Carl Wurtz: batteries are "useless," stumped by a Bulbul

Jun 24, 2022

Carl Wurtz of Californians For Green Nuclear Power and a Red-whiskered Bulbul

I’ve been traveling all week, so I haven’t had much time to write. We shot interviews here in California in three different cities on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Wednesday night, the Breakthrough Institute began the latest edition of the Breakthrough Dialogue, an annual event that is one of my favorite conferences. The Dialogue brings together a diverse group of people from across the political spectrum, from socialists to conservatives. I have been attending the Dialogue for about a decade and it’s always a joy to reconnect with friends and of course, to meet new people. Plus, the Breakthrough Institute has been supportive of my work. At the Dialogue back in 2019, Breakthrough sponsored the first public screening of Juice: How Electricity Explains the World, the feature-length documentary that I made with my colleague, Tyson Culver. Premiering the film at Breakthrough was appropriate because several people affiliated with the Breakthrough Institute are in Juice.

This year, Tyson and I both attended the Dialogue. We heard some excellent presentations, including ones from Elizabeth Currid-Hackett, Virginia Postrel, Charles Kenny, Yascha Mounk, Rani Franovich, Sam Brinton, and several others. I am planning to have some of those folks on future episodes of the Power Hungry Podcast. Now to business. I’m currently sitting in the United Club at SFO waiting for my (delayed) flight back to AUS. Thus a very short note this week. Two items today:

Podcast: Carl Wurtz on why batteries are “useless”
Bulbuls in Los Angeles

The photo of the Red-whiskered Bulbul above was shot in India in 2005.

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Carl Wurtz: like "trying to power your car with flashlight batteries..."

Carl Wurtz is the president of Californians for Green Nuclear Power, a group “dedicated to promoting the peaceful use of safe, carbon-free nuclear power, and to keeping Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant” operating. I decided to have Carl on the podcast because he has published several very clear articles about what is happening to California’s electric grid. In particular, his May 2 piece, “The Failure of California’s Electricity Policy, Part 2,” was excellent. In that piece he explained:

It isn’t a lack of renewable electricity that is holding California back – it’s that renewables provide too much electricity at the wrong times, and not enough when the time is right. It’s attempting to lower carbon emissions by using resources that require gas-fired electricity to back them up, or keep them from destroying the grid. It’s putting blind faith in solutions that may work for flashlights, or even electric cars, but will never be practical for providing the immense power needs of an electrical grid...But most of all, California’s environmental policy is failing for a lack of honesty.

In this episode, Wurtz explains why it’s not clear if Diablo Canyon will be kept open, why California often has to pay neighboring states to take its electricity, and why a “vote for solar and wind is a vote for gas.” I also thought he gave a compelling explanation for why “batteries are useless.” He said:

they’re too expensive. It’d be like trying to power your car with flashlight batteries...I’ve done a bunch of calculations on this, it changes a little bit [and] the cost of batteries has gone down. But it really makes no sense at all. You’d have to have over a trillion dollars’ worth of batteries. And we’re talking about four times California’s annual budget each year, just to power the state for one day.

Of course, Carl's estimate assumes that our industrial sector can even produce such a huge volume of batteries in a reasonable amount of time and that there’s enough lithium or other commodities (cobalt, copper, etc.) to make that quantity of batteries.

It was an interesting conversation. Here’s a link to the audio. As usual, the interview is also on YouTube. Please share it.

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Stumped by a Bulbul

When writing about birds in this “news” letter, I usually focus on species that I’ve seen on my travels, spotted in our yard, or ones that are particularly interesting. This week’s bird is one I’ve never seen.

A few weeks ago, Mary asked me to help her identify a bird that kept appearing in her yard in central Los Angeles. But her descriptions of the bird weren’t enough to make an identification. Then, last weekend, she was able to snap a photo of the visitor with her phone. The picture was a little blurry, but it was clear enough that I thought I could surely deduce the species by looking through my (many) bird books. No luck. So I did what I always do when I have a bird question: I consulted with my birding guru, Frank Kurzawa. I forwarded the snapshot to him and within a few minutes, he and his wife, Peggy Wall, sent back the positive ID: a Red-whiskered Bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus). (The photo above is of an immature Bulbul taken in Kolkata, India.) With that info, I immediately understood why I couldn’t find the bird in my books. The Bulbul is an introduced species. In Austin, we have significant numbers of Monk Parakeets, which are also an introduced species. They nest in trees and on light poles near Lady Bird Lake and are a common site at Barton Springs and Zilker Park. In any case, Wikipedia says this about the Bulbul:

This is a bird of lightly wooded areas, more open country with bushes and shrubs, and farmland...It has established itself in Australia and in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and Florida in the United States, as well as in Mauritius, on Assumption Island and Mascarene Islands. In Florida, it is only found in a small area, and its population could be extirpated easily. It was eradicated from Assumption Island in 2013–2015 to prevent colonization of nearby Aldabra, the largest introduced bird-free tropical island...The Red-whiskered Bulbul was introduced by the Zoological and Acclimatization Society in 1880 to Sydney, became well established across the suburbs by 1920, and continued to spread slowly to around 100 km away. It is now also found in suburban Melbourne and Adelaide, although it is unclear how they got there... feeds on fruits (including those of the yellow oleander that are toxic to mammals), nectar and insects...This species was once a popular cage bird in parts of India...The species continues to be a popular cagebird in parts of Southeast Asia.

Have a good weekend.

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