New articles in RCE & Forbes, podcasts w/ Peiser & Korsnick, and... Starlings in DC
New pieces in Forbes & RCE, Peiser on Britain's energy crisis, Korsnick sees new paradigm, & European Starlings
More travel this week. I was in Washington, D.C. for three days this week shooting interviews and attending two conferences, the Nuclear Financing Summit, which was sponsored by the Nuclear Energy Institute, and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s International Ministerial on Nuclear Power in the 21stCentury. I will write more about those meetings over the next few days. But suffice it to say that the enthusiasm around nuclear energy was very high. I got back to Austin last night and have several things on my calendar, so I will cut to the chase. Five items today:
Forbes: The Iron Law of Electricity Strikes Again
Benny Peiser on Britain after Liz Truss’s resignation
Maria Korsnick on the new nuclear paradigm
European Starlings in D.C.
The photo of the European Starling above was taken in England in 2010.
This morning, I published a piece in Forbes about Germany’s return to lignite. I began:
Last week, numerous media outlets reported that Germany will extend the lives of three of its nuclear power plants. The move to keep the reactors online, which was opposed by the country’s Green Party, showed that German politicians are recognizing the need to keep reliable generation plants online to assure the country has enough electricity this winter.
But another equally important announcement was also made last week that got far less media attention: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Germany was reopening five power plants that burn lignite, a low-rank coal. Germany’s return to lignite demonstrates, yet again, the Iron Law of Electricity, which says that people, businesses, and governments will do whatever they have to do to get the electricity they need.
Indeed, Germany’s move back to lignite is chock-full of contradictions, including one that belongs in the “you can’t make this up” column.
The Iron Law of Electricity is so powerful that the utility RWE is dismantling the Keyenberg wind project in the western part of the country to, wait for it... make more room for the expansion of the Garzweiler mine. Lignite from Garzweiler fuels the Neurath C power plant, which is one of the power plants being brought back online. A spokesperson for RWE told the Guardian newspaper that “We realize this comes across as paradoxical.”
I concluded:
While announcing the reopening of the lignite plants, Scholz claimed that the move is “a time-limited but necessary emergency measure.” He added that Germany will “continue to stand firmly by our climate targets.”
Scholz also said, “The Russian aggression and its consequences mustn’t lead to a worldwide renaissance of coal...We will make clear offers so that developing and emerging countries also can embark resolutely on the path toward a climate-neutral energy sector.”
But right now, the idea of a “climate-neutral” energy sector in Germany and nearly every other country on the planet, is taking a distant back seat to the more immediate need to keep the lights on. I will end by repeating the same message I have been touting for more than a dozen years: If the countries of the world are serious about reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, the way forward is N2N: natural gas to nuclear. And if the goal is to decarbonize the electricity and industrial sectors and do so quickly, the goal must be to develop and deploy smaller, safer, cheaper nuclear reactors, and do so by the thousands.
Again, here's a link. Please share it.
On Wednesday, Real Clear Energy published my article about Joe Toomey’s recent report on President Biden’s energy policies. I wrote:
With the midterm elections just two weeks away, it seems almost too easy to pick on President Joe Biden. His approval ratings are bad (about 38% of those polled approve of his job performance) and candidates from his own party are staying away from him. As ABC News reported recently, “Democrats in make-or-break races are looking for ways to put daylight between themselves and Biden’s White House.”
While it may be easy to pick on Biden, it’s also true that his administration’s energy policies are a confused mess and those policies are hurting consumers and energy producers alike. As a friend of mine put it a few months ago, when it comes to energy, the Biden team “has lots of tactics, but no strategy.” I’ve used that line many times since I heard it back in February. But I’m no longer convinced that it is true. Indeed, it is now clear that the Biden team has a strategy, one that ignores the need for domestic hydrocarbon production to assure energy security.
I concluded:
There is far more to Toomey’s report than I can recount here. But I recommend it. It’s the fullest rundown of this administration’s energy policies that I have seen. At this point in history, as Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine continues, and Europeans are facing a bleak, energy-starved winter, we need sobriety when talking about our energy and power systems. We need energy realism to make sure the United States doesn’t end up like Europe. And Toomey’s report provides a big dose of energy realism.
Again, here's a link.
Subscribe to this "news" letter. Click here
Benny Peiser: Britain is going "back to energy socialism"
Benny Peiser is the director of Net Zero Watch, a London-based public charity that focuses on the “implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies.” In his second appearance on the podcast, (his first was on March 8, 2022) Peiser talks about Liz Truss’s resignation last week, why both Tory and Labour Party politicians are to blame for Britain’s energy crisis, why Britain must immediately begin drilling and fracking for natural gas, how soaring energy costs could lead to a financial crisis, and why three decades after Margaret Thatcher resigned, Britain is going “back to energy socialism.”
