I’ll be on C-Span tomorrow morning, new pieces in The Hill & WSJ, Zeihan on the podcast, and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet
"News" letter #125
As I mentioned last week in this epistle, I dumped Mailchimp, and am very glad I did. Over the last week, I’ve added about 100 new subscribers and have been getting more every day. Furthermore, I was (almost) amused when on Monday, the day after I switched to Substack, the Mailchimpers sent me an email notifying me that they were raising their prices by 16%, to a minimum of $39.50 per month. Mailchimp was good for a while. But their terrible customer service -- and the prospect of yet another price increase -- confirmed that I was right to move to Substack. I reckon it was long overdue. I’m finding that Substack is easier to use, I can have my archive readily available, and making it all yet better: it’s free. Plus, Substack has created an amazing platform with tons of great writers. I may eventually add a paid feature (possibly a branded newsletter) to my Substack, but I won’t do it in the near term. Also, to be clear, my Friday “news” letter will always be free. (And it’s worth every penny.)
This has been another busy week. I’ve been writing a lot, recording podcasts, and doing some radio. I published two articles this week and rewrote the preface for the paperback edition of A Question of Power, which will be released in May. The preface ended up being about 4,600 words. Tyson and I drove to Houston and back last night so we could attend Veriten’s holiday party, which was great fun. Veriten is an “energy-focused media platform” that was founded by my pal, Maynard Holt. Veriten is “committed to improving the global conversation around the energy transition. More data, more civility, more problem solving, and more fun.” Maynard’s team includes some razor-sharp analysts including Colin Fenton, Michael Bradley, Jeff Tillery, and my new friend, Brett Rampal. If you haven’t listened to it, check out their COBT podcast. Okay, that’s a long enough introduction. Five items today:
I’ll be on C-Span tomorrow morning
The Hill: Attack on NC substation spotlights grid vulnerability
Zeihan: “The American system will thrive”
A single Ruby-crowned Kinglet in the yard
The photo above was taken by Donna Dewhurst of the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2010.
C-Span tomorrow morning: I’ll be featured on their “Spotlight on Podcasts”
I will be on C-Span tomorrow morning at 9:15 ET talking about the Power Hungry Podcast, electricity, grid security, and other energy and power topics. Here’s the backstory: on Tuesday, I was contacted by a C-Span producer asking if I was interested in appearing on “Washington Journal.” I immediately said yes. The segment will be part of their “Spotlight on Podcasts” series where C-Span looks at “various podcasts that focus on news, politics, public policy, etc.” The segment will last about 45 minutes and will start with a brief interview with the host, Mimi Geerges, and then go to “viewer calls and questions/comments from social media.” I’m excited about being on C-Span. Please tune in and share the link.
On Tuesday, The Hill published my piece about our electric grid’s vulnerability to gunfire. It’s an issue I wrote about in A Question of Power. I began:
Around 40,000 electricity users in Moore County, N.C., were without power after a Saturday night attack on two power substations. Although few details were available, news reports said evidence at the scene “indicated that a firearm had been used to disable the equipment.” The attack is similar to the 2013 gunfire attack on the Metcalf Transmission Substation in rural Santa Clara County, Calif., a crime that remains unsolved. But both incidents are a stark reminder of the fragility and vulnerability of our electric grid and how difficult it is to defend the grid against bad actors who want to damage our biggest and most important energy network.
I concluded:
Everyone should hope that, unlike the California case, the miscreants involved in the North Carolina attack are caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But it’s already clear — and has been for a long time — that our electric grid is vulnerable to gunfire attacks. Nearly a decade after the attack on the Metcalf substation, the attack in Moore County provides yet another warning about our grid’s vulnerability. We need to put more focus on hardening our electric grid — and we need to get serious about it right now.
Again, here’s a link.
On Wednesday, I was very pleased to publish a piece in the Wall Street Journal about the importance of the BP Statistical Review and why the company must continue publishing it. My article, which is behind a paywall, begins:
Reuters recently reported that energy giant BP is “considering ending the publication of its Statistical Review of World Energy, over 70 years after it first published the benchmark report.” The reason? The report’s numbers are supposedly undermining the company’s rhetoric about its pursuit of alternative energy. To give in to such claims and cancel the Statistical Review—one of the most reliable energy resources in the world—would be an egregious mistake.
I encourage you to the read the piece. I refer to the Statistical Review almost every day. I also use it routinely to make graphics for my speeches and articles. Indeed, I made the above graphic using data from the latest edition of the Statistical Review.
That BP would quit publishing the report shows how easily big companies are being cowed by fashion. Again, here’s a link.
