Ed. note: CNN’s January 22, 2026, headline–“Extreme winter storm threat sparks historic natural gas spike”–painted begs for the proverbial rest of the story, presented below by Allen Brooks at Energy Musings.
“For those of us who lived through Uri and are still paying for its cost, the uproar over last week’s gas price jump is somewhat laughable. Yes, gas prices jumped to a high of $5.28/Mcf. However, during Uri, spot gas prices soared to $23/Mcf, while power prices were capped at $9,000 per megawatt-hour (MWh).”
Yes, natural gas futures prices rose from $2.70 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) on Monday to close the week at $5.28, a jump of 96%. Just between the close of trading on Thursday and Friday’s close, the gas price rose by over 47%.…
Continue ReadingEd. note: The current cold snap (“where is global warming when you need it?”) makes timely a review of the Texas electricity debacle of February 2021. This post by Robert Bradley, “Wind, Solar, and the Great Texas Blackout: Guilty as Charged,” was originally published by the Institute for Energy Research. As of 5 pm yesterday, natural gas and coal supplied about 75 percent of Texas’s electricity (ERCOT scoreboard) and wind/solar 17 percent (versus 50 percent of rated capacity).
“Central planning for a forced energy transformation produced the debacle of debacles two years ago in Texas. It is time for a new era for U.S. electricity policy premised on market entrepreneurship.”
Electricity specialists at the University of Texas at Austin recently revisited the Great Texas Blackout of February 2021.…
Continue Reading“Will Rebecca F. Eliott dare investigate the other side of her favored arguments and dare again, alter her perspective? Will her readers and the New York Times allow her to do so? The times are a changing….”
An article in the New York Times last month on Harold Hamm was in the long tradition of Big Oil, Big Politics, Big Corruption. “The Oilman Who Pushed Trump to Go All In on Fossil Fuels” (December 12, 2025) was authored by Eric Lipton and Rebecca F. Eliott.
Eliott’s bio is titled “I cover energy for The New York Times” and reads in part:
… Continue Reading“Many of my stories explore how energy shapes — and is shaped by — politics and economic policy…. I joined The Times in 2024 from The Wall Street Journal [and] … The Houston Chronicle…..”