The energy conversation moves fast. Finding the facts shouldn’t take all day. NCEA Energy Chat puts research, sources, and context in one place. See the NCEA research behind an answer. Read the exact passage. Explore related media. Put current headlines in context. Save the conversation and come back when you’re ready. Try it: ai.energyanalytics.org #EnergyChat

Europe and the U.K. are legally bound to net zero. The U.S. nearly was too. In a new op-ed for @theammind, NCEA Senior Fellow @RupertDarwall traces how close the country came and why it changed course. Cap-and-trade stalled in the Senate, the Supreme Court limited EPA’s authority, and the ESG push retreated under antitrust pressure and market losses. Darwall argues the 2024 election ended America’s commitment to net zero, leaving a widening divide with Europe. In his NCEA issue brief, he goes further, examining what Europe’s net-zero commitment means for its ability to fund its own defense. Op-ed: americanmind.org/salvo/ameri… Brief: energyanalytics.org/research…

NCEA Energy Chat shows the research behind its answers. Open the Sources panel to review the NCEA publications and original sources connected to an answer. Related media is labeled separately—and the chat says when NCEA research doesn’t address a question. Ask your first question: ai.energyanalytics.org/

Golf courses use roughly 30 times more water than all planned data centers combined. That’s one of several data center myths NCEA Executive Director @MarkPMills took apart this week on Chicago’s @MorningAnswer with Dan Proft, as Illinois’ gubernatorial candidates debate whether to restrict new data centers. On electricity prices, Mills said the data don’t show data centers driving up rates. Increases trace mainly to wind and solar mandates, and states with significant data center buildout have often seen flat or falling rates. On water, ethanol production uses about 200 times more water per gallon than gasoline. On land, U.S. warehouse space for retail and grocery delivery is roughly 100 times larger than all planned data center square footage. His bottom line: existing regulations are generally sufficient, enforcement is the real issue, and developers should cover the full cost of the power infrastructure they need rather than shifting it onto ratepayers. Data centers have quietly supported everyday life for decades. Policy should rest on the numbers, not the myths. Listen to the full interview 👇 morninganswerchicago.com/mar…

America uses 1.6 million tons of copper a year and produces about 585,000. Opening a new mine takes an average of 17 years. What fills the gap in the meantime? In a new @_RCEnergy op-ed, NCEA Visiting Fellow Michelle Michot Foss argues copper policy is starting from the wrong question. Industries don’t need copper for its own sake. They need conductivity, strength, thermal performance, or low weight. In some applications, like aircraft signal cables and EMI shielding, advanced carbon materials made in Houston can deliver that with less weight. The obstacle is qualification and procurement systems built around incumbents. Copper will remain essential. But it doesn’t need to be the default answer in every application. For the bigger picture, NCEA’s critique of the IEA’s critical minerals outlook found a projected 30% copper shortfall by 2035 left largely unexamined, while China handles more than half of global copper refining. Read the op-ed: realclearenergy.org/articles… NCEA report: energyanalytics.org/research…

In 2006, Western leaders at the G8 summit agreed that fossil fuels would meet roughly 80% of the world's growing energy demand. By 2009, G8 leaders were calling for a "global green recovery." In our new issue brief, Net Zero and the West's Holiday from History, NCEA Senior Fellow @RupertDarwall traces how climate policy came to take precedence over energy security in the West, and what that shift means as competition with China and Russia intensifies. The largest energy boom on record came from entrepreneurs, not governments: in just 10 years, U.S. shale added more production than Saudi Arabia's entire oil and gas output. After the Copenhagen talks failed, the Paris Agreement left Western nations with ever-steeper emissions cuts while the Global South remained exempt. Then energy security returned. European gas prices climbed from under $20/MWh in early 2021 to more than $150/MWh by December, and in 2022 the S&P 500 energy sector rose 59% while BlackRock's ESG-screened fund fell 21.9%. Today, the U.S. has stepped back from net zero, while the EU and U.K. remain legally committed, even as they face rising defense commitments. For nearly two decades, the West treated energy security as a settled question. The return of geopolitics suggests it never was. 🔗energyanalytics.org/research…

