January 6, 2015
National Review Online

While making a list of my personal goals for 2015, I began thinking about the major energy stories of 2014 as well as the issues that are likely to dominate the headlines this year. There’s no doubt that the plunging price of oil was the biggest energy story of last year. And oil prices — as always — will dominate the economic and political news in 2015. Herewith, my list of three big stories from last year as well as four issues to watch for over the next 12 months.

December 22, 2014
The Hill

Oil prices are falling, OPEC is in shambles, and the latest round of climate-change talks (the ones in Lima) once again failed to achieve much of anything. 

But for all the headlines about oil prices and climate change, the most important energy story -- indeed, the energy story of the last four decades – has been the growth in global coal demand. Last Monday, the day after the climate talks in Peru concluded, the International Energy Agency released its annual report on the coal market. Their findings: global coal prices are falling and coal demand is rising. 

December 19, 2014
National Review Online

Amid the many explanations offered by New York governor Andrew Cuomo and his various lieutenants about their reasons for imposing a permanent ban on hydraulic fracturing in the state, one of them made me laugh out loud.

“We lack the necessary data,” said New York’s health commissioner, Howard Zucker. I’ll discuss why that claim made me chuckle in just a moment. Before turning to that, let’s be clear: Cuomo’s decision is not surprising, and it’s not very significant either.

December 8, 2014
National Review Online

If anyone needed proof that subsidy-dependent businesses will always seek more subsidies, look no further than the U.S. wind industry. On Wednesday, the wind sector won a vote in the House on a tax bill that includes a one-year extension of the production tax credit (PTC), which gives wind companies 2.3 cents for every kilowatt-hour of electricity they produce. The companies can collect that subsidy for a decade after they are deemed eligible.

November 26, 2014
National Review Online

Tomorrow in Vienna, the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet once again to jawbone about oil prices.

But here’s the reality: OPEC is no longer a price maker, it’s a price taker. The price of oil is no longer being set by the cartel, it’s being set by U.S. drilling companies producing oil from shale deposits. And those drillers are thriving largely because of three key advantages, ones that I call the three Rs: rigs, rednecks, and rights.

November 19, 2014
The Daily Beast

When viewed as a political grudge match, the ongoing battle over the Keystone XL pipeline remains one of the hottest fights in Washington. Proof of that can be seen by looking at yesterday’s vote in the Senate on the project, which failed to get the 60 votes needed for filibuster-proof passage.

November 11, 2014
McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian academic who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recently declared that we have "the means to limit climate change" and that "all we need is the will to change."

That's a rather glib statement given that just five years ago, Pachauri was lamenting the fact that so many of his fellow Indians were living in dire energy poverty. In July 2009, Pachauri asked reporters "Can you imagine 400 million people who do not have a light bulb in their homes?" He continued, saying "with the resources of coal that India has, we really don't have any choice but to use coal."

November 6, 2014
National Review Online

Demonize coal. Keep the poor in the dark. And, above all, keep pushing the fantasy that U.S. government action (with or without the approval of Congress) is essential to dealing with climate change.

That — in a nutshell — is the climate-change strategy of the Obama administration and its environmentalist allies.

September 25, 2014
National Review Online

It has been a curious experience to watch the news about the “largest climate march in history” from Japan. There weren’t any marches here in Tokyo. Indeed, 350.org, the group that was a lead organizer of the march in New York City, doesn’t even appear to have a presence in Japan.

September 3, 2014
The Sydney Morning Herald

Solar energy appears to finally be coming of age.

In July, Bloomberg New Energy Finance declared that we are in the midst of a "solar revolution" and the firm predicted that solar will be the fastest-growing form of global generation capacity through 2030. A few days after that report was released, Deutsche Bank announced plans to lend $1 billion to support solar deployment in Japan.

August 1, 2014
National Review Online

Energy policies are faddish. From the energy-independence moonshine of the corn-ethanol scam to the latest 645-page slate of regulations the EPA wants to inflict on the domestic electricity-generation sector, the supposed threats have varied.

Back in the 1970s, the claim was that we were too dependent on Arab oil (a claim that we continue to hear today). These days, in addition to the never-ending blather about “energy independence,” we have the spurious claim from the Obama administration that yet another layer of EPA rules on U.S. industry will make a dramatic difference when it comes to global climate change.

June 29, 2014
The Seattle Times

When it comes to the issue of climate change, it’s easy to bash the United States. Yes, the U.S. emits a lot of carbon dioxide — about 5.9 billion tons in 2013 alone, second only to China’s 9.5 billion tons.

But it’s also easy to overlook this fact: The U.S. is leading the world in reducing its carbon dioxide emissions. And those reductions are largely due to the innovation that is happening not in green energy, but in the oil and gas sector’s ability to produce hydrocarbons from shale deposits.