Columbia Energy Exchange

Affordability was one of the key issues that drove US voters to the polls last week, and the resulting message for the newly elected Congress is clear: driving down costs is job number one. As part of that, energy affordability has become the most politically consequential issue in US energy policy. But energy affordability is wrapped up in many other issues, from the Iran war to surging energy de...

Energy costs are a big consideration for voters in much of the US today as they head to the polls. But the decisions that shape those costs will ultimately fall on state regulators and policymakers, and will vary across different regions. Today's episode turns to New England, which sits at the center of a shifting energy landscape. States there spent years focused on how fast they could decarboniz...

Every permitting bill promises the same thing: build faster. The harder question is what the trade-offs are, and who bears them. That question is at the heart of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), the US Senate permitting deal introduced in September by the leaders of the chamber's two energy and environment committees.  A new white paper from the Center on Global Energy P...

The US may finally, after years of trying, be on the cusp of a nuclear renaissance.  Commercial nuclear generation began in this country in 1958. Today, the US has 94 operating reactors, supplying roughly a fifth of the nation's electricity. But since 1996 only three new reactors have come online. Now the picture is changing fast. In May 2025, President Trump signed four executive orders to speed...

Permitting reform—to allow for faster approvals on new projects—is one thing that both climate advocates and energy developers have wanted for a long time. With demand for power climbing, the pressure to act is as strong as it has been in years. Now, a new effort is on the table. Last month, leaders of the Senate's two main energy and environment committees reached a bipartisan agreement on the mo...

Carbon credit markets have become one of the most hotly debated tools in the fight against climate change. Supporters call them essential to closing the gap between corporate climate pledges and what companies can actually achieve on their own. Critics call them a shell game that lets polluters buy their way out of real action. But the debate is about more than just whether carbon credits can work...

Global gas markets, especially in