Life: Powered

03/04/2026

On February 12, the EPA rescinded the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding — what the agency called the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history. And Life:Powered helped make it happen.

The original finding was the legal foundation for a wave of sweeping regulations that touched nearly every sector of the economy — from vehicle mandates pushing automakers toward forced electrification, to power plant rules, to methane regulations on oil and gas. The cost to Americans was staggering, and the benefits? Virtually nonexistent.

Life:Powered's research demonstrated that even eliminating ALL U.S. CO₂ emissions would reduce global temperatures by only about 0.05°C — a change too small to even reliably measure. The EPA's final rule adopted that same reasoning, and specifically credited climate modeling consistent with the analysis we submitted.

This is a major win for sound science, affordable energy, and every American family and business burdened by regulations built on a flawed foundation. And it's just the beginning — this decision sets the stage for the Supreme Court to revisit the ruling that classified greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

Read the full breakdown from our team below in the comments 👇

03/04/2026

01/22/2026

Howard Lutnick at Davos 2025: Energy Independence & Economic Sovereignty

Howard Lutnick delivers pointed remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, challenging conventional thinking on energy policy and national sovereignty. Speaking at the very forum he critiques, Lutnick raises fundamental questions about global energy transitions and manufacturing dependencies.

12/10/2025

Five years after Winter Storm Uri, is Texas ready for the next big freeze?

New research from the Texas Public Policy Foundation reveals a troubling pattern: Despite improvements in weatherization and emergency operations, the Texas grid's winter vulnerability is actually getting worse.

Here's what the data shows:
📊 Since 2021, nearly $50 billion has flowed into solar and battery storage—adding 31 GW and 17 GW respectively. But only 2.3 GW of net natural gas capacity was added (source: ERCOT capacity data).

📉 The winter reserve margin has dropped from 17.5% to 10.1%—well below the 15% target most utilities maintain (source: ERCOT MORA reports for January 2025 and 2026).

⚠️ The problem: Solar generates little during winter peak hours (before sunrise and after sunset), and batteries deplete within hours during multi-day cold snaps.

The recent cold snap from November 30-December 2 was a warning shot. If temperatures had been in the teens and twenties instead of the 40s, widespread outages would likely have occurred.
Texas fixed the operational problems from Uri but missed the root cause: a market that continues investing in resources that don't show up when winter storms hit.

The full analysis breaks down the numbers and what needs to change. This is Part 1 of a three-part series on Texas grid reliability.

Read the full report linked in the comments.

11/14/2025

The auto industry is experiencing a major shift. With federal EV subsidies now ended, automakers are rapidly pivoting their strategies—and hybrids are having a moment.

Toyota, which stuck with hybrids while others bet big on all-electric, is now positioned to reap huge rewards. Meanwhile, companies like Volkswagen are scrambling to develop hybrid versions of their bestselling vehicles after consumers and dealers demanded them.

What changed? According to our policy director Dr. Brent Bennett, it wasn't consumer preferences—it was policy. For years, fuel economy regulations and EPA standards shaped what automakers were willing to produce, even when it didn't align with what buyers actually wanted.

The takeaway: When markets, not mandates, drive innovation, we might get closer to solutions that actually work for American families.

Read Dr. Bennett's full analysis on what this shift means for the future of the auto industry and why his grandfather (a former GM engineer) saw this coming two decades ago.

What's your take—are hybrids the smart middle ground, or is this just a temporary detour on the road to electric?

Full article linked in comments.

11/13/2025

The Hidden Challenge Behind America's AI Boom

As artificial intelligence reshapes the economy, it's creating an unexpected crisis: our electrical grid isn't ready for it.

New analysis reveals data center electricity demand could more than triple by 2030—from 25 GW to over 80 GW. In Texas alone, if all proposed data centers were built, they would consume nearly as much power as the entire state grid uses today.

But it's not just about the volume. A 2024 incident in Virginia saw 1,500 MW of data center loads suddenly disconnect across 60 different points—equivalent to three large power plants going offline at once.

The article breaks down:
- Why different types of data centers (cloud computing, crypto mining, AI training) pose unique challenges
- How supply chain constraints are limiting infrastructure buildout (transformer wait times: 3 years)
- What Texas and other states are doing to address the problem
- The emergency management implications when critical digital infrastructure depends on grid stability

This is about more than just keeping the lights on—it's about whether America's infrastructure can support the next industrial revolution.

Full analysis from Life:Powered & TPPF at the link in comments.

11/12/2025

Remember when climate projections showed 4-5°C of warming by 2100? Now it's 2.5-3°C. So why hasn't the rhetoric changed?

Roger Pielke Jr. just published an eye-opening analysis showing that while climate projections have dropped dramatically, advocates have simply moved the "catastrophe threshold" lower to maintain the same apocalyptic messaging.

Four years ago, Life:Powered published research showing major problems with how the government's National Climate Assessment was using extreme, implausible climate scenarios to project future impacts.

We demonstrated that the Assessment relied heavily on RCP8.5 – a scenario that assumed coal would become the dominant global energy source and per capita coal use would triple by 2100. Even then, this contradicted actual forecasts from the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Fast forward to today: Pielke's analysis confirms what we identified in 2021. Climate projections have dropped significantly, yet advocates have simply moved the "catastrophe threshold" lower. What the 2018 Assessment called a mitigation success story (~2.8°C warming) is now being described as disaster-level warming.

Our 2021 research identified key issues:
✓ Misuse of extreme emissions scenarios
✓ Economic models that ignored historical adaptation patterns
✓ Overconfident predictions without adequate uncertainty analysis

The science should evolve as our understanding improves and real-world data comes in. But moving goalposts to maintain alarm doesn't serve good policy or public understanding.

📊 Links to both Roger Pielke Jr.'s new analysis and our 2021 research in the comments below.

08/05/2025

🔍 BREAKING: EPA proposes to rescind 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding under Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Our latest analysis examines the 16-year history behind this decision and what this regulatory reset could mean for American families and businesses.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/08/05/epa_makes_the_right_call_greenhouse_gas_emissions_should_not_be_regulated_under_the_clean_air_act_1127063.html

07/24/2025

New analysis reveals the "Energy Subsidy Trap": Once government energy interventions take hold, they become nearly impossible to remove—even when lawmakers are determined to cut them.

How $600B+ in commitments reshaped the political landscape.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, was supposed to be a decisive break from government intervention in energy markets. Instead, it became a masterclass in why energy subs