Climate & Energy

Have You Considered How Energy Price Hikes Affect Third-World Countries?

Gas prices are on the rise, not just in the U.S. but across the world. Yes, the Ukraine war has played a role in influencing global gas prices, but there are more worrying reasons behind this increase in energy prices. The impact of the price hike is particularly pronounced in countries that house some of the poorest in the world. The more unaffordable gas prices become, the harder it is for families to even meet their basic needs. God has called His people not just to be spectators but to … [Read more...]

Analysis of Gas Prices

by Roy W. Spencer

Gas prices: If you look at inflation-adjusted gasoline prices over the last century, there has been an overall downward trend, reflecting greater efficiency at finding, pumping, and refining petroleum. We are now at $5 a gallon, but that isn't a whole lot more than we've been in the past (for example, just before the 2012 recession). Still, the price is a lot higher than it needs to be given current technology, and the current spike could have been mostly avoided (COVID impacts being the least … [Read more...]

The Day the Electricity Died

by Frank Lasee

Imagine one of your kids freezing to death in your home. Eleven-year-old Cristian Pineda's mother found her son dead during the Texas blackout in February 2021. Or you have a power outage for three days, losing a couple of hundred dollars worth of food because your refrigerator didn’t work, as Michelle Jones did last summer. The food she had just bought to feed herself, her daughter, and her granddaughter spoiled without electricity. This is likely to become all too common … [Read more...]

Rolls-Royce’s SMR Needs 10,000 Times Less Land Than Wind Energy, Proves ‘Iron Law Of Power Density’

by Robert Bryce

Last month, Rolls-Royce said that it expects to receive regulatory approval from the British government by 2024 for its 470-megawatt small modular reactor and that it will begin producing power on Britain's electric grid by 2029. Will that happen? Time will tell. Many nuclear projects and startups have blown past their projected in-service dates. But Rolls-Royce’s announcement is important for two reasons. First, it adds more credence to the notion that a global nuclear renaissance is, in … [Read more...]

India’s “Bad Boys” Reopen 100 Coal Mines as Demand Skyrockets

by Vijay Jayaraj

Political leaders of developing countries face constant pressure to generate enough electricity for their populations as they are being asked to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. In a bold and rebellious move, India has ordered the reopening of more than 100 dormant coal mines to meet skyrocketing domestic power demand. The action is just one of the many measures that the country has taken to ensure a seamless supply of coal to power plants that generate more than 70 percent of the … [Read more...]

Pregnant People are Birthing Distrust of Science

by Anthony J. Sadar

There’s a real concern that the public is losing trust in the scientific establishment, and maybe for good reason.  A recent news article in one of the world’s most prestigious science journals, Nature, contained an editor’s statement that sadly apologized for being insensitive to a new unscientific norm. The article was titled, “COVID vaccines safely protect pregnant people: The data are in.” The journal editor thought it was necessary to assure readers that, “Nature recognizes that … [Read more...]

Did Global Warming Cause Chicago Heat Wave Deaths?

by E. Calvin Beisner

Temperatures barely climbed into the 90s and only for a couple of days. But the discovery of the bodies of three women inside a Chicago senior housing facility this month left the city looking for answers to questions that were supposed to be addressed after a longer and hotter heat wave killed more than 700 people nearly three decades ago.Now, the city — and the country — is facing the reality that because of climate change, deadly heat waves can strike just about anywhere, don't only fall in … [Read more...]

States’ Opposition to Federal Social Cost of Carbon Use Survives Supreme Court Decision

by E. Calvin Beisner

For years the federal government, especially its Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has sought to use “social cost of carbon” (SCC) as justification, at the cost of billions of dollars, for regulations making it more difficult to drill for and use fossil fuels. That practice can continue—for now. On May 26, the Supreme Court declined a request from 11 states to block the Biden Administration from using the estimated SCC in regulatory activities. The states had argued that the modeling to … [Read more...]

Germany’s Green Energy Fixation Should Teach US a Lesson

by Larry Bell

Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government vice chancellor and economic minister Robert Habeck, a leading member of his country’s Green Party, has experienced a rude lesson regarding the disastrous consequences of his years of naïve opposition to fossil fuels. After tasking his top officials to assess the energy security implications of Germany’s dependence on Russian supplies in the event of a then-looming Ukraine invasion, their conclusions were desperately dispiriting. Habeck … [Read more...]

Biased Reporting Overheats Climate Fear, Ignores Cold