US wind rejections now at 328, Linowes & Keefer, EEI & Atlas, Yellow Warblers in MI
US wind rejections now total328, Linowes and Keefer on the PHP, two media hits, Yellow Warblers in Michigan
I had fun last week in Las Vegas speaking to my friend, Dan Cardell, and the other members of the Chicago Quantitative Alliance. I made several new friends and got to hear what the quants are thinking about investing, inflation, and the future. I got back late on Wednesday and then drove up to Norman on Friday morning for a speaking engagement to the Energy Management Program at the University of Oklahoma. I was particularly pleased to speak at OU. My mother, the late Ann Mahoney Bryce, graduated from OU in 1946 with a degree in home economics. She remained a die-hard Sooner football fan her entire life (with the notable exception of the Barry Switzer years.) My Oklahoma roots run deep. My mom’s grandfather, Michael Raphael Conway, took part in the Cherokee Strip land run of 1893. He homesteaded a parcel of land near Billings and made an initial home by digging a cave in the ground. He later built a proper house on the homestead. One of the bedrooms in the house had a trap door that opened to the original cave. All of my siblings still live in Tulsa, the town where my father, Walter Bryce, was born and raised. Given that long history, I was flattered to be invited to speak at OU and have the chance to interact with so many students. I also got to connect face-to-face with my pal, Mike McConnell, who runs the energy management program.
I’m back in Austin this week, which has given me time to catch up on writing. I’ve also been recording podcasts, preparing for upcoming speeches, and getting some much-needed rest. The weather has been lovely. We got some much-needed rain on Monday and Tuesday and the entire city has been painted in the brilliant yellow-green that comes with the new leaves of early spring. Six items today:
Forbes: US wind rejections now total 328
Lisa Linowes on PHP talking about the backlash against wind
Chris Keefer on PHP on nuclear progress in Canada
Media hit: EEI’s Global Electrification Forum
Media hit: Atlas Society interview
Yellow Warblers on a windy day in Michigan
The warbler pic above was shot in Ontario in 2007.
This morning, I published a piece in Forbes which includes the latest updates to the Renewable Rejection Database. I was compelled to write this piece because the big media outlets continue to ignore, or minimize, the anger in rural America over the encroachment of big renewable projects. I am also happy that I convinced Mary to make another graphic for me. I think the graphic looks awesome. I began the piece:
The rejections of large-scale wind projects continue. On Tuesday, county commissioners in Otoe County, Nebraska voted to impose a one-year moratorium on applications for wind projects. The vote in Otoe County is the fifth rejection in 2022. It also marks the 328th time that government entities from Maine to Hawaii have rejected or restricted wind projects since 2015. All of these rejections are documented in the Renewable Rejection Database which also includes some of the solar rejections that have occurred over the past few years.
Before going further, let me be clear: you won’t hear about these hundreds of rejections from the Sierra Club. Nor will you read about it in the New York Times even though the resistance to the encroachment of big renewable projects is so widespread, and so many communities in New York are rejecting wind and solar projects, that the state has pushed through regulations that give Albany bureaucrats the authority to override objections of local communities and issue permits for renewable projects. Nor will you hear about the widespread resistance to renewables on National Public Radio, which as I explained in a March 7 article for Quillette, has been publishing pro-wind propaganda that is masquerading as news. Nor will you hear about it from academics at elite universities like Princeton, Stanford, and the University of Texas, who are producing elaborate net-zero models that require deploying massive amounts of wind-energy capacity.
I concluded:
The bottom line here is obvious: over the past eight years rural communities have been rejecting Big Wind and they have done so hundreds of times. Those 328 rejections contradict the never-ending claims that solar and wind projects are “green” and that rural communities are welcoming them. The truth, as can be seen in the Rural Rejection Database, is that communities all across the country do not want large renewable projects. The projects are so unpopular that companies like NextEra Energy and MidAmerican are routinely suing rural communities to force them to accept Big Wind and Big Solar projects.
Furthermore, the 328 rejections also demonstrate, yet again, the hopelessness of attempting to deploy massive amounts of wind and solar in the hope that they will save us from climate change. As Rockefeller University’s Jesse Ausubel has rightly put it, “wind and solar may be renewable, but they are not green.’”
I have said it before and I’ll say it again: if we are serious about reducing emissions, we need to get serious about nuclear energy and we need to do so right now.
Again, here’s a link. Please share it.
Lisa Linowes of WindAction Group: "There is something so fundamentally wrong about our energy policy"
I’ve known Lisa Linowes for many years and am glad to finally get her on the Power Hungry Podcast. She is the New Hampshire-based founder and executive director of the WindAction Group which has been educating the public and documenting the backlash -- both in the U.S. and around the world -- against the wind industry since 2006. In this episode, Linowes discusses the recent prosecution of NextEra Energy for killing Bald and Golden Eagles, how “green” groups are getting funding from entities that want to put thousands of megawatts of wind turbines in the middle of North Atlantic right whale habitat, the surging backlash in rural America against solar energy, and why Congress must shut off the wind industry’s lavish tax credits once and for all.
I’ve long admired Lisa’s dedication to the cause. She doesn’t make any money for keeping the WindAction website or for any of her other activities. Why does she care so much? She replied: “this is an act of love at this point and a commitment that I’m not going to let go until we get our message out.” She also said, “there is something so fundamentally wrong about our energy policy and so fundamentally wrong about these projects and how destructive they are...I either give up, because I’m so depressed I can’t even get out of bed in the morning, or I just keep fighting. And what inspires me every day as I get on the phone and talk with people that are fighting the fight, and many of them are new to the projects that are being proposed...It’s the first time they’ve dealt with a wind project.”
