Best Energy Picks - December 13, 2025

Readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy.

This week’s best energy picks (emphasis added):

“Legal Battle Could End Greenpeace in the US.” Well, Let’s Certainly Hope So!

This is a very biased article, which is exactly what one should always expect from the likes of MSN, but it cannot hin the ide the fact Energy Transfer is, in contrast to most oil, gas, and pipeline companies is led by a fighter. Three cheers! May Greenpeace slowly wither away, never to return. What it in North Dakota was as shameless as it gets.

Pipeline, which ould ultimately threaten the environmental group’s survival in the US. After a North Dakota jury earlier this year mandated that Greenpeace pay Energy Transfer close to $670 million for alleged trespassing, defamation, and conspiracy tied to pipeline protests, the award was later cut to about $345 million, per the New York Times. Greenpeace USA’s share was reduced to about $280 million, while Greenpeace International, based in Amsterdam, was left owing about $65 million. But the verdict has yet to be finalized, leaving Greenpeace in limbo….

Energy Transfer, led by billionaire Kelcy Warren, insists Greenpeace should be held accountable for what it claims were unlawful protests in 2016 and 2017.

Hat Tip: R.N.

Gas Prices Plunge and Are Less 60% of What They Were Under Biden in 2022

California and Joe Biden are on the “wanted posters” for bad energy policies:

The most common gas price seen by drivers was $2.79 per gallon nationwide, a figure that GasBuddy said was down 20 cents from the previous week…

Diesel prices have also dropped 5.1 cents over the past week, GasBuddy said, and now stand at $3.67 per gallon.

According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline stood at around $2.95 as of Dec. 8…

Currently, California has the highest prices in the nation at $4.46 per gallon, followed by Hawaii at $4.43 and Washington state at $4.10, according to a map from the automotive organization. Oklahoma has the lowest at $2.36 per gallon.

The highest-ever average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas was reached in mid-June 2022 when it topped $5, according to AAA’s figures.

President Donald Trump and administration officials have sought to demonstrate that their policies are working and that Americans are better off than during the previous administration…

Last week, Trump signed a measure to scrap fuel-economy requirements for gas-powered vehicles, known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, in a move that he said would reduce the cost of living for many. Administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have said the current government is dealing with inflation-related problems that were left behind by the previous administration.

Hat Tip: D.S.

Overcapacity That Has To Be Purchased for the Grid Due to the Intermittency of Wind and Solar Is the Issue!

This is what needs to be explained over and over agaion to the public: green energy is destructive by nature because it demands duplication of effort and expense. It’s really that simple and no amount of subsidies will mitigate it. Likewise with battery storage, which is ugly, expensive, inadequate and dangerous. Every dollar put into solar and wind might better be stuffed down a rathole.

Very few publications and articles are really pointing out the overcapacity that has to be purchased for the grid due to the intermittency of wind and solar, and, when you couple that with AC vs DC, you have a recipe for high prices. Toss on some “we will pay you not to produce subsidies,” and you get storage getting paid to sit there.

If you have been a follower of the Energy News Beat Channel, you have heard me rant about the estimated 180 GW name plate capacity of the Texas ERCOT system, and we have had only an estimated 82 GW max load on the Grid in 2025. I understand the value of redundancy and power located near the source, but the overall design of the Texas and, by extension, the US grid is rife with waste.

Hat Tip to David Blackmon on this from the Empowerment Alliance on X. Take a look at the real levelized cost of wind and solar.

Secretary Wright cites the example of California and Florida, arguing that California’s focus on renewable energy has led to much higher electricity prices compared to Florida’s reliance on natural gas.

The alternating current of the United States Grid keeps the lights on, and the cost of running a dual grid lends credibility to the future of microgrids and energy source isolation. We are seeing a total change in distributed management, and successful data centers will be built right on top of the power source, so transmission lines would not have to be added to the costs.

Energy security starts at home, which means we have to look at how our homes and businesses are powered locally. This sounds counterintuitive, but we can use solar, wind, and storage in localized or microgrids that can be managed. Putting them on the AC grid adds layers of costs and complications.

We need to have a hard look at repricing and sourcing of grid responsibilities. The consumers are fixing to get hit hard, and the Democrats are going to blame the Republicans. The Republicans are not going to fix anything under our current Congressional Leaders.

Hat Tip: S.T.

Ginned Up Climate Anxiety Is Fueling the Biggest Crisis of Them All - Demographic Implosion

This crisis has been coming for a very long time. I noticed it in 2006 or so, when it became apparent the senior population in communities I served as a planner was rapidly increasing at the same time school-age populations were plummeting, contrary to the then conventional wisdom that children were a big tax burden due to school costs. The data showed the opposite, and now many are experiencing the problem as schools close. The fears-mongering of the likes of Paul Erlich and the climate cult have been a big factor.

America’s fertility crisis has arrived. The total fertility rate fell from 2.08 births per woman in 1990 to 1.62 in 2023, placing the U.S. 145th globally and well below the replacement level of 2.1.

The shift is stark: in 1990, women under 30 accounted for nearly 70 percent of births; by 2023, that figure dropped below half. Some delayed births are made up later, but many never materialize, leaving the country with a shrinking rising generation and mounting pressure on Social Security and Medicare…

Multiple factors drive this decline, from economic concerns to expanded educational opportunities. But emerging evidence points to another unexpected culprit: climate anxiety. Among U.S. adults under 50 who say they’re unlikely to ever have children, roughly one in four cite environmental concerns, including climate change, as a major reason, according to the Pew Research Center.

Groups calling themselves “Birthstrikers” and members of the “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement” have emerged, convinced that Earth faces imminent climate collapse and that bringing children into such a world would be irresponsible. This represents a profound cultural shift — one that contrasts sharply with America’s historic optimism and family-centered values.

This fear isn’t new. From economist Thomas Malthus in 1798 to Paul Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb” in 1968 and the Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth” in 1972, predictions of population-growth apocalypse have been repeatedly debunked. Food availability rose, commodity prices stabilized and advanced economies improved air and water quality while growing richer — all contrary to their doomsday predictions.

Even so, the neo-Malthusian narrative persists, now repackaged as a climate emergency imperative, with activists claiming we have fewer than 10 years to save the planet from becoming unlivable.

Hat Tip: S.H.

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