Natural gas home heating in New England will be expensive this winter. Utility companies may face energy shortages, resulting in some families seeing monthly utility bills as high as $1,000 per month .

A limited government solution to this problem exists, but it requires politicians to do something noble: stand up to special interest groups and put the people they represent first. If the federal government were to offer a Jones Act waiver for liquefied natural gas imports to New England , it would help negate these rising energy costs.

Europe relied on cheap Russian energy for decades. And Russia was happy to supply low-cost oil and gas to gain political influence over the European Union.

That relationship has now imploded. The EU has finally woken up to the national security risks of relying on an authoritarian neighbor for energy.

But as Europe scrambles to cut its dependence on Russia, it risks further entrenching its reliance on another authoritarian country—China—for solar panels, in its push to tap alternative energy sources.

Battered by skyrocketing gas prices, companies in Europe that make steel, fertilizer and other feedstocks of economic activity are shifting operations to the U.S., attracted by more stable energy prices and muscular government support. 

Burning wood was never supposed to be the cornerstone of the European Union’s green energy strategy.

When the bloc began subsidizing wood burning over a decade ago, it was seen as a quick boost for renewable fuel and an incentive to move homes and power plants away from coal and gas. Chips and pellets were marketed as a way to turn sawdust waste into green power.

Those subsidies gave rise to a booming market, to the point that wood is now Europe’s largest renewable energy source, far ahead of wind and solar.

Authorities responded to a significant fire at the ONEOK natural gas plant close to Medford, Oklahoma, after an explosion was reported over the weekend.

The Grant County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday called on anyone who lives within a two-mile radius of the plant to evacuate Saturday afternoon. It’s not clear for how long.

“Please avoid any travel into or through Medford on U.S. Highway 81 at this time,” the sheriff’s office wrote, adding that at the time, there was an “active incident” at the ONEOK plant.

In 2019, Tesla introduced the Megapack, a battery the size of a shipping container designed to kill coal- and gas-fired “peaker” power plants.

Peaker plants sit idle for most of the day, but fire up to provide extra energy whenever demand for electricity spikes and the power grid can’t keep up. Tesla pitched Megapack batteries as a more climate-friendly alternative to peaker plants because they can store renewable energy when electricity demand is low, and then pump power back onto the grid when demand peaks.

The head of the International Energy Agency has warned that Russia may stop supplying gas to Europe this winter.

Fatih Birol says he believes a complete shutdown is not the most likely scenario but that Europe needs to work on contingency plans just in case.

In recent weeks, several European countries said they received significantly less Russian gas than they expected.

Russian officials deny it's deliberate and have blamed technical issues.

Expanding the use of natural gas and exporting it to allies and other countries is a central pillar to a climate agenda House Republicans unveiled Thursday that runs counter to the overwhelming advice from scientists.

Republicans said they would unveil six elements of their energy and climate plan in the next two months in greater detail.

Vladimir Putin is insisting that 48 “hostile nations“—the US, the UK, and the EU’s members among them—pay for Russian gas in rubles. The demand is more than provocation; it’s a strategy to force the West to dilute the effects of its own sanctions on Moscow.

New buildings in New York will no longer be able to use natural gas if a new law passes the city council this week, following in the footsteps of dozens of smaller U.S. cities attempting to move to alternate forms of energy.

Council members are widely expected to vote on the new measure on Wednesday.