POWER TALK

GLUTTONOUS GADGETS

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that by 2030, new electronic gadgets will account for triple their current energy consumption, climbing to 1,700 terawatt-hours, the equivalent of today’s home electricity consumption of the United States and Japan combined. One terawatt equals
1 trillion watts.

The IEA estimates that the growth in the use of consumer electronics will require the equivalent of 200 new nuclear power plants just to power all the TVs, iPods, personal computers and other gadgets expected to be plugged in by 2030—when the global electric bill to power them is expected to rise to $200 billion a year. Most of the growth of demand for consumer electronics will occur in developing countries.

HAPPENINGS

At the Austin Batfest, the celebrities don’t come out until it’s almost dark. When the fifth annual event gets under way during the heat of the day on August 22, its stars—more than a million of them—will be sound asleep or resting, snuggled wing to wing in the cool, concrete crevices under the Ann Richards Congress Avenue Bridge.

But at sunset, with thousands of human onlookers angling for the best view, the world’s largest urban colony of Mexican free-tailed bats will pour out from under the bridge, skimming through the summer sky like a massive cloud of black smoke.

Late summer is the best time to see the night flights of Austin’s bats because the young, called juveniles when they start to fly, are now old enough to join the adults as they venture out in search of insects for supper.

And the Batfest, slated to run from 1 p.m. to midnight on the bridge just south of the Capitol, is quintessential Austin with live music from 18 bands and food, arts and crafts and other offerings from 150 vendors.

For more information, call (512) 441-9015 or go to www.roadwayevents.com. For more information about Austin’s bats, visit the Bat Conservation International website, www.batcon.org, or call the Austin bat hotline at (512) 416-5700, category 3636.

THE MULTIPURPOSE YUCCA

 “Along with lechuguilla, prickly pear, and sotol, yucca was one of the most useful plants to early humans in our state. Literally every part of the plant yields something of value, whether a foodstuff, fiber, soap, tanning agent, medicine, building material, or fuel. Amid hundreds of representations of animals and humans, yucca is one of the few wild plants depicted in prehistoric petroglyphs.”

—Matt Warnock Turner, Remarkable Plants of Texas: Uncommon Accounts of Our Common Natives, University of Texas Press, 2009

CO-OP PEOPLE
Easing Up on Wildflowers

Cathey Miller, a member of Mid-South Synergy, loves sunflowers and wanted to decorate the roadway in front of her house with them. But she didn’t realize she was using the utility’s easement as a flower bed. She wrote Texas Co-op Power to thank the thoughtful co-op workers who came to trim trees and heeded her pleas to spare her newly planted flowers. “They could have saved themselves a lot of extra work,” she wrote. “Instead, they carefully trimmed the trees, making sure to not trample the (sunflower) seedlings.”

WHO KNEW

A storm that generates winds exceeding 57 mph is called a derecho (pronounced day-REY-cho), a Spanish word that means straight. Unlike the rotating winds of a tornado—which is thought to be derived from the Spanish word tornar, which means “to turn”—the sustained, straight-line winds of a derecho do not revolve or spin. But these storms can be just as dangerous as tornadoes.

Most common in warm seasons, derechos are created by bands of showers or thunderstorms called bow echoes, meaning they are curved, or crescent-shaped. Together, these storms generate damaging, straight-line winds that often occur near the center of a bow echo.