A new report from McKinsey & Company, the “Global Energy Perspective,” lays bare what many of us – dismissed as “climate deniers” – have been asserting all along: Coal, oil and natural gas will continue to be the dominant sources of global energy well past 2050.
The McKinsey outlook for 2025 sharply adjusts prior projections. Last year, the management consultant’s models had coal demand falling 40% by 2035. Today, McKinsey projects an uptick of 1% over the same period. The dramatic reversal is driven by record commissioning of coal-fired power plants in China, unexpected increases in global electricity use, and the lack of viable alternatives for industries like steel, chemicals and heavy manufacturing.
The report states that the three fossil fuels will still supply up to 55% of global energy in 2050, a forecast that looks low to me. Today’s share for hydrocarbons is more than 60% for electricity generation and more than 80% for primary energy consumption.
In any case, McKinsey’s report confirms what seasoned energy analysts and pragmatic policymakers have long maintained: The energy transition will not be swift, simple, or governed solely by climate targets. In fact, this energy transition will not happen at all without large scale deployment of nuclear, geothermal or other technological innovations that prove practical.
In places such as India, Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the top energy priorities are access, affordability and reliability, which together add up to national security. Planners are acutely aware of a trap: Sole reliance on weather-dependent power risks blackouts, industrial disruption, economic decline and civil unrest.
That is why many developing nations are embracing a dual track: continued investment in conventional generation (coal, gas, nuclear) while developing alternative technologies. McKinsey says this in consultancy lingo: “Countries and regions will follow distinct trajectories based on local economic conditions, resource endowment, and the realities facing particular industries.”
In countries like India, Indonesia and Nigeria, the scale of electrification and industrial expansion is enormous. These countries cannot afford to wait decades for perfect solutions. They need “reliable and good enough for now.” That means conventional fuels will be retained.
McKinsey’s analysis also underscores what physics and engineering dictate: Intermittent and weather-dependent sources, such as wind and solar, require vast land areas, backup batteries and generation and power-grid investments, none of which come cheaply nor quickly.
The technologies of wind and solar branded as renewable should instead be called economy killers. They make for expensive and unstable electrical systems that have brought energy-rich nations like Germany to their knees. After spending billions of dollars on unreliable wind turbines and solar panels and demolishing nuclear plants and coal plants, the country is struggling with high prices and economic stagnation.
The Germans now have a word for their self-inflicted crisis: Dunkelflaute. It means “dark doldrums”—a period of cold, sunless, windless days when their “green” grid fails. During a Dunkelflaute in November 2024, fossil fuels were called on to provide 70% of Germany’s electricity.
If “renewables” were truly capable, planners would shut down fossil fuel generation. But that is not the case. While wind and solar are pursued in some places, coal and natural gas remain much sought-after fuels. In the first half of 2025 alone, China commissioned about 21 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired capacity, which is more than any other country and the largest increase since 2016.
Further, China has approved construction of 25 GW of new coal plants in the first half of 2025. As of July, China’s mainland has nearly 1,200 coal plants, far outstripping the rest of the world.
McKinsey points to a dramatic surge in electricity demand driven by data centers, which is estimated to be about 17 % annually from 2022 to 2030 in the 38 OECD countries. This kind of growth in electricity use simply cannot be met by wind and solar.
When analysts, journalists and engineers point out these realities, they’re branded as “shills” for the fossil fuel industry. However, it is not public relations to point out the physics and economics that make up the math for meeting the world’s energy needs. Dismissing such facts is to deny that reliable energy remains the bedrock of modern civilization.
The cost of foolish “green” policies is being paid in lost jobs, ruined businesses, disrupted lives and impoverishment that could have been avoided by wiser choices.
For those who have repeated energy realities for years, the vindication is bittersweet. The satisfaction of being right is tempered by the knowledge that many have suffered because reality has been ignored.
Vijay Jayaraj is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation andScience and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Va. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
During a 12-minute video appearance at the 2025 Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) Conference held in London, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told the audience that “Net zero by 2050 “is a sinister goal.”
That is a bold statement, especially given that it was delivered to an audience sitting in the United Kingdom, where both major political parties that have traditionally governed the country – the Conservative “Tories” and the far-left Labour Party – have spent the past decade pushing their country to meet its net zero goals as if it were a matter of religious faith. Regardless of the obvious negative economic and social consequences that have been heaped upon UK citizens, and equally obvious futility of the entire effort, leaders of both parties have kept the country on this ruinous path.