Peter Zeihan: “Since the Ukraine war started, I have gotten into commodities in a very big way”
I’ve been following Peter Zeihan’s work for many years. He is one of the rare people who can summarize complex global events and do so cogently and in sound-bite-size chunks. I have listened to several podcasts where he was a guest and also heard him speak here in Austin last month. His grasp of small details and big-picture issues is damn impressive. He’s also in high demand. When I talked with him briefly here in Austin last month, he told me he had 160 speaking events on his calendar this year. When I interviewed him last Friday for the podcast, he said the number had jumped to 180. That is a lot of speeches.
If you aren’t familiar with him, Zeihan is a geopolitical strategist and the author of four books, including most recently, The End of the World is Just the Beginning. In this episode, Peter talks about the civil unrest – and pending demographic collapse -- in China, and why “Apple has refused to see the writing on the wall” in China. He also explains why Mexico will continue to be America’s most important trading partner, (demographics are key), and why -- despite the unraveling now underway in many parts of the world -- he believes “the American system will thrive.” Given his global perspective, I also asked him about his investment strategy. He said:
I like companies that center their production and their sales in North America, because we’ve got the highest value added-labor system between Mexico in the United States. And we produce where we sell for the most part. Also, if the product is demographically driven, in terms of its demand profile, I like that. And if the end product is very energy intensive for its production, because we have the cheapest electricity and energy in the world, that’s great. And if the end product is exportable, that’s kind of like my trifecta. And so, agricultural processing, petrochemicals, things like that, are most of my portfolio. Since the Ukraine war started, I have gotten into commodities in a very big way.
One more note: this episode has been setting records for the Power Hungry Podcast. As I write this, the episode has been viewed 46,000 times on YouTube, a number that shows just how popular Zeihan is. The episode was recorded on December 2, 2022. The audio and transcript are on my website. And as always, the interview is on YouTube. Please share it, like it, etc.
Ruby-crowned Kinglets: “The red crest is raised when agitated”
Frank calls them RCKs. Frank has abbreviations for other birds. An unidentified brown bird is known as an LBJ, for “little brown job.” GCW is short for the Golden-cheeked Warbler. About two weeks ago, Frank, who lives a few blocks away, told me he’d seen several RCKs, short for Ruby-crowned Kinglets (Corthylio calendula) in his yard. (The photo above was shot in Texas in 2010 by Dan Pancamo.) And sure enough, a few days later, I spotted one in our backyard, flitting around the live oak trees that line the edge of the shallow canyon that leads to Barton Creek. I didn’t get a long look, but the bright red tuft on the top of its head was a dead giveaway. Wikipedia says the RCK is:
a very small passerine bird found throughout North America. It is a member of the kinglet family. The bird has olive-green plumage with two white wing bars and a white eye-ring. Males have a red crown patch, which is usually concealed. The sexes are identical (apart from the crown), and juveniles are similar in plumage to adults. It is one of the smallest songbirds in North America. The ruby-crowned kinglet is not closely related to other kinglets, and is put in its own genus, Corthylio. Three subspecies are currently recognized. The Kinglet is migratory, and its range extends from northwest Canada and Alaska south to Mexico. Its breeding habitat is spruce-fir forests in the northern and mountainous regions of the United States and Canada. The ruby-crowned kinglet builds a cup-shaped nest, which may be pensile or placed on a tree branch and is often hidden. It lays up to 12 eggs, and has the largest clutch of any North American passerine for its size. It is mainly insectivorous, but also eats fruits and seeds.
Their breeding habitat is coniferous forests across Canada, Alaska, northern New England and the western United States. They nest in a well-concealed hanging cup suspended from a conifer branch and may lay as many as twelve eggs in a clutch. The recent counting indicates that the ruby-crowned kinglet population is on the rise. This is mainly due to discovery of less disturbed territory farther north. This allows more successful breeding. These birds migrate to the southern United States and Mexico. Some birds are permanent residents in the west. Ruby-crowned kinglets forage actively in trees or shrubs, mainly eating small insects and spiders, some berries and tree sap. They may hover over a branch while feeding and sometimes fly out to catch insects in flight. The red crest is raised when agitated or in display. Often, they perform a "broken-wing" act to draw predators away from their nest, which they will defend fearlessly, mobbing the intruder which may be a cat, squirrel, or human.
I hope you have a fine weekend.
Want to help?
Forward this email to your friends and colleagues.
Subscribe to the Power Hungry Podcast.
Rent or buy Juice on iTunes or Amazon Prime.
Buy A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations, give it a good review.
Follow me on TikTok: @pwrhungry
Need a speaker for your conference, class, or webinar? Ping me.