The federal government just called two Indiana coal plants back to work. On Sept. 19, DOE directed two Indiana coal plants slated for closure to stay available through Dec. 18, citing elevated reliability risks in the Midwest. Electricity demand is climbing fast, while new generation and transmission are stuck in permitting and construction delays. In that gap, the plants we already have are worth a lot. In their new @_RCEnergy op-ed, "Coal's Real Value Is Optionality," NCEA's Deputy Executive Director @portiamills and Visiting Fellow @lars_schernikau explain why coal keeps proving its worth: ▪️Months of fuel can be stockpiled on-site, giving grid operators a backstop when demand spikes, gas prices jump, or wind and solar underperform. ▪️Coal plants supply the synchronous generation that keeps the grid stable, which wind and solar can't provide. ▪️The world never stopped using it. Global coal demand hit a record in 2025, and China added more coal capacity than Europe has left. The Indiana order warns against energy subtraction, which shuts down reliable plants long before the grid has anything to replace them. 🔗realclearenergy.org/articles…

Before the Strait of Hormuz closed, forecasters warned that 20% of the world's petroleum would be largely removed from the market. After it closed, they predicted $200 oil and a global recession. The reality proved more complicated. Key lessons from the crisis: Infrastructure matters. Strategic reserves and bypass pipelines helped as much as 70% of Persian Gulf oil reach markets through much of the initial closure. Markets are more adaptable than expected. Producers rerouted shipments, and China cut its crude imports by nearly 4 million barrels a day in the second quarter. Global energy trade is shifting. Record U.S. production and expanding Western Hemisphere supply are reshaping markets, and the Western Hemisphere now produces 40% of the world's oil. Energy security requires long-term planning. The U.S. SPR is down to 285 million barrels, and rebuilding it is long overdue. Our new issue brief, New Energy Lessons and Realities from the Hormuz Crisis, by NCEA Senior Fellow @MatthewTMcManus and Research Associate Parth Sarthi Bajaj, breaks down what the crisis revealed about the future of energy security. Read it or listen in 13 minutes: energyanalytics.org/research…

Has the world grown complacent about energy security? Senior Fellow @NeilAtkinson58 believes it has, and that the war in the Middle East has made the cost of that complacency clear. In the latest Energy Future Now, Atkinson joins RealClear's Maggie Miller to examine how the conflict is reshaping global energy investment. Beyond gasoline prices, the war has exposed vulnerabilities across the entire oil product complex, including diesel, the workhorse of the global economy. Atkinson outlines three essential takeaways: the war is redirecting capital toward new production, storage, pipelines, and LNG infrastructure; diversification through expanded supply from the Americas, renewables, and nuclear will take years rather than months; and lasting energy security will require greater redundancy, from larger inventories to spare capacity the world may never need to use. "Middle East war is changing the debate from energy transition alone to energy resilience, where energy is produced, how it moves, and how much backup the world is willing to pay for." Energy Future Now is a series from @_RCEnergy and the National Center for Energy Analytics, offering timely conversations on markets, policy, and technology in energy. 🔗energyanalytics.org/now

In case you missed it yesterday: Visiting Fellow @CurtisSchube testified before the Texas Senate Committee on Natural Resources on a liability most people haven't thought about: who pays when wind and solar sites reach the end of their life. His recommendation: Texas should require financial assurance, in irrevocable form, before a project begins (not year 10 or 20, as current law allows), and set a firm statutory minimum instead of relying on a company-hired engineer's estimate. Why it matters: turbine blades, foundations, and solar panels (which contain lead and cadmium) are costly to dispose of, and most facilities haven't even reached end-of-life yet. Blade waste alone is projected to hit 2.2 million tons by 2050. It's not hypothetical. Texas has already seen ~3,000 abandoned turbine blades force an AG lawsuit, plus Chapter 11 filings from two Texas wind and solar companies. The research behind it: renewable energy financial assurance laws averaged a 1.18 GPA nationally (1 A, 26 failing), versus 3.40 for oil and gas (26 As). Texas scored a C for renewables, an A for oil and gas. Read the full testimony: energyanalytics.org/research… Backed by the full state-by-state research: energyanalytics.org/research…