As Wright went on to point out, net zero by 2050 is “both unachievable by any practical means, but the aggressive pursuit of it…has not delivered any benefits, but it’s delivered tremendous costs.” This is objectively true, the most painful example being the rapid deindustrialization of the formerly strong British economy and the accompanying rapacious condemnation of thousands of acres of arable lands to become home to huge wind and solar installations.
As Wright points out, “no one’s going to make an energy-intensive product in the United Kingdom anymore.” A clear object lesson in that reality came in September when venerable steelmaker Tata Steel shut down the last existing steelmaking plant in the UK.
Climate zealots in both major parties celebrated that event, but we must ask what there really is to celebrate? Sure, the Labour politicos get to virtue signal about the elimination of X tons of carbon dioxide emissions, but in a global sense, that’s meaningless. The UK still needs steel – the only difference now is that the steel that used to be made by highly-paid workers in domestic mills will now be imported steel made by poverty waged workers in Pakistan, China and other mainly Asian countries.
Meanwhile, the emissions created by making the steel in those other countries with lower environmental regulations will be far larger than from steel that used to be made in the UK. As Wright pointed out at the ARC conference, “This is not energy transition. This is lunacy.”
He isn’t wrong.
On Feb. 13, the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) published a report showing that construction of new coal-fired power plants in China reached a ten-year high in 2024. CREA finds that “China approved 66.7 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity in 2024, with approvals picking up in the second half after a slower start to the year.” It all belies the favored narrative on the political left that China is leading the world in converting its power systems to renewables. In reality, the expansion of its coal sector may actually be accelerating again.
That renewed Chinese focus on expanding its coal power fleet is driven in large part by the zealous focus by globalist leaders in the UK and other western countries – Germany is another great example – on deindustrializing their own economies to satisfy their obsession over atmospheric plant food.
The making of steel and other heavy industrial processes requires reliable, affordable power generation that runs 24 hours every day, 7 days every week. Whether politicians like it or not, coal is the fuel that most reliably and consistently meets all those tests.
Thus, if China and other Asian nations are destined to inherit all the heavy industries being killed off by virtue signaling Western nations, they will need many more coal power plants to power them. This really isn’t complicated.
Meanwhile, the UK can no longer manufacture its own steel or myriad other industrial products that are essential to modern human existence. If the Labour government continues its policy of condemning vast swaths of British farmland to house more and more wind and solar sites, the kingdom will soon no longer be able to even feed its people.
All to satisfy this odd religious dogma based on an obsession over plant food. Lunacy, indeed.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
“It’s an absolutely sh*t situation.” That is the assessment of Norway’s energy minister, Terje Aasland, about his country’s electricity costs rising to record levels due to its exports of power to the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and other European countries.
It is an outcome that many warned the Norwegian government would come about as the decisions were made to build the interconnects to export power into the European Union and the UK. Those critics were of course ignored as those in charge of Norway’s fortunes at the time felt compelled to genuflect to the demands of the EU and other globalist organizations.
Norway derives the vast majority of its electricity from hydropower, which currently provides 90% of the country’s power generation. Most of the remainder comes from wind power, and the nation enjoys a large excess of generating capacity on most days. Thus, all other factors being equal, it made some financial sense to establish those interconnects to sell the surplus into other countries.
But it only made sense when those other countries were taking care to ensure the continuing health and adequacy of their own electric grids. That certainly has not been the case in either the UK or Germany, whose governments have in recent years chosen to discard a former wealth of reliable baseload capacity provided by coal and nuclear plants in favor of relying too heavily on intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar.
Now, when the wind stops blowing and the sun isn’t shining, those customers of Norwegian power exports drain the host country’s surplus, causing the extremely high energy costs to flow back upstream, hitting Norwegians with abnormally high utility bills. It all came to a head this week when low wind speeds, combined with abnormally cold temperatures on the European mainland, caused power rates in Norway to spike to as high as €1.12 ($1.18) per kilowatt hour (kwh).
By comparison, the average electricity rate per kwh in New York is around 22 cents, while Texans typically pay around 15 cents per kwh. What that price spike meant for Norwegians on December 12 is that taking a 5-minute warm shower would have cost them $5. Doing the same in Texas would have cost around 16 cents.
Naturally, public outrage in Norway over these needlessly high electricity rates is now causing policymakers there to run for political cover. The Financial Times reports that both the ruling leftwing Labour Party and conservative Progress Party are now making plans to campaign next year on platforms to limit or end the export of electricity via these international interconnections.
That is a prospect that no doubt sparks fear in the hearts of the central planners in both Germany and the UK, where electricity imports from Norway play a central role in their own emissions reduction plans. Those plans involve the willful destruction of reliable baseload power stations and forcing power costs to dramatically increase, which in turn results in heavy industries like steelmaking and other manufacturing to leave the country. In that way, these governments are essentially exporting their emissions to China, whose own government is only too happy to serve as home to these heavy industries and power them with the hundreds of coal-fired power plants they build each year.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats have pursued essentially the same strategies in California in this century, with predictable results: Californians pay among the highest power rates in the United States as their power grid has become overloaded with intermittent generation and increasingly reliant on imports from other states. Rather than exporting its emissions to China, California exports them to Nevada and Utah and other U.S. states.
The Biden administration has attempted to take the entire country down this same economically ruinous path for the past four years. Fortunately, voters awakened just in time this year to head off the most damaging impacts now being seen in Germany and the UK.
For Norway, is this an example of the law of unintended consequences setting in? Sure, to some extent. But it is also a clear example of entirely foreseeable consequences stemming from poor policymaking by multiple national governments flowing across borders. This “sh*t situation” was all avoidable, and frankly should have been.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
Is the much-hyped “energy transition” starting to crumble at its foundations now? In recent weeks we have seen the following:
Ford Motor Company warns investors its electric vehicle division will lose $4.5 billion in 2023;
Reports that China has commissioned another 50 GW of new coal-fired electricity generation capacity;
The British government led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak beginning to back away from absurdly aggressive transition timelines amid public outcry over rising energy bills and other deprivations;
The German government continuing to reactivate mothballed coal plants and facilitating new mining for coal;
The Scottish government forced to admit it has facilitated the felling of 16 million trees in this century to make way for new wind farms;
The Japanese government moving to reinvigorate its own coal-fired power sector;
Global demand for crude oil rapidly growing and outpacing supply growth, surprising all the supposed experts;
The U.S. Department of Energy forced to admit its initial estimate of consumer “savings” from converting from gas stoves to more expensive electric models was grossly overstated.
This list could go on and on, but the macro view is clear: Everywhere one looks, the aggressive timelines and heavily subsidized plans for a rapid transition are falling apart. Nowhere is the dynamic becoming clearer than in the wind industry.
In an Aug. 7 report titled “Wind Industry in Crisis as Problems Mount,” the Wall Street Journal catalogues $30 billion in planned investments in new wind projects in the U.S. and elsewhere that have now been delayed due to an expanding variety of factors. “After months of warnings about rising prices and logistical hiccups, developers and would-be buyers of wind power are scrapping contracts, putting off projects and postponing investment decisions,” the story says, emphasizing that the problems are becoming especially severe in the offshore wind business that has been so heavily promoted by the Biden administration.
I wrote a story in July detailing the fact that some of the so-called “Big Oil” companies have recently made big inroads into the offshore wind business, winning bids in the U.S. and Germany for licenses to develop large projects. But the Journal’s story quotes Anders Opedal, CEO of Norwegian oil giant Equinor, saying, “At the moment, we are seeing the industry’s first crisis.”
Along with British oil major BP, Equinor has plans in place to develop three wind farms off the Atlantic coast of New York, but recently warned state officials they would need to renegotiate power prices or the projects would not be able to obtain the needed financing. This demand by the two oil companies echoed a call by traditional wind developer Orsted in June for more subsidies from the U.K. government if its planned projects in the North Sea are to remain viable.
Make no mistake about it: Developing these offshore wind projects doesn’t come cheap. Orsted pulled out of a competitive bidding auction in Germany last month for government licenses to develop 7 GW of new offshore wind capacity when BP and French oil major TotalEnergies ran the final bids up to almost $14 billion.
“Orsted very deliberately chose not to pay record high concession prices for new offshore projects in Germany,” Orsted CEO Mads Nipper said in a post on LinkedIn. Orsted objected to the process that awarded the licenses based on the willingness of developers to pay the government for the right to develop — the same process used in oil and gas leasing all over the world — rather than the government offering more and more subsidies to incentivize development.
Therein lies the central conundrum for this subsidized transition: At some point, wind, like solar, electric vehicles and all the other rent-seeking solutions being promoted in this energy transition will have to become viable without an expectation of permanently rising subsidies, since governments already seeing their credit ratings downgraded due to overwhelming debt won’t be able to just keep printing money forever.
But, at the present moment, the business models in play do not appear to be headed for that outcome. And that’s why this energy transition seems to be falling off the rails.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
