Big wins for parrots and whales, "about a minute" videos get traction, Rothrock talks fusion and the NRC, and...Orange-bellied Parrots

"News" letter #127

Michael and Bethany got into AUS at 3 am after their flight from DEN was delayed, delayed, and delayed some more. But we are thrilled they got here. Mary flies in from LAX this afternoon, and marvel of marvels, it looks like her flight will be on time. As you’ve probably heard the airports are a mess due to Winter Storm Elliott. As I write this, the temperature here in Austin is a balmy 16F or -9C. But unlike Winter Storm Uri, the skies are clear and we don't have any snow or ice. (Yay!)

Lorin and I have had a busy week. Nico and his crew were here on Tuesday and Wednesday painting the kitchen, pantry, and laundry room. That required turning everything upside down. But the place shines like a new penny. And in anticipation of the cold weather, we laid in plenty of firewood, food, and tequila. I have been working hard the past few months and am looking forward to spending time with Lorin and the kids. Given the looming holiday, I’ll cut to the chase. Four items today:

• RCE: Big wins for parrots and whales

• Good response to my “about a minute” videos

• Rothrock talks fusion and investing in nuclear startups

• Critically endangered Orange-bellied Parrots in the spotlight

The photo of the Orange-bellied Parrot above is from the Australian Museum’s website.

I have a piece in Real Clear Energy today that revisits a topic I’ve been covering for a long time: the wind industry’s deadly impact on our wildlife. I began:

• There’s one inescapable truth about the headlong rush to cover vast swaths of our countryside and oceans with 600-foot-high wind turbines: the more turbines that get built, the more wildlife will be harmed or killed. And no amount of propaganda -- and there’s a veritable tsunami of that coming from the alt-energy crowd -- can change that fact.

• That’s why people who really care about the environment -- and our wildlife -- should be pleased by the recent news that two large wind projects are likely to be canceled. If that happens, it will be positive news for two critically endangered species: the Orange-bellied Parrot and the North Atlantic Right Whale.

• Let’s start with Orange-bellied Parrot (species name: Neophema chrysogaster). A few days ago, the Australian government gave approval to a huge (900 megawatt) wind project on Robbins Island, which is located north of Tasmania. But the approval requires the project to be completely shut down for five months of the year due to concerns that the wind turbines on the project will kill Orange-bellied Parrots, which migrate from Tasmania to Australia. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation quoted an official with the company that is proposing the project, ACEN Australia, as saying the requirement to shut down the facility for nearly half of the year was “completely unexpected” and that the company would “need to consider our options going forward.”

I concluded:

• The Mayflower project would cover a huge swath of ocean about 20 miles south of Nantucket. Annonen reported that residents of Falmouth “packed the select board meeting room...Several voiced opposition during public comment, citing damage to the neighborhood and small businesses, harm to the public park that Mayflower Wind selects for landfall and the loss of the neighborhood's aesthetic appeal.”

• The punchline here is obvious and as usual, it requires us to follow the money. The Inflation Reduction Act passed earlier this year by Congress allocates an additional  $64.7 billion for the Investment Tax Credit, which offshore wind developers can use to help finance their projects. It gives offshore developers a 30% tax credit. Massachusetts also gives huge tax credits to offshore wind developers.

• Thus, it’s no surprise that numerous big corporations -- many of them foreign companies like Avangrid, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Britain’s BP, Norway’s Equinor, and Denmark’s Ørsted -- are all pushing to develop thousands of megawatts of offshore wind capacity. And if their projects harm whales, or local communities don’t want power lines cutting through their neighborhoods, well, those are just the costs that must be paid for the “energy transition.”

• I’ll conclude with a line I’ve used before: the only thing dumber than onshore wind energy is offshore wind energy.

Again, here’s a link. Please share it.