Lisa is amazing. Unlike the thousands of people who work for the NGO-industrial complex, she is engaged in the fight against Big Wind and Big Solar because she cares about people. And despite the odds, and the fact that she’s not getting paid, she keeps on fighting. Again, here’s a link to the audio.
As always, the video is available on my YouTube channel, robertbrycetv. Please subscribe, and share.
Chris Keefer: on nuclear in Canada and why renewable energy spending has been "an enormous waste"
You may be familiar with Chris Keefer, the Toronto-based medical doctor, and president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy. In his third appearance on the podcast, (previous appearances were November 2021 and May 2021) Keefer, who is also the host of the Decouple podcast, talks about the growing bipartisan interest in nuclear energy in Canada, why the “CANDU reactors are immortal,” the dangers of America’s powerful anti-nuclear “NGO-industrial complex,” Canada’s uranium wealth, and why investing in renewable energy has been “an enormous waste.” We did the interview a few days before he testified in front of the Canadian Parliament on April 25. His testimony is sharp and to the point. Alas, the politicians who questioned him weren’t so sharp.
I’ve long admired Chris for his passion for nuclear energy, common sense, and his deep desire to be a force for positive change in Canada. We’ve never met but I consider him a friend. He’s a sharp thinker and a real doer. Again, here’s the audio link. YouTube video is here.
Media hit: Edison Electric Institute's Global Electrification Forum
On Monday, I participated in Edison Electric Institute’s Global Electrification Forum. I was interviewed by Pedro Pizarro, the CEO of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison. We talked mainly about the themes in A Question of Power, but we also discussed what is happening now in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, supply chains, bird kills, EVs, and affordability. I also managed to include a discussion of my favorite inventor, Frank Sprague. It was a fun event. Here’s the video on YouTube. The segment with me and Pedro starts at about 3:17.
Media hit: The Atlas Society Asks with Jennifer Grossman
On Wednesday, I was on a livestream event with Jennifer Grossman, the CEO of The Atlas Societytalking about the Texas blackouts, Earth Day, the Biden administration’s confused energy policies, renewables, and more. The video of the event is available on YouTube.
Yellow Warblers on a very windy day in Michigan
A couple of weeks ago, Lorin and I were happy to be able to visit her folks in Ann Arbor. Due to Covid and work schedules, we hadn’t seen Val and Paul in a long time. It was great to see them. It was particularly good to see Paul, an emeritus chemistry professor at the University of Michigan, doing well. He has had some health challenges over the past two years but he was as feisty as ever. The visit also allowed us to spend an afternoon birding with Lorin’s sister, Marit, and her husband, Mark. They took us to a place called Crosswinds Marsh, which is close to the Wayne County Airport. It was a very windy day, with gusts of up to 40 miles per hour. I was underdressed. Who knew Michigan could be so cold in mid-April? But the four of us forged ahead and were rewarded with the siting of Yellow Warblers and Yellow-rumped Warblers. I don’t get tired of seeing warblers, regardless of the species. The Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia) is easy to identify. We saw it many times as it perched on the banks of a creek next to the trail. (The photo of the Yellow Warbler above was taken in Cuba in 2016.)
Wikipedia says this:
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Yellow warblers are the most widespread species in the diverse genus Setophaga, breeding in almost the whole of North America, the Caribbean, and down to northern South America. The genus name Setophaga is from Ancient Greek ses, "moth", and phagos, "eating", and the specific petechia is from Italian petecchia, a small red spot on the skin. The American yellow warbler is sometimes colloquially called the "summer yellowbird.” The breeding habitat of American yellow warblers is typically riparian or otherwise moist land with ample growth of small trees, in particular willows (Salix). The other groups, as well as wintering birds, chiefly inhabit mangrove swamps and similar dense woody growth. Less preferred habitat are shrubland, farmlands and forest edges. In particular American yellow warblers will come to suburban or less densely settled areas, orchards and parks, and may well breed there. Outside the breeding season, these warblers are usually encountered in small groups, but while breeding they are fiercely territorial and will try to chase away any conspecific intruder that comes along.
Roughly 60% of their diet is caterpillars. They also consume mayflies, moths, mosquitoes, beetles, damselflies, treehoppers, and other insects. They acquire prey by gleaning in shrubs and on tree branches, and by hawking prey that tries to fly away. Other invertebrates and some berries and similar small juicy fruits are also eaten, the latter especially by American yellow warblers in their winter quarters. The yellow warbler is one of several insectivorous bird species that reduce the number of coffee berry borer beetles in Costa Rica coffee plantations by 50%. Caterpillars are the staple food for nestlings... The predators of yellow and mangrove warblers are those typical of such smallish tree-nesting passerines, such as snakes, foxes, birds of prey, and many others.
The American Bird Conservancy, which is one of my favorite environmental groups, says this:
The Yellow Warbler is the most widespread American wood-warbler. It nests from Alaska to northern South America (including the Galapágos Islands), and in parts of the Caribbean as well, and winters as far south as Peru. Tail tip to forehead, this is also the yellowest North American warbler, even more so than the Prothonotary or Blue-winged. Cinnamon breast streaks embellish the male's gleaming plumage. Another superlative associated with the Yellow Warbler is the species' incredible diversity: 37 subspecies are recognized, divided among four groups. Subspecies vary mostly in plumage color and pattern. The Yellow Warbler nests throughout most of Canada, Alaska, and at least two-thirds of the area covered by the lower 48 U.S. states. Long-distance migrants, few if any of these birds remain north of the Mexican border in winter. Several resident, or nonmigratory, groups are found in Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. A resident subspecies even inhabits the Galápagos Islands off Ecuador's Pacific coast. Males in nonmigratory populations have varying amounts of chestnut color on their heads, from just the cap to most of the bird's head, as is the case with "Mangrove" Yellow Warblers.
I hope y’all have a great weekend.
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