I should note that some of what Peiser and I talked about last Saturday morning is already dated. On Tuesday, Rishi Sunak became Britain’s new prime minister. Shortly after taking office, Sunak said he will reinstate the ban on hydraulic fracturing. That’s a serious mistake. But it is also indicative of just how dysfunctional Britain’s energy policies have become. The audio and transcript of my talk with Peiser are here. As always, the episode is also on YouTube.
Maria Korsnick: The "innovation pipeline in nuclear right now is really chock-full"
Maria Korsnick holds a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Maryland and now serves as president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association that operates on an annual budget of about $50 million. In this episode of the podcast (which is number 145), Korsnick talks about the “new paradigm for nuclear” energy, why the “urgency” for nuclear “is only going to grow,” how the U.S. and Canada are working together on approval of new reactor designs, and why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has to get more efficient. Of course, I expected Korsnick to be enthusiastic about the future of nuclear energy. That’s her job. (And during my three days in Washington at the NEI and IAEA meetings, the excitement around the future of nuclear was palpable.)
But I was also struck by Korsnick’s reply when I asked her my usual closing question about what gives her hope. She replied, that she feels “the inflection point” around nuclear. She said, “I think nuclear is going to get picked because the basic value proposition that it is: it’s clean, it’s scalable, it brings the jobs, it has energy security.” And then she said that her children (who are 18 and 20 years old) and other younger people are “really embracing” nuclear energy. “And quite frankly, you know, they’re the generation of the future. And I think nuclear has...a lot of progress and a lot of support. And I think you’re going to see that play out over the next decade.” While nuclear faces a lot of challenges when it comes to financing and regulation, I think (and hope) that she's right.
This episode was recorded on October 21, 2022. The audio and transcript are here. And as always, the episode is also on YouTube.
Subscribe to this "news" letter. Click here
European Starlings: species is "omnivorous" and "builds an untidy nest"
While in Washington this week, I didn’t have any time to go out and look for birds on purpose. But I did have a few minutes to watch the murmurations of European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) that inhabit the city. Indeed, it’s hard to miss them. Also known as “Common Starlings” they are so common as to be forgettable. But when seen up close, they are quite beautiful. The image above is a snapshot I took from the pages of my favorite birding guide, the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America.
Thinking about the Starling reminds me of something Roger Tory Peterson said when I interviewed him some three decades ago. At that time, Peterson was delighting in Blue Jays and other species that he called “ho-hum” birds. Looking at photos – and in particular, close-ups -- of the Starling reminds me of that line. There aren’t any ho-hum birds. All of them are remarkable in their own way. Starlings have proven to be very adaptable, particularly when it comes to living in cities where they can find lots of things to eat. Wikipedia says this about the European Starling:
a noisy bird, especially in communal roosts and other gregarious situations, with an unmusical but varied song. Its gift for mimicry has been noted in literature including the Mabinogion and the works of Pliny the Elder and William Shakespeare. The common starling has about 12 subspecies breeding in open habitats across its native range in temperate Europe and across the Palearctic to western Mongolia, and it has been introduced to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, and Fiji. This bird is resident in western and southern Europe and southwestern Asia, while northeastern populations migrate south and west in the winter within the breeding range and also further south to Iberia and North Africa. The common starling builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity in which four or five glossy, pale blue eggs are laid. These take two weeks to hatch and the young remain in the nest for another three weeks. There are normally one or two breeding attempts each year. This species is omnivorous, taking a wide range of invertebrates, as well as seeds and fruit. It is hunted by various mammals and birds of prey, and is host to a range of external and internal parasites...Large flocks typical of this species can be beneficial to agriculture by controlling invertebrate pests; however, starlings can also be pests themselves when they feed on fruit and sprouting crops. Common starlings may also be a nuisance through the noise and mess caused by their large urban roosts. Introduced populations in particular have been subjected to a range of controls, including culling, but these have had limited success, except in preventing the colonization of Western Australia.
The species has declined in numbers in parts of northern and western Europe since the 1980s due to fewer grassland invertebrates being available as food for growing chicks. Despite this, its huge global population is not thought to be declining significantly... first described by Carl Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae in 1758 under its current binomial name. Sturnus and vulgaris are derived from the Latin for "starling" and "common" respectively.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Want to help?
1. Forward this email to your friends and colleagues. Tell them to subscribe. It's free!
2. Subscribe to the Power Hungry Podcast.
3. Rent or buy Juice on iTunes or Amazon Prime.
4. Buy A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations and give it a positive review.
5. Follow me and Juice on Twitter.
6. Follow me on TikTok: @pwrhungry
7. Need a speaker for your conference, class, or webinar? Ping me.
Watch Juice
Juice: How Electricity Explains the World, is on most of the major streaming outlets, including Roku Channel. If you have a prime membership, you can watch it on Amazon Prime.