“About a minute” videos gaining traction

You never know. That’s my reaction to the response my short videos have been getting. As I’ve mentioned before, Mary suggested that I develop new video content for TikTok. She has helped me all along the way as I’ve gotten better at delivery and making the messaging more concise. We are posting the videos to TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter. The results on TikTok have been okay. The big surprise has been LinkedIn and Twitter, which are doing better than I expected. In fact, the videos I post on those platforms generally do better than they do on TikTok. A video we published on Monday about Germany’s Energiewende has gotten a lot of play: about 250,000 impressions and more than 77,000 views. Making the short videos has been a good challenge. I always write a script and do multiple takes to get the most-concise message. I’m trying to produce one per day. It’s been a fun experiment and the feedback I’m getting has been positive. If you have a minute, check them out.

Ray Rothrock: recent fusion breakthrough really is a “Kitty Hawk moment”

The recent media coverage of the breakthrough in fusion prompted me to reach out to my friend, Ray Rothrock, who knows the nuclear energy sector as well as anyone I know. Ray is a California-based venture capitalist with 34 years of experience in the industry. In this episode, Rothrock, who holds a degree in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University and has a portfolio of investments in nuclear startups, explains why the recent breakthrough in fusion is a “Kitty Hawk moment.” He also talked about the many challenges still facing the commercial use of fusion, the “labyrinth of regulations and red tape” impeding new fission reactors, and why the U.S. will need strong leadership from Congress and the president if it wants to lead in the deployment of the next generation of nuclear reactors.

Rothrock comes at the nuclear sector in a manner that’s far different than almost all of the pro-nuclear people I’ve had on the Power Hungry Podcast. He’s approaching it from a business standpoint, not from the view of politics or climate change. That business focus is key. He said one of the main reasons why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been so slow to analyze and approve the next generation of nuclear reactors (including SMRs) is that the agency doesn’t have a CEO. That means it’s hard (or perhaps impossible) to tame the NRC’s bureaucracy. If no one is in charge, if no one is there to crack the whip, then the agency cannot change. But changing the org chart at the NRC will require an act of Congress, which as everyone knows, is incredibly difficult.

The audio and transcript of the episode are here. And as always, it’s available on YouTube.

Orange-bellied Parrot: “one of only three species of parrot that migrate”

My Real Clear Energy piece today focuses on the Orange-bellied Parrot, (Neophema chrysogaster). (The photo above was taken by J.J. Harrison in 2011 in Tasmania.) And since that species is the focus of Australian regulators, it’s also the featured bird of this “news” letter. Wikipedia describes it as a:  

• small parrot endemic to southern Australia, and one of only three species of parrot that migrate. It was described by John Latham in 1790. A small parrot around 20 cm (8 in) long, it exhibits sexual dimorphism. The adult male is distinguished by its bright grass-green upper parts, yellow underparts and orange belly patch. The adult female and juvenile are duller green in colour. All birds have a prominent two-toned blue frontal band and blue outer wing feathers. The orange-bellied parrot breeds in Tasmania and winters on the coast of southern mainland Australia, foraging on saltmarsh species, beach or dune plants and a variety of exotic weed species. The diet consists of seeds and berries of small coastal grasses and shrubs. With a wild population of 14 birds as of early February 2017, it is regarded as a critically endangered species…rated as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Endangered species. Orange-bellied parrots are being bred in a captive breeding program with parrots in Taroona, Tasmania, Healesville Sanctuary, Adelaide Zoo, Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park and Priam Parrot Breeding Centre. The captive population consists of around 300 birds, with a target of 350 birds by 2016–17. Because of the decline in the wild population in recent years, an additional 21 birds from the wild population were captured in 2010–2011 to improve the genetic diversity of the species' captive breeding program. Taken as a whole, the captive population, an example of ex situ conservation, is termed an "insurance population" against extinction... breeds solely in South West Tasmania, it nests in eucalypts bordering on button grass moors, generally within 30 km of the coast. The entire population migrates over Bass Strait to spend the winter on the coast of south-eastern Australia.

As always, thanks for reading. I wish all y’all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, etc.

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