Weekend Digest #5

A curated assortment of scrolls.

Happy weekend, barbarians.

Let’s get after it.

Housekeeping

1. Dr. Decouple ft. Chris Keefer. I had a great talk with Dr. Chris Keefer about how he’s become one of the most effective pro-nuclear advocates in the movement. I love getting people’s stories—especially if they’ve changed their minds on something in a big way. This episode doesn’t disappoint: Chris has led a remarkable life and I’m honored to call him a friend.

2. Why It Was Fire. I’ve begun a series about understanding the greens. This is the first entry in that series, but it’s also about why human potential has always been linked to energy use—something the greens don’t understand. The next entry will be something of a history of the green left and how their commitments have shifted from Malthusianism to something far darker.

News

1. Powerlines Are Infrastructure Bill’s Big Climate Win. So, the infrastructure bill won more powers for the DOE to create transmission corridors. Renewaphiles rightfully recognize as a big win because “[t]he provision is important to energy planners, who say the United States needs a massive build-out in transmission infrastructure to serve a new generation of clean energy projects.” I’ve written on this transmission fetish before. But the major takeaway is that we’ll see more land-use abuse to hook more unreliable energy up to the grid because Amory Lovins’s conceptions about efficiency over generation still shape our approach to energy. I’m hoping we’ll at least get some transmission refurbishments out of it since there are already existing transmission corridors in dire need of repair. Efficient transmission isn’t reliable generation, yet another lesson we’ll have to learn the hard way.

2. An Assessment of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant for Zero-Carbon Electricity, Desalination, and Hydrogen Production. A new report from Stanford/MIT on the premature closure of Diablo Canyon has just been released. The key findings should be unsurprising to advocates, but here’s a big one:  “Delaying the retirement of Diablo Canyon to 2035 would reduce California power sector carbon emissions by more than 10% from 2017 levels and reduce reliance on gas, save $2.6 Billion in power system costs, and bolster system reliability to mitigate brownouts; if operated to 2045 and beyond, Diablo Canyon could save up to $21 Billion in power system costs and spare 90,000 acres of land from use for energy production, while meeting coastal protection requirements.” Utility Dive has a brief synopsis. Keep this one in your quiver.

3. How Does Europe Get Its Gas? The Financial Times put out this helpful explainer. I don’t know if you need a subscription to see it, but its maps and historical timeline clarified both the geopolitics and the logistics of the energy situation on the continent for me.

4. If Soaring Fuel Prices Weren't Enough ... 'Diesel Shortage' Shuts Truck Stops Across the Country. More dispatches from the Black Cascade. Truckers are now running into diesel shortages, thus adding costs to the transportation of goods, not to mention delays. I’m feeling like I should write something about this Black Cascade idea. The supply chains conversation and the energy conversation seem to be separate right now, but I think we need to think about them together. Hit me up in the comments if you’d like to see something a little longer looking at the Black Cascade. Since I’m not an expert I’m intimidated by the idea, so knowing it would be helpful/interesting to the readership would go a long way.

Commentary

I lead seminars on the classics over at Online Great Books. This month, I’ve had a lot of Aristotle to read, including rereading his treatise on rhetoric. In it, he forwards his famous threefold classification of the modes of rhetorical persuasion: ethos (character, or perceived character); pathos (what the listener emotionally experience of a speech); logos (the established argument of a speech). I couldn’t help by reflect on this after seeing this clip of Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.

Javier Blas @JavierBlas

When @tomkeene asks @SecGranholm the very pertinent question on whether America (and no OPEC+) needs to increase oil production. The response, amid laughing: "That's hilarious" #OOTT

When Tom Keene asks her what her plan is for sparing Americans pain at the pump, she responds:

That is hilarious. Would that I had the magic wand on this. As you know, of course, oil is a global market. It is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is called OPEC and they made a decision yesterday that they were not going to increase production beyond what they were already planning.

Jenniefer Granholm’s character, as the public likely perceives it, is as somone who’s capable of discharging her duties in their best interest. Which means she should understands their concerns and interests in the firstplace. Cackling at the idea that she could do anything rising prices at the pump inspires less than confidence.

As Aristotle sees it, character serves as one of the most important of the three parts of rhetoric for persuasion. But we can see here that pathos and ethos hold an intimate relationship: as much as someone can confirm the assumptions of their good character with an emotionally persuasive act of speech, so too can they undermine their own standing. The “magic wand” line brings back wincing memory’s of the Clinton 2016 campaign, wherein Hillary Clinton scored several own-goals by calling broad swaths of the electorate “deplorables” and equating their political desires with “wanting a pony.” We’re walking through an energy crisis and laughing it off won’t win public trust. But it will award you ire, and justly so.

But what about the logos? Is argument sound? Is she powerless before OPEC+? James Freeman at the Wall Street Journal isn’t so sure. He points out that:

Step one for Team Biden might be to stop urging Congress to spend more than half a trillion dollars to discourage the use of fossil fuels in favor of alternative energy sources. A strategy might also include approving pipelines instead of cancelling them, and approving rather than suspending oil leases on federal land in Alaska. Surely Ms. Granholm has figured out by now that the more global market share U.S. oil producers take, the less power OPEC has to set prices.

Let’s not forget that 2020 saw lots of American refinery capacity switch off. And to put an even finer point on the situation, here’s this from AP:

In the past year, energy costs have jumped a whopping 30%, with gasoline soaring nearly 50%. A gallon of gas, on average, was $3.42 nationwide on Tuesday, according to AAA. That’s up from just $2.11 a year ago.

Natural gas prices are also surging, and so is heating oil. The Energy Information Administration forecasts that these increases will bite hard this winter, with Americans expected to spend 30% more on natural gas and 43% more on heating oil.

But the Biden administration seems to be content throttling our access to fossil fuels. This might win points with the donor class of oligarchs racking up tax write-offs in the environmental non-profit sector, but it won’t go over well with the rest of the electorate. At the end of the day, people won’t care about emissions or new pipelines if they can’t put gas in the tank or keep their heat on in winter.

And it’s not like the DOE lacks any of this information. That study on refinery capacity I hyperlinked to above was created by their research arm, the Energy Information Administration—does that info from the AP. Instead of tackling this problem, it seems instead that the Biden administration means to cleave to the green ideology against the interests of the American people.

But this also means that Granholm has failed her rhetoric test. She’s not even pretending to placate the public. I’ve been seeing a lot of this from Democrats—as if the expectation that they should handle the problems put before them is some fool’s joke-dream of reality.

Well, come Christmas that joke won’t be funny anymore.

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