After many years of slow market penetration, electric vehicles are finally hitting their stride in 2026 thanks to soaring oil prices, a more robust selection of affordable options, and favorable policies. Even V2G is finally off the starting line. Oil-burners are getting left in the dust.
Advocates and researchers of the energy transition are woefully ill-equipped to do battle with the fossil fuel industry. In this monologue, Chris identifies what’s needed and what’s missing, then reinforces those points with excerpts from a recent conversation with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
The bipartisan permitting reform bill would remove key hurdles to the energy transition—especially hurdles to siting transmission—and unlock vast amounts of wind and solar power. On the whole, it would be a net benefit to the climate and the energy transition.
Just as soaring food prices resulted in the Arab Spring, soaring fuel prices today could spell doom for petrostate leaders. In its pursuit of 'energy dominance' through oil and gas production, the Trump administration is giving the world ample reason to transition away from fossil fuels.
In NN#9, we welcome Steve McBee, founder of AMPED, “the political and cultural infrastructure the clean energy industry never built.” We discuss how the clean energy industry needs to organize to do battle with the fossil fuel industry and win on every level—from popular opinion to federal policy.
Before Big Tech gets much farther along in their heedless pursuit of gas-powered data centers, we ought to have a proper public debate about whether having AI is worth throwing the climate under the bus.
Batteries are being deployed at a record pace all over the world, helping to soak up wind and solar generation instead of curtailing it, while helping to stabilize the grid and push fossil fuels off it. But the boom is really just beginning.
In NN#8, Chris finally invites a guest to join the podcast rather than just sharing his own views. He cordially welcomes Dr. Emily Grubert to the show to discuss their respective complaints about deficiencies in energy and climate modeling, and how they might be cured.
The bulk of renewable energy and storage capacity added to the grid thus far has been from large, utility-scale systems. But the potential for smaller distributed energy resources (DERs) is enormous, and some regions of the world are figuring out how to unlock it.
Most media organizations are still failing to make the critical link between climate change and the wildfires, record heat, and other climate disasters we are witnessing, but a few are getting it right. And new research offers further guidance on effective climate messaging.
It’s time for energy and climate modelers to start trying to tell the world what’s likely to happen, and show them how to phase out fossil fuels completely.
As data centers continue to be built across the US and elsewhere, popular resistance to them is mounting in reaction to rising grid power costs and resource demands. Accordingly, regulators and legislators are finally beginning to respond.
The summer of 2026 is bringing the most compelling argument yet for the energy transition: Intolerable, deadly, damaging heat.
Much of the world is backsliding on their climate commitments just when we need them to be increasing their ambition, but taking action when it’s difficult is the name of the game.
A selection of new tools and databases offer excellent free resources for energy transition researchers, modelers, and advocates.
Climate and energy transition campaigners are softening their language and avoiding confrontation when they should be increasing their ambition and vigorously delivering messages that are proven to work.
While the Trump administration has embroiled itself in multiple military conflicts in pursuit of an “energy dominance” based on the fuels that are getting rapidly phased out, China is seizing the opportunity to dominate in the energy transition solutions that are displacing them.
The American Century is over and the Asian Century is rising rapidly. But much of the Western policy establishment still hasn’t noticed.
Four recent reports detail how the energy transition is continuing to accelerate, with wind and solar utterly dominating new generation capacity, electrification expanding, and fossil fuels getting phased out.
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is suddenly vogue again. But its business case is as bad as it’s ever been. So why now?
