Energy Realism this past week hit the dangers of energy unrealism and the best ways to counter Putin while helping to make the poor people rich. Let’s start with our Senior Fellow: Rupert Darwall. The SEC’s new climate reporting rules are destined to be a disaster and put our companies at a global disadvantage. For the courts to swallow the SEC’s pretextual rationale requires generous levels of credulity and sustained suspension of disbelief. It’s all a very anti-fossil fuel position, a huge problem since oil, coal, and gas meet 80% of America’s energy needs. Tellingly, Robert Bryce continues to track the growing pushback on wind and solar across the country. Although the one-sided media ignores it, new projects are getting blocked left, right, and center. And let’s not forget the bizarre obsession with electric cars, despite them being incredibly expensive, inconvenient, and not nearly as “green” as advocates claim. Duggan Flannigan reports the good news: most Americans are more awake than woke, and we smell this rat a long way off. Kevin O’Scannlain says that energy mistakes are being made all over the place. If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s the importance of planning ahead and encouraging new investments in oil and gas. As we’ve seen in Europe, where energy unrealism allowed Putin to pounce, picking energy winners and losers is a proven disaster. Rich Powell explains why we very much need “baseload” resources like oil, gas, coal, and nuclear. Soaring energy prices hurt the pocketbook, but electricity blackouts inflict immense destruction. Angelique Talmor & Thomas J. Duesterberg argue that we in the West require a major shift in energy thinking. Without one, without a serious focus on more domestic output, we have no chance to counter Putin as he looks to partner with all-important China and India. Gerard Scimeca offers up an energy path for us. The current mess is a reminder of why it’s so important for policymakers to avoid a myopic impulse to go “all-in” on one fuel source or another, as well as the allure of putting political objectives on a pedestal to peer down at market fundamentals. Indeed, our Essential Reading this week comes from Rupert. It’s Biden-like regressive energy policies from The World Bank that have helped create this global energy crisis. Ignoring physics and higher costs by forcing faulty “alternatives” will continue to have a very predictable end result: continue to “keep poor people poor.” The world’s forgotten billions in the still developing countries deserve the same privileged lives that we have. And that begins with having the same full access to the more reliable and more affordable: fossil fuels. In the News Callum Cyrus, Natural Gas World ZeroHedge, Oil Price Mark Maurer, WSJ Robert Rapier, Oil Price Michael Shellenberger Diana Li, Bloomberg Verity Ratcliffe, Bloomberg Pete Schroeder, Reuters Alex Kimani, Oil Price Barron's Dieter Helm Jaya Shukla, WION Andrew Mills, Reuters Felicity Bradstock, Oil Price Sean Griffin, National Review New York Times Events Join us for an Oxford-style debate, as we discuss what ESG really means, and what it is actually doing for climate action. CNBC Television Damien Courvalin, head of energy research at Goldman Sachs, joins CNBC's 'Squawk Box' to break down energy markets and provides an outlook for the price of oil. |