policymakers attempt to decarbonize our economy too quickly.

Please read the piece and share it. 

I will be testifying before Congress next Wednesday

Next Wednesday, at 2p ET, I will be testifying before the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. The caption for the hearing is “Transportation Investments for Solving the Climate Crisis.” My testimony will focus on the many challenges in electrifying transportation and why policymakers must be mindful of affordability, resilience, and supply chain issues. The hearing will be conducted via Zoom and will be streamed on YouTube. Details are available here.

Bald Eagles and GISS 

Last Sunday, during our visit to Tulsa, Lorin and I visited the city’s spectacular new park, Gathering Place. It’s a wonderful combination of landscape architecture, city planning, design, and playgrounds. While there, we went into a building called The Lodge, which contains some beautiful handmade furniture as well as great views of the Arkansas River. While looking out the window, I spotted a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in the far distance. The bird never got closer than a quarter mile or so, but I could easily tell what it was due to the white head, dark body, and white tail. When I pointed it out to my sons, Michael and Jacob, they quickly came over to take a look. 
 
The occasion allowed me to give them yet another disquisition on birds and bird identification. Over the years our boys, and our daughter, Mary, have become pretty good at identifying birds. I told the boys about a wonderfully written book, The Genius of Birds, by Jennifer Ackerman, that I recently started reading. In the first section of the book, Ackerman discusses her history of birdwatching and how one of her mentors taught her to ID birds by using GISS, short for general impression, size, and shape. (It is sometimes abbreviated as Jizz.) As explained in Wikipedia, it is defined as "the indefinable quality of a particular species, the 'vibe' it gives off.” 
 
Now, maybe I would’ve known that the bird was a Bald Eagle without knowing about GISS, but I’ve found that more often than not, I can identify a bird just by having a glance of its size, the way it flies, or acts. Of course, last Sunday, I was also helped by my previous sitings of Bald Eagles along the banks of the Arkansas River in Tulsa. Thus, I knew that they are fairly common on that stretch of the river. Add in the size of the bird and its distinctive markings, and it was obvious that it didn’t take a whole lot of GISS to make the identification. 
 
Nevertheless, it’s always a thrill to see a Bald Eagle. Whether seen up close or at a distance, it’s a marvelous bird. And getting to provide yet another short lecture on birds to a captive audience, well, y’all know that I like doing that...
 
Have a great weekend. 

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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. 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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If you haven't seen our documentary yet, here's a reminder: you can watch 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. Or if you have a prime membership, you can watch it on Amazon Prime.