Today's prices were created by yesterday's policies

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DAILY ENERGY NEWS | 12/24/2025

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Data centers are being blamed for price spikes manufactured in statehouses and D.C.

The Washington Post (12/24/25) op-ed: "A growing chorus of news stories warns that artificial intelligence is driving an unprecedented surge in electricity demand, pushing up household bills and straining the grid. The concern is real. U.S. data centers currently consume roughly 4 percent of the nation’s electricity, with projections showing that the figure could climb as high as 12 percent by 2028. It raises the question: If demand is surging and prices are rising, why hasn’t supply kept pace? In an unfettered market, higher prices would trigger a supply response, prompting a rapid increase in investment and construction. Yet, in some states, that isn’t happening. The reason? Building energy infrastructure in the United States today is less an engineering challenge than a bureaucratic endurance test. Today’s prices are affected by yesterday’s policies. It can take up to five years to bring a new natural gas plant online, but construction accountsfor only a small fraction of the time. Natural gas pipelines, which are the primary source of fuel for the U.S. power sector, face the worst delays... Meanwhile, dozens of states have chained themselves to rigid 'net-zero' or 100 percent clean energy mandates in an attempt to cut down on emissions and accelerate a transition to renewable energy sources in the name of fighting climate change... But clean energy mandates are economically impractical. Wind and solar power are variable. This intermittency requires overbuilding capacity and transmission, additional energy storage and backup from 'dispatchable' sources such as coal and natural gas to maintain grid stability and prevent blackouts, all of which add costs. Additionally, the regions with higher prices have closed reliable base load sources; New England shuttered all its coal plants, and New York closed the Indian Point nuclear plant in 2021. Reforming onerous and outdated permitting system and eliminating regulatory barriers to building energy infrastructure are key avenues to increasing energy abundance. Arguably, the most important changes would have to come at the state level by removing net-zero mandates and allowing natural gas and coal to remain viable, competitive energy sources."

"The Biden administration piled on four years of aggressive new standards for nearly every home appliance, including the already-overregulated ones. Climate change became the latest finger on the scale justifying the crackdown... Congress should sunset the appliance standards program entirely, but failing that it can take steps to make it easier to revoke the most troublesome regulations while raising the bar on any additional ones."

– Ben Lieberman, CEI

There's a reason the Grinch is green.

The Daily Caller (12/22/25) op-ed: "New York has mandated that all school bus purchases must be entirely electric by 2027, citing cleaner air, 'better academic outcomes,' a quieter, more peaceful ride for students and staff, among other seemingly bogus reasons. Now that schools across the state are making the transition, one school district in western New York, the Lake Shore Central School District, is confronting a downside: heating. WIVB News 4, a local news outlet in Erie County, New York, has received several calls from parents alleging that their kids come home freezing cold because drivers turn down or completely turn off the heat to save energy for the electric engines. 'The heaters on the bus run off the same electricity as the bus itself,' Scott Ziobro, a local parent, told the outlet. 'They were told that it drains the battery capacity of the bus itself.' Another parent said an electric bus broke down, leaving kids stranded in the cold. 'The bus broke down en route,' parent Chris Lampman told the outlet. 'They deployed a substitute bus, and the bus was more than 30 minutes late. My son stood outside for over 35 minutes waiting for a bus that wasn’t coming. Some of those kids are on there for upwards of a half hour or more while the bus makes its route. There’s no reason that the kids should freeze for all that time.'"

Hydrocarbon superpower.

Rigzone (12/16/25) reports: "The U.S. has emerged as the world’s hydrocarbon superpower, exemplified by its meteoric rise in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. That’s what Wood Mackenzie (WoodMac) said in a statement sent to Rigzone recently, which highlighted several charts that 'spotlight the most significant trends reshaping the [energy and resources] sector globally' and were included in the company’s latest Horizons report... The company noted in the statement that, by 2030, the U.S. is projected to account for 30 percent of global LNG output. A chart included in the statement outlined that the U.S. would continue as the world’s largest LNG exporter in 2030, followed by Qatar and Australia. WoodMac also highlighted in its statement that the U.S. 'leads global oil production (including oil, condensate, and natural gas liquids), delivering one-fifth of the world’s volumes. 'In comparison, its closest competitors, Saudi Arabia and Russia, produce only 65 percent and 50 percent of U.S. volumes, respectively,' it added."