The Surefire Winner of 2014’s “Silliest Energy Commentary” Award Is…

by William Yeatman on April 17, 2014

in Blog

…”What an Energy Revolution Doesn’t Look Like,” a recent post by The Atlantic’s Alex Madrigal. It begins thusly,

When I started writing about energy in 2007, it seemed like a revolution was on the way! Concern about climate change seemed to be growing and the cost of wind and solar power were declining.

Fast forward six years, and no revolution has come. Instead, the US energy system looks remarkably like it did in 2008.

To recap: An energy beat reporter for The Atlantic wrote a story about the American energy industry over the last 6 years, and his thesis was that there have been no changes in the American energy industry over the last 6 years.

This is, quite obviously, ludicrous. Anyone with a pulse knows that the last six years have witnessed an American energy boom, one that was galvanized by technological breakthroughs in oil and gas drilling, collectively known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Yet there’s no mention of this most conspicuous of revolutions, in a piece titled, “What an Energy Revolution Doesn’t Look Like.”  I understand that the author’s lodestar is Al Gore’s ridiculous promise to convert the electricity generating sector to 100% renewables within 10 years, but even so, Mr. Madrigal must accept the fact that a revolution in the “energy system” did occur. To say otherwise is to have one’s head in the sand, which is a most disagreeable posture for a reporter.

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