NERC recently issued a Level 3 Alert, its highest severity level ever, over the risk data center demand poses to America's power grid. It's only the third one ever issued. The numbers behind it: ▪️Dispatchable generation, the power operators can call on when needed, has fallen from 99% of capacity in 2000 to roughly 76% today ▪️More than half the nation's regional grids already have compromised reliability ▪️In July, a 3 GW disconnection near a Virginia data center cluster took operators 10 minutes to resolve ▪️That same month, DOE issued emergency orders just to keep the lights on in DC during a heat wave ▪️NERC's own required fixes may not be complete until 2028 or later. For an emergency alert, that timeline doesn't add up. Our new issue brief, Reliability in the Crosshairs, by NCEA Visiting Fellow Thomas Burgess, a former NERC director of reliability assessment, breaks down how decades of grid decisions collided with a demand surge, and why the fixes underway may already be too slow. 🔗energyanalytics.org/research…

NCEA advisor Julio M. Ottino and Brian Uzzi have a new piece in @FortuneMagazine on a question every leadership team should be asking as AI moves from a tool for doing to a tool for thinking. Their framing: AI can act as a peacemaker or a sensemaker. A peacemaker resolves contradictions and hands back a coherent answer. A sensemaker does the harder thing: it exposes contradictions, surfaces hidden assumptions, and keeps competing interpretations alive long enough to teach us something. Drawing on Meta's "CEO agent" experiment and its Project OT rollout, Ottino and Uzzi make the case that the most efficient AI systems risk becoming sophisticated mirrors, reflecting a leader's own worldview back to them, more articulate and more persuasive, rather than challenging it. Their prompt for leaders evaluating AI tools: does it just make you faster, or does it also make you better at seeing beyond yourself? Read the full piece: fortune.com/2026/09/15/ai-ce…

$3.4 trillion. That's how much the world is projected to invest in energy in 2026. The war in Iran hasn't slowed that number down. It's reshaping where the money goes. In our new issue brief, Energy Investment and the Iran War, NCEA Senior Fellow @NeilAtkinson58 breaks down what the data show: ▪️ Renewables, nuclear, grids, and energy efficiency are expected to account for roughly two-thirds of total global energy investment in 2026. ▪️ Natural gas investment is set to rise more than 10%, to approximately $330 billion, the highest level in ten years. ▪️ Coal investment is projected to reach $180 billion, driven largely by China and heightened energy-security concerns. ▪️ Global grid investment is projected to reach $550 billion, compared with just over $100 billion for power-sector battery storage. The central question is whether the crisis will lead countries to prioritize more diversified, resilient, and secure energy systems. 🔗energyanalytics.org/research…

Senior Fellow Patrick J. McCormick III will testify before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs on Wednesday, September 2 at 10:00 am ET. The hearing, "No Flame, More Pain: How State and Local Bans on Natural Gas Increase Costs," examines the cost impact of state and local restrictions on natural gas. Details and livestream: oversight.house.gov/hearing/…

"Crude oil is useless" — and that's the problem right now. This morning, Senior Fellow @NeilAtkinson58 joined @BBCRadio4's Today program to explain why the Brent crude price is telling you the wrong story about energy markets. Key points: ▪️ Ship-tracking data suggests 6–8 million barrels a day of crude are moving again, but that's only around 50% of pre-war volumes, achieved through ship owners going dark on satellite tracking and transferring cargo between vessels outside the strait. ▪️ Crude oil, in his words, is "in itself useless" — its value is entirely in what it becomes: gasoline, diesel, jet fuel. And that's where the real shortage is. The Middle East normally supplies 4–5 million barrels a day of these refined products, and those exports remain cut off. ▪️ Add in Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, and the global refining industry is running flat out to meet demand. ▪️ The number to watch isn't Brent at ~$90/barrel, it's diesel in Europe, trading close to $170 a barrel. That gap is what eventually shows up in inflation and costs for industry and consumers. These higher product costs feed into industry costs and, from there, into what consumers ultimately pay. Listen to the full clip below. 👇