Iron Law of Power Density, three podcasts!, and American Crows
Rolls-Royce's SMR needs 10,000 times less land than wind, three podcasts, and a visit by three cunning corvids
Lately, when talking about my upcoming speeches or the energy sector, I’ve been joking that things are so calm there’s not much to talk about. Of course, that’s not true. Energy prices are soaring and shortages of diesel fuel are hammering the transportation sector. A week ago, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned that about two-thirds of the country is at elevated or extreme risk of blackouts this summer. The warning shows yet again that policymakers have been ignoring the fragility of our electric grid. I’ll have a piece in The Hill this Sunday discussing the NERC warning and the beyond-insane premature closure of the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan that happened on May 20, the same day that NERC issued its warning.
This week has been filled with interviews, meetings, writing, and preparation for upcoming engagements. It’s Memorial Day weekend, so I’ll cut to the chase. Five items today:
Alex Epstein talks about Fossil Future
Crawford County marks 330th rejection of wind energy
Doomberg on why “there’s going to be a lot of suffering”
Three American Crows make a brief visit
The image of the American Crow above is a detail from Audubon’s Birds of America.
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A couple of hours ago, I posted a piece on Forbes that I’ve been meaning to write for several months about the Iron Law of Power Density. I began:
Last month, Rolls-Royce said that it expects to receive regulatory approval from the British government by 2024 for its 470-megawatt small modular reactor and that it will begin producing power on Britain’s electric grid by 2029.
Will that happen? Time will tell. Many nuclear projects and startups have blown past their projected in-service dates. But Rolls-Royce’s announcement is important for two reasons. First, it adds more credence to the notion that a global nuclear renaissance is, in fact, underway. Second, Rolls-Royce’s new 470-megawatt reactor design shows that due to its unsurpassed power density, nuclear energy is the only way we can produce electricity at scale while preserving the natural environment and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Why? The power density of the nuclear plants Rolls-Royce plans to build will need 10,000 times less land than a wind project and about 1,000 times less land than what will be required by a solar project. Due to their astonishingly high power density, the new nuclear plants will need far fewer resources like land, steel, neodymium, copper, and concrete which proves what I have dubbed the Iron Law of Power Density... It says that: the lower the power density, the higher the resource intensity.
I concluded:
Yes, we’ve heard about the rebound in the global nuclear sector before. But this time, may, in fact, be different. Several factors, including soaring global prices for natural gas, and coal (the Newcastle benchmark is now at about $400 per ton), and huge uncertainty due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, are giving the nuclear energy sector a surge of hope and capital. But remember, it’s not just Rolls-Royce. Earlier this month, NuScale Power (ticker: SMR) went public on the New York Stock Exchange. France has said it will boost its nuclear industry.
These developments are good news for the natural environment, for our birds, bats, insects, and, yes, for people. Instead of the landscape-blighting energy sprawl that comes with wind and solar projects, the new nuclear era promises to deliver super-high-power-density reactors that spare nature and bring more zero-carbon juice to our electric grids. Rolls Royce doesn’t just have a technology that’s better than wind or solar. It has a technology that’s 10,000 times better.
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Alex Epstein on Fossil Future, the failure of "designated experts," and more
On Tuesday we released a podcast with Alex Epstein talking about his new book, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas – Not Less. Alex’s work, including his first book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, has gotten lots of attention, deservedly so. He has brought much-needed intellectual rigor to the debate about energy and climate policy. Indeed, his approach has been far more rigorous than many of the “designated experts” who largely dominate the discussion, and in particular, the myriad academics who are publishing models which claim we don’t need coal, oil, and natural gas. In this episode, Epstein explains why hydrocarbons cannot be replaced anytime soon, why so many analysts on energy and climate are wrong, the false belief in the earth as a “delicate nurturer,” and why we need more intellectual openness and energy humanism in the policy debate.
I recommend Fossil Future. It’s long, more than 400 pages, but it is comprehensive and provides lots of context and references for helping readers think about energy in new ways. It also has lots of tips about how readers can help change the discussion about energy and power. Again, here’s a link. The interview is also on YouTube. Have a look.
Power Brief on the 330th rejection of Big Wind
I have spent many many hours collecting and organizing the information in the Renewable Rejection Database. That process is ongoing. I’m currently updating the solar data and bolstering the info on wind. Thus, I wanted to do another power brief on the podcast to further spread the message about what is happening on the ground in rural America. I have the bit in my teeth on this issue because the backlash against Big Wind and Big Solar is simply not being covered by the biggest media outlets in the country. Here’s a link to the video on YouTube.
Doomberg on the "coming crash in global food supply"
Today, we released the third! podcast of the week featuring Doomberg, the nom de plume of one of the most successful new publications on Substack, as well as the only green chicken to appear on the Power Hungry Podcast. Doomberg is not a person, it’s a team of three people who are based somewhere in the eastern U.S. who prefer to stay anonymous. I’m a big fan. Doomberg’s articles are trenchant and very well written. (There’s an entire mountain range of bad writing in this world. So when I say it’s well written, I mean it.) The Doomberg team had an early read on many of the problems now gripping the global economy, including food and fertilizer shortages.
In this episode, Doomberg (or rather, the green chicken icon) explains the power of anonymity, why politicians prefer platitudes over physics on energy, what's happening in China, supply chains, the many problems with cryptocurrency, and why “there’s going to be a lot of suffering” around the world in the coming months.
It was a great discussion. Have a listen at powerhungrypodcast.com, or on YouTube.
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American Crows are "highly cunning and inquisitive"
We’ve lived in our house in Austin for 22 years. And in all of that time, I don’t recall seeing any American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) in the yard. But earlier this week we saw three of them visiting. They milled below the feeders in the area behind the house for a few minutes and then they all flew away. The photo of the Crow just above was taken in Ontario, Canada, in 2007. There’s a long discussion of Crows’ remarkable intelligence in Jennifer Ackerman’s fine book, The Genius of Birds. I have a copy of it somewhere in my office but can’t lay my hands on it at the moment. Also, by the way, I just received my copy of The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America’s Bird, by Jack E. Davis. I’m looking forward to reading it.
Wikipedia says the American Crow is a
“large passerine bird species of the family Corvidae. It is a common bird found throughout much of North America. American crows are the New World counterpart to the Carrion Crow and the Hooded Crow. Although...very similar in size, structure and behavior, their calls and visual appearance are different. The American Crow, nevertheless, occupies the same ecological niche that the hooded crow and carrion crow do in Eurasia. From beak to tail, an American Crow measures 40–50 cm (16–20 in), almost half of which is tail. Mass varies from about 300 to 600 g (11 to 21 oz). Males tend to be larger than females. The most usual call is CaaW!-CaaW!-CaaW!. Plumage is all black, with iridescent feathers. It looks much like other all-black corvids. They can be distinguished from the Common Raven (C. corax) because American Crows are smaller... like other corvids, are highly cunning and inquisitive. They are able to steal food from other species, often in creative ways. One example shows a group of crows stealing a fish from a Northern river otter: one bird pecked the otter's tail to distract it while other birds swooped in and stole the fish. They are able to use and modify tools.
Crows have been killed in large numbers by humans, both for recreation and as part of organized campaigns of extermination. In Canada, American crows have no protections, aside from Quebec which bans their hunting during the nesting season. Laws on their hunting vary throughout the United States. New Jersey allows for a limited hunting season, unless they are agricultural pests in which case they may be killed. Oklahoma allows hunting even during the nesting season. In the first half of the 20th century, state-sponsored campaigns dynamited roosting areas, taking large numbers of crows. A campaign in Oklahoma from 1934 to 1945 dynamited 3.8 million birds. The effect on populations was negligible and damage to agricultural crops did not decrease, and thus the campaign was halted as ineffective...Non-deadly methods of managing crows are varied but usually limited in their effectiveness...Poisoned baits are of limited effectiveness...The actual effect of crows on agriculture has been poorly studied There is some suggestion that they may be a benefit to farmers, by eating insect pests and chasing off livestock predators like hawks.
I hope y'all have a great three-day weekend.
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