New WSJ & Quillette, Beiser and Harpole on podcast, Magpies

New pieces: Quillette & WSJ, Peiser and Harpole on the podcast, and Black-billed Magpies in the mountains

Happy Friday to you. It has been a busy but rewarding week. I published two articles this week. On Monday, Quillette published my piece on big media’s execrable coverage of renewables and land use. Today, the Wall Street Journal published my piece on California’s soaring energy prices. I won't lie. It feels great to get those pieces published.

I’ve also been traveling. On Monday, I was in Nashville speaking to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. It was the biggest crowd I’ve ever addressed. It was a standing-room-only crowd of about 4,500 people at the Music City Center. While it was a bit intimidating to have such a big audience, I didn’t feel nervous. Why not? I spent a lot of time before the event thinking about my message and polishing my slides. Plus, I love electric coops and what they represent. They are living remnants of the New Deal. They represent the diffusion of economic and political power that has become a critical element of the American success story. 
 
I flew back to Austin on Monday night, unpacked, and repacked so Lorin and I could fly to Colorado on Tuesday morning. We have been in Steamboat Springs since then and are looking forward to the events here with the Steamboat Institute. I’ll be talking tomorrow afternoon about the Texas blackouts, the EU energy crisis, and why they are a stark warning for the US. We fly out early Sunday morning. Lorin goes back to Austin. I am heading to New Orleans for a Monday event with the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. I’m on a panel talking about the “energy transition” which has hit a major speed bump in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now to business. Five items this week:

• Quillette: Washington Post and NPR’s execrable coverage of renewables and rural America

• WSJ: Blame Sacramento, Not Moscow, For California’s Energy Crisis

• Podcast: Benny Peiser of Net Zero Watch on Europe’s unilateral energy disarmament

• Podcast: John Harpole on Putin’s energy trap

• Black-billed Magpie in the mountains

The image of the Magpies above is by John James Audubon. 

On Monday, I published my first piece in Quillette. It is a long piece, about 3,000 words. I wrote it because of my disgust with the reporting done by two of the biggest media outlets in America about renewable energy and land use. Furthermore, the fact that the two articles were published by the Washington Post and NPR showed yet again, that big media outlets simply don’t have a clue (or just don’t care) about what is happening in rural America. The part that really grilled my cheese was the headline in the NPR piece about “misinformation” and renewable energy. That was rich because the piece NPR published was, as I explain the Quillette piece, “propaganda masquerading as news.” I began:

• During my three decades as a reporter, I’ve seen plenty of hype and poor news coverage about renewable energy. But two recent pieces—in the Washington Post and National Public Radio, respectively—are particularly egregious. These reports demonstrate, yet again, that some of the biggest media entities in the world have no clue about—and apparently no sympathy for—the rural Americans, from Maine to Hawaii, who are fighting to protect their homes and neighborhoods from large wind and solar projects. Nor do the reporters have any sense of the amount of renewable energy—and, therefore, the massive amounts of land—that will be needed to meet America’s voracious appetite for energy and power.

I concluded: 

• What bothers me most about Simon’s report is the absence of empathy for people in rural America being steamrollered in the mad dash to erect thousands of 150m-tall, landscape-blighting wind projects in the vain hope that those machines will save us from the effects of climate change. The Enzes were forced to abandon their property near Denmark, Wisconsin, in 2011 after five turbines were built near the home they had lived in since 1978. I wrote about Dave and Rose for National Review in 2012. Here’s their statement from 2011. Here’s a statement Dave made in 2018 in opposition to a piece of legislation that was pending in Ohio. I met the Enzes at a Subway shop in Wrightsville, Wisconsin, in 2016. They wouldn’t even go back to their homestead with me because the situation was so painful.

• Of all the news outlets in America, one might expect National Public Radio to care about small landowners in rural towns and counties who don’t have much political or economic power. Over the past dozen years, I’ve seen the same story play out again and again: big business against small-town America. But rather than stick up for the small towns, rural landowners, and preservation of our wildlife, NPR is siding with big business. It’s a cavalier attitude toward people who are fighting to preserve the value and enjoyment of their homesteads, ranches, and farms. 

• When major media outlets report on the myriad claims about the “energy transition” or renewables, the public deserves accuracy and decency. That appears to be too much to expect from the Post and NPR.

Again, here’s a link to the Quillette piece. Please share it. 

Note: I took the photo above of Dave and Rose Enz. 

I have been tracking California’s regressive energy policies for several years. The EIA’s latest Electric Power Monthly (released on Feb. 25) has the full-year data for electricity prices in 2021. That report gave me a news hook to explain what is happening in California, which has the highest poverty rate in America, and why the state’s climate policies are so regressive. I began: 

• California’s politicians and policy makers eagerly emulated Europe’s energy policies for years. Like Europe, California overinvested in renewables, underinvested in hydrocarbons, prematurely shuttered its baseload power plants, and relied too heavily on imported energy. Now, as Europe is ensnared in Vladimir Putin’s energy trap, Californians watch as the state’s energy prices head toward the stratosphere.

I concluded:

• If California wants to continue attracting residents and industry, it can’t ignore the regressive effects of its climate policies on the poor and working class. Climate change is a concern. But Europe’s energy crisis demonstrates what can happen when decarbonization is pushed too far, too fast. California must balance its climate goals with the energy needs of its most vulnerable citizens.

The piece appears to be getting some attention. It had garnered over 100 comments in the first two hours after it was published. Here's a link to the article. Note the WSJ has a paywall. 
 

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Benny Peiser on Europe's "unilateral energy disarmament"

Benny Peiser is the director of Net Zero Watch, a London-based group that focuses on the “implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies.” Net Zero Watch has been doing great work collecting articles about climate and energy policy. You can subscribe to their newsletter by clicking here.

In this episode, Peiser talks about Europe’s “unilateral energy disarmament,” the “cult” of climate-change activism, how Germany led the anti-hydrocarbon campaign in Europe, Britain’s shale gas potential, and why Europe needs to reverse its opposition to hydraulic fracturing and begin drilling for oil and gas immediately. In talking about how to describe what happened in Europe, Benny said the right phrase “in my opinion, is ‘unilateral energy disarmament.’ If you remember, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the left called for unilateral nuclear disarmament, that, you know, Europe, and the US should give up nuclear weapons, and then we would have global peace. Right. So what we’ve done in Europe is unilaterally disarmed our energy. And we are naked, in front of a big pressure and aggressor and have essentially no weapons left in this energy war.”

Benny was passionate and articulate. The audio is here. As always, the video is on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piEMZ7vHZpo. Please share it. 
 

John Harpole on how Europe "fell into the trap" set by Putin           

I am a fortunate man. I love my work. I get to travel and meet new people. In doing so, I get to make new friends. I met John Harpole about a decade ago. Since then, John has become a dear friend and a trusted source for helping me understand natural gas and gas markets. As with my conversation with Benny Peiser, we talked about Russia, Ukraine, and how as John puts it, Europe “fell into the trap” set by Russia and Vladimir Putin. We also talked about fertilizer shortages, why Europe’s energy crisis will last for years, and why the US should launch a “natural gas Lend-Lease” program for Europe. Here’s one of John’s comments that stood out: 

• I don't think the money that [Putin] invested in the anti-fracking campaign in Europe, stopped in Europe. I'm convinced that many of the NGOs that oppose hydraulic fracturing here in the US had funds from Russia...[that] might seem too much for some people to have a conspiracy theory. But let me put it this way: If I was Putin, I would have done it. Because every MMBtu, or every 1,000 cubic feet of gas, that doesn't wind up in Europe, is that much less competition for my gas.

John loves the energy business and his enthusiasm shows. The audio is available here. The video is on YouTube. Please subscribe to my channel. 
 

Black-billed Magpie in the mountains

One of the first birds we saw when we arrived at the hotel in Steamboat Springs was a Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia). We couldn’t miss it. My first thought after seeing it was something to the effect of “wow, that’s a big bird. How does it make a living at this altitude?” But the Magpies are clearly thriving. Indeed, they are common in the Rockies. (The photo above was taken in Idaho in 2013 in Alberta by Connormah.)

The Black-billed Magpie is also known as the American magpie. Wikipedia says this: 

• a bird in the Corvidae family that inhabits the western half of North America, from Colorado, to southern coastal Alaska, to Central Oregon, to northern California, northern Nevada, northern Arizona, northern New Mexico, central Kansas, and Nebraska. In Canada it is found in far Western Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and Yukon. It is black and white, with black areas on the wings and tail showing iridescent hints of blue or blue-green. It is one of only four North American songbirds whose tail makes up half or more of the total body length (the others being the Yellow-billed Magpie, the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, and the Fork-tailed Flycatcher).

• This species prefers generally open habitats with clumps of trees. It can therefore be found in farmlands and suburban areas, where it comes into regular contact with people. Where persecuted it becomes very wary, but otherwise it is fairly tolerant of human presence. Historically associated with bison herds, it now lands on the backs of cattle to clean ticks and insects from them. Large predators such as wolves are commonly followed by black-billed magpies, who scavenge from their kills. The species also walks on the ground, where it obtains such food items as beetles, grasshoppers, worms, and small rodents.

• Adult black-billed magpie pairs stay together year-round and often for life unless one dies, in which case the remaining magpie may find another mate. Divorces are possible: one South Dakota study found low rates of divorce (8%) but one 7-year study in Alberta found divorce rates up to 63% 

Have a great weekend. 
 

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