Thank you for your interest in the critical issues of energy and climate. Modern, comfortable lives depend on energy. Without it, prosperity is impossible. Abundant, affordable, and reliable energy is essential for human flourishing. Unfortunately, many climate policies increase energy costs, reduce availability, and undermine reliability.
Fact of the day:
While China has been adding wind and solar at an amazing clip. They are adding even more coal. China uses more than half of the coal used in the world. Half of about 8.5 billion tons. Coal, oil, and natural gas provide about 84% of the world’s energy. Why are we being told to limit their use when Asia and Africa aren’t? They are building hundreds of coal plants as you read this.
Source for graph: Unleash Prosperity daily newsletter. We recommend that you sign up. Steve Moore is one of the authors. We find it a great source of timely information you may not get elsewhere.
Coal and Oil to the Rescue: How Renewables Faltered in Fern’s Fury
Original Article: The Renewable IN-FERN-O
Five Key Bullet Points
- Winter Storm Fern caused power disruptions for hundreds of thousands but avoided generation blackouts, with close calls in MISO, ISO-NE, ERCOT, and PJM due to variable renewable performance.
- In MISO, wind capacity factors dropped from over 60% to 7%, prompting an EEA2 alert; DOE’s Section 202(C) orders kept coal plants online, providing reliable capacity equivalent to most of the wind fleet.
- ISO-NE relied heavily on oil for generation amid surging gas prices, while the NECEC line from Hydro-Québec suspended deliveries during peak demand, exporting power back to Canada at times.
- PJM experienced mild conditions with demand below predictions and fewer outages than in past storms, aided by prior gas winterization efforts.
- ERCOT saw wind and solar outages rise with cold, but lower demand prevented crises; however, reduced fossil fuels and growing reliance on intermittents increase vulnerability for future storms.
Fossil Fuels Dominate: 31% Coal Jump Amid Winter Freeze
Original Article: US coal generation jumped 31% during Winter Storm Fern: EIA
Five Key Bullet Points
- US coal generation surged 31% during the week of Winter Storm Fern, with gas up 14%, while solar, wind, and hydropower declined, as per EIA data.
- Winter Storm Fern brought snow, ice, and frigid temperatures from Texas to New England starting Friday, spiking demand, and consumption.
- Grid operators relied on coal for surges in extreme weather, similar to patterns in February 2021 and January 2025, with DOE issuing emergency orders to bypass emissions limits in affected regions.
- Natural gas prices hit a record $30.565/MMBtu amid the storm, leading oil-fired generation to surpass gas in New England temporarily, using stored inventories.
- ISO New England forecasted tightening conditions and narrow margins through early February, with persistent cold driving high energy use and fluctuating fuel sources.
Escalating Myths: Stern Review’s Failed Bet on Rising Disaster Costs
Original article: Bad Science, Big Consequences
Five Key Bullet Points
- The 2006 Stern Review, commissioned by the UK Treasury and led by Sir Nicholas Stern, profoundly influenced global climate policy by framing climate change as an economic emergency requiring significant costs.
- The Review predicted rapid escalation of global disaster losses as a percentage of GDP, projecting up to 2% annual losses by 2015 rising to higher levels by 2050, based on misinterpreted data from a white paper by Muir-Wood et al.
- Actual global disaster losses from 2006 to 2025 totaled about $200 billion annually in 2025 dollars, far below the Review’s forecast of over $500 billion for 2025 and $1.7 trillion by that year, showing consistent undershooting.
- The Review misrepresented the Muir-Wood et al. paper by inflating a 1% increase in losses to 2% and inventing escalating projections not supported by any source, including claiming values were underestimates without evidence.
- Roger Pielke Jr. identified these flaws in a peer-reviewed paper, highlighting cherry-picking and misrepresentation, which were ignored, contributing to persistent issues in climate science self-correction and policy foundations.
Four Trillion Spent on Wind and Solar, Yet Fossil Fuels Surge Ahead
Original Article: The Energy Transition Isn’t
Five Key Bullet Points
- Despite $4.1 trillion spent on wind and solar globally from 2004-2022, hydrocarbon consumption grew 3.4 times faster (110 EJ vs. 32 EJ), with hydrocarbons still providing 82% of global primary energy in 2022.
- In the U.S., $591 billion invested in wind and solar was outpaced by hydrocarbon growth, with natural gas use rising 5.4% in 2022 to a record 85.3 billion cubic feet per day, and net hydrocarbon growth 1.9 times wind and solar combined.
- Wind and solar grew rapidly (13-24% in 2022), meeting most global electricity growth (645 TWh), but electricity is only about 20% of final energy demand, allowing hydrocarbons to dominate overall energy use.
- Claims of an ongoing energy transition are driven by media campaigns and NGOs like Rocky Mountain Institute, funded by dark money (e.g., $115 million revenue in 2022), promoting narratives despite rising global CO2 emissions led by China, India, and some U.S. emissions increases.
- Hydrocarbons prevail due to energy density, cost, and reliability; the author suggests redirecting funds to nuclear for a meaningful transition.
Truth comment:
Our modern societies run on energy, and fossil fuels provide more than 80% of the world’s energy. People who use more energy eat better, live better, and have more prosperity. We cannot get full-time, on-demand electricity from wind and solar. No matter how much we spend. Adding them only increases the costs of electricity dramatically. California, Germany, and the United Kingdom are prime examples paying double or even triple our national average for electricity. This harms businesses (causes job losses) and inflates costs in these places.
From Ice Ages to Floods: Alarmists’ Wrong Calls Pile Up
Original Article: Climate Alarmists Are Often Wrong But Never in Doubt
Five Key Bullet Points
- Climate alarmists make dire predictions with certainty, yet fail to materialize, such as 1970s cooling to a mini-ice age, the 1989 U.N. claim of nations wiped out by 2000 from sea levels, Al Gore’s 2009 prediction of Arctic ice disappearance by 2016, and the 2000 claim of British children not knowing snow.
- Glacier National Park glaciers were predicted to vanish by 2020-2030 or 2050, but some now expected to persist into the 2100s; New York City was forecasted to submerge under water post-Hurricane Irene in 2011, but this did not occur.
- Despite failed predictions, alarmists continue claiming rising temperatures will cause more rainfall, storms, droughts, or floods, with U.N. officials insisting on immediate action to avoid severe consequences.
- Noah Kaufman, a climate change believer, criticizes time-and-date specific predictions for lacking credibility, as models’ assumptions yield varying results, and full effects are unknowable, calling for a more comfortable public discussion.
- The article advocates for respectful dialogue among climate skeptics and believers to lower tensions, noting that alarmists’ holier-than-thou attitudes undermine their cause.
