In 2007, nearly two decades ago, I wrote an article called “The Future Is Solar.” At the time, my argument was largely based on efficiency. I had been comparing biofuels with direct solar energy and noted how much more effectively solar panels could capture the sun’s energy than crops could convert it into liquid fuel. Solar was still expensive, storage was a major challenge, and the world’s energy infrastructure was built around fossil fuels. But the direction seemed clear. It has been a long time coming, but the numbers…

Washington is putting real money behind advanced nuclear. The US Department of Energy is gearing up to hand X-energy another $1 billion for its planned nuclear project with Dow in Texas, bringing total federal funding available for the project since 2021 to as much as $2.15 billion. That is no longer demonstration-project pocket change. CEO Clay Sell said Thursday that DOE had informed X-energy of the additional funding through the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which is intended to move next-generation reactors toward commercial deployment.…

Russia’s diesel and gasoil exports crashed in the first seven days of August to just 80,000 barrels per day (bpd), the lowest in many years, as Moscow extended restrictions on diesel exports amid a fuel crisis triggered by incessant Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries. The multi-year low diesel exports between August 1 and 7, as estimated by data compiled by Bloomberg, are further squeezing the global market of middle distillates, which is much tighter than crude supply. To compare, Russia last year shipped as many as 1 million bpd of…

Oil supply disruptions, high fuel prices and faster battery innovation could give electric vehicle adoption a fresh push, with consequences for oil demand, power grids and metals markets, Wood Mackenzie said Thursday. Wars affecting oil-producing Russia and Iran have exposed governments and consumers to higher fuel prices and supply risks, creating another incentive to invest in EV manufacturing and supply chains, WoodMac said in a new report. Technology is moving quickly, too. China is making progress on five-minute charging as well as sodium-ion…

Despite the ongoing stalemate in the U.S.-Iran talks and persistent risks to shipping in the Middle East, oil prices fell in Asian trading on Thursday, weighed down by cuts to 2026 oil demand forecasts from both OPEC and the International Energy Agency. Brent Crude prices dropped by 0.5% to trade below $89 per barrel at $88.56, easing from the Wednesday intraday high of over $89 a barrel, amid demand concerns and a bearish EIA inventory report. The U.S. benchmark, WTI Crude, traded 0.60% lower at $82.77 in the Asian session. On Wednesday, both…

Bosnia is next on U.S. President Donald Trump’s disruption agenda, and an opaque energy deal riddled with conflicts of interest is at the heart of yet another of Washington’s transactional gambles based on insufficient knowledge.  Since the second half of 2025, the Trump administration has been dismantling key elements of long-running U.S. policy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina, all because it wants a pipeline from Croatia to supply U.S. LNG, with deals brokered by an unknown company run by Trump loyalists collecting on owed favors. …

Did President Zelensky and the Ukrainian armed forces not listen to US Vice President JD Vance's warnings and request after all? On Wednesday a "massive" Ukrainian drone and missile strike was unleashed on Russia's port city of Novorossiysk, which badly damaged grain export terminals at what also constitutes the last major Russian naval base on the Black Sea. Three were killed, including an eight-year-old child, and also 24 people were injured in the Wednesday nighttime attack. Zelensky acknowledged the rocket and underwater…

The longer-than-expected closure of the Strait of Hormuz means that some part of the oil production in the Middle East will remain shut in through the end of next year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) this week. The renewed tensions in the Middle East that began in late July and have been simmering so far in August will keep traffic at Hormuz severely constrained through this month, which has prompted the EIA to hike its third-quarter oil price forecasts as lower supply would…

For decades, the joke was that nuclear fusion was and would always be 30 years away. But a rapid string of breakthroughs over the last five years, catalyzed by privatization and the pressure as well as the support of the AI boom, has changed the calculus and suddenly brought the technology onto a real and achievable timeline. Nuclear fusion is treated as a ‘holy grail’ of clean energy because, if harnessed in a commercially viable and scalable way, it could provide limitless energy production with zero greenhouse gas emissions and negligible…