EU’s fertilizer crisis, Shellenberger talks Diablo, and Baltimore Oriole

Newsweek on Europe's fertilizer crisis, Shellenberger talks Diablo Canyon and future of nuclear, & Baltimore Orioles in Austin

It was wonderful to be back in Chicago this week. The scale of Chicago’s downtown area is unlike that of any other city I’ve visited. It’s a tall, crowded, chunky skyline. But it’s also a human-scale town and the waterfront along Lake Michigan is spectacular. I was there to do some interviews for our upcoming documentary (more on that in a future newsletter). I was also there for a speaking engagement with the leadership team at Sargent & Lundy, an electrical engineering firm that has been in business for 131 years. One of the founders was Ayres Lundy, who was a colleague of one of my heroes, Frank Sprague. Lundy and Sprague both worked for Thomas Edison. Sprague is among the greatest -- and yet, almost unknown – inventors from the early days of the Electric Age. I have a chapter in A Question of Power devoted to Sprague. At Sargent & Lundy, I talked for about an hour (60 slides!) with much of my focus on the unfolding disaster in Europe, which I wrote about this week. I wrote about that this week in a piece that was published by Newsweek on Tuesday. Also this week, I was on The Value Perspective podcast with Juan Torres. I’ve also been working on new videos for Tik Tok. I’m working with my daughter, Mary, on the Tik Tok stuff, which has been a lot of fun. The challenge I set for myself: explain what’s happening in energy and in about a minute. Remarkably, one of my videos on Tik Tok has had nearly 196,000 views. In about two weeks, I’ve gained more followers on Tik Tok than I have on YouTube. In any case, I just landed back in Austin from Chicago this morning. And frankly, I’m tired. So I’m going to end the preamble. Four items this week:

• Newsweek: Europe’s energy crisis is becoming a food crisis

• A new slide on the EU fertilizer crisis

• Shellenberger on the podcast talking about saving Diablo Canyon

• Baltimore Orioles at Commons Ford Ranch Metropolitan Park

The photo above was taken in 2019 by Tony Castro.
 

On Tuesday, I wrote about Europe’s fertilizer crisis in Newsweek. I was spurred to do so my talk last week with John Harpole on the Power Hungry Podcast. John made it clear that this crisis is only beginning. In my article, I began:

• Friday's announcement by Gazprom that it will halt natural gas flows from Russia into Germany indefinitely through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will likely send European natural gas prices back toward $100 per million Btu, a record level that was set last week.

• The shutdown, which Gazprom blamed on a maintenance problem, came the same day the G7 countries said they will impose a price cap on Russian oil. The shuttering of Nord Stream 1 will impose even higher costs on the continent's consumers and heavy industry. But it will land a particularly heavy blow on Europe's beleaguered fertilizer sector, which has already shuttered as much as 70 percent of its production capacity due to soaring natural gas prices. And as more plants are shuttered, the hard reality of Europe's energy crisis is becoming clear: What started as an energy crisis has become a fertilizer crisis and it will soon become a food crisis.

I concluded:

• About two weeks ago, Akinwumi A. Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank Group, said that Africa "now faces a shortage of at least 30 million metric tons of food—especially wheat, maize, and soybean imported from Russia and Ukraine." Africa is struggling to mitigate a famine that could throw some 30 million Africans into what Adesina called catastrophic levels of food insecurity. "It could deepen economic stress and political unrest," he went on. "With millions struggling to buy food, fuel, and fertilizer, anti-government protests are a real possibility."

• While African leaders are worried about a looming famine and civil unrest, European leaders are having to choose between thinking about future food supplies and keeping their people warm this winter.

• "Countries can't mandate fertilizer production because they are so worried about having enough natural gas to heat people's homes," Harpole said. "They are having to choose between future food production and heat and they are going to choose heat."

• There's much more to be written about the unfolding fertilizer and food crisis. The shuttering of Nord Stream 1 appears to be only the latest development in what will likely be a sustained period of higher food prices, food insecurity, and even famine, for tens of millions of people around the world.

Again, here’s a link.
 

I used this new graphic in my presentation in Chicago yesterday

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Michael Shellenberger on the "narcissistic nihilism" of the climate catastrophists    

Michael Shellenberger is a former gubernatorial candidate in California and the author, most recently, of SanFransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities. In his third appearance on the podcast, (previous appearances were on July 6, 2020, and May 27, 2021), Michael and I talked  about the California legislature’s recent vote to save Diablo Canyon from premature closure. (I wrote about the vote to save Diablo last week in Forbes.)  

Michael and I also talked about nuclear’s new-found traction, his run for governor, why he might run for office again, Greta Thunberg, and the “narcissistic nihilism” of climate catastrophists. We also talked about his next book, which will focus on the anti-nuclear movement. Michael is a prolific writer. We talked about his Substack writing, the media coverage of climate and more. Michael's clearly driven to make a difference. It was a fun discussion.  Here’s a link to the audio and as always, episodes of the podcast are on YouTube. Please subscribe and share. 
 

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Baltimore Oriole: a "small icteric blackbird" 

Lorin and I went birding last Monday. We got a late start and didn’t arrive at Commons Ford Park until 11 am or so. It was a pretty hot day and there wasn’t a lot of bird activity. So we took a rather relaxed stroll around the park and after 90 minutes or so, we were back at our car, hot, sweaty, and thirsty. As we hydrated and began to change out of our sweat-soaked clothes, I spotted a yellow-orange bird in the distance near one of the buildings. I walked toward it and didn’t get a good glimpse. So I kept going. Then I called for Lorin to come look. Long story short, after thinking we were finished birding for the day, we pursued a pair of Baltimore Orioles (Icterus galbula) for another 20 minutes or so. We both got good looks at the female. I had a brief, but solid look at the male. That orange-yellow hue on the breast was the giveaway. Lorin said she had several good looks at the male. I’ve only seen one Baltimore Oriole at our house, which we’ve lived in for 22 years. They aren’t very common around Austin and I’ve only seen a handful of Orioles in my life. My worn-out Peterson’s guide, shows that I saw it at Boy Scout Woods in High Island, on April 18, 1999. See the photo above. Wikipedia says this: 

• a small icterid blackbird common in eastern North America as a migratory breeding bird. It received its name from the resemblance of the male's colors to those on the coat-of-arms of 17th century Lord Baltimore. Observations of interbreeding between the Baltimore oriole and the western Bullock's Oriole, led to both being classified as a single species, called the Northern Oriole, from 1973 to 1995. Research by James Rising, a professor of zoology at the University of Toronto, and others showed that the two birds actually did not interbreed significantly.

• The Baltimore Oriole is the state bird of Maryland. It is also the namesake and mascot for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team... Baltimore orioles are often found high up in large, leafy deciduous trees, but do not generally reside in deep forests. The species has been found in summer and migration in open woodland, forest edge, and partially wooded wetlands or stands of trees along rivers. They are very adaptable and can breed in a variety of secondary habitats. In recent times, they are often found in orchards, farmland, urban parks and suburban landscapes as long as they retain woodlots. In Mexico, they winter in flowering canopy trees, often over shade coffee plantations...Baltimore orioles are basically solitary outside their mating season. The species is generally considered monogamous, although evidence suggests that extra-pair copulation is relatively common. In the spring, males establish a territory then display to females by singing and chattering while hopping from perch to perch in front of them. Males also give a bow display, bowing with wings lowered and tail fanned. Depending on their receptiveness, the females may ignore these displays or sing and give calls or a wing-quiver display in response. The wing-quiver display involves leaning forward, often with tail partly fanned, and fluttering or quivering slightly lowered wings. 

Have a good weekend. 

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