“Upstream fossil fuel extraction productivity … gains are sufficient to outweigh much larger improvements in renewables generation. [R]enewables productivity gains must exceed fossil gains by approximately 4–5× for net emissions to break even: each 1% marginal productivity gain in fossil fuels requires 4–5% gains in renewables.” (Nature Portfolio, below)
When the climate alarmists/forced energy transformationists bow to reality, it is worth noting. The latest example is a setback to the governmental push for wind, solar, and batteries in place of consumer-driven oil, gas, and coal. Instead of “energy transition” and “Net Zero,” the reality is, to use a term of Alex Epstein, fossil future.
“AI-driven Productivity Gains Enable More CO₂ Emissions than They Avoid in a Global Energy–Economy Model,” (Nature Portfolio: August 4, 2026) goes from climate alarmism to energy reality.…
“Absent [climate] policy steering [intervention], AI’s modeled effects increase the carbon intensity of the global economy and reinforce fossil fuel incumbency—outcomes that current analytical and governance frameworks do not fully capture.” (Nature Portfolio, below)
Age-old fears of declining fossil fuel supply and falling demand have, once again, been upended by the engines of progress. The anti-CO2 crusade, futile and wasteful, has been set back again. Tsvetana Paraskova’s “AI Could Make Big Oil Even Bigger” (OilPrice.com: August 18, 2026) gives the supply-side story:
AI could strengthen fossil fuels, with oil and gas productivity gains potentially outweighing emissions savings from renewables.
Ed. Note: This week marks the 55th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s 90-day wage and price order of August 15, 1971. With extensions, maximum prices caused oil shortages beginning in 1972. More shortages with the Arab Embargo of October 1973 ensured passage of the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act of 1973, which continued federal price and allocation controls until President Reagan’s decontrol order in early 1981. This post adds to the historical record of one of the greatest peacetime energy policy failures in U.S. history.
A while back, Alex Tabarrok with Tyler Cowen recorded “Oil Shocks, Price Controls and War” at the Marginal Revolution website. They advertised it:
Our second podcast on the 1970s titled Oil Shocks, Price Controls and War is now available! Here’s one bit:
…Tabarrok: …Sheikh Ahmed Yamani, in a famous statement, he was the oil minister for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he’s a leader of OPEC, he says on October 16th, this is 10 days after the war begins, “This is a moment for which I have been waiting for a long time.