Energy Aware

A System Failure is Not an Oil Bull Market

By Art Berman | March 27, 2026

Oil is likely to surge to extreme highs in 2026, but that does not mark the beginning of a long-term structural bull market. It’s a wartime spike inside a debt-saturated…

Shell Names the Risks and Discounts Them to Zero

By Art Berman | February 17, 2026

Shell describes the world we live in, models a different one, and doesn’t seem to notice the mismatch. Its 2026 Energy Security Scenarios lays out the constraints of our planetary…

Complexity’s Revenge: Electric Power and AI

By Art Berman | January 25, 2026

We need gas. We need nuclear. We need it all. We need it now. That was Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s message on surging U.S. power demand. It sounds decisive. It’s…

The Sunset of the Renewable Dream

By Art Berman | December 7, 2025

The energy transition is collapsing—not in headlines, but in economics. What began as a hopeful vision for a cleaner future has become an economic bust. While markets and workers sense…

The False Promise of Enhanced Geothermal

By Art Berman | December 3, 2025

Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are advertised as a breakthrough: clean, firm power anywhere, unlocked by drilling and fracking technologies borrowed from shale. The story sounds great. The economics are disastrous.…

The Nuclear Golden Calf

By Art Berman | November 27, 2025

As our economic, social and environmental problems worsen, nuclear energy has resurfaced as the way out of our planetary crisis. Its appeal is strong — high energy density and zero-carbon…

The Long Twilight of Growth

By Art Berman | November 20, 2025

The International Energy Agency made headlines last week by admitting that oil demand isn’t peaking. That got everyone’s attention but the agency’s outlook was nearly identical to last year’s version:…

Energy Reality: What Can’t (and Won’t) Happen

By Art Berman | October 26, 2025

A French court found TotalEnergies guilty last week of misleading investors about renewable energy. The oil and gas company was fined for “misleading commercial practices” — basically for telling the…

Iceland’s Renewable Dreams, Fossil Realities

By Art Berman | August 6, 2025

I just returned from ten days in Iceland, drawn by the geology and stark beauty. What I found was more than scenery—it was a case history in climate change, collapse,…

The Limits of Business-as-Usual in AEO 2025

By Art Berman | April 29, 2025

The EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2025 provides a solid baseline for understanding U.S. energy trends, but it’s built on a business-as-usual framework that filters out geopolitical, financial, governance, and ecological…

We Wanted a New World—Just Not This One

By Art Berman | March 25, 2025

The world is changing fast, and the public is uneasy. Gallup’s World Happiness Report shows that the major powers—China, the U.S., India, Russia—are less happy than they were 15 years…

What Will Energy Dominance Be Used For?

By Art Berman | February 11, 2025

The energy part of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s “3-3-3” plan aims to boost U.S. oil production by 3 million barrels/day by 2028, reinforcing Trump’s Energy Dominance push. But can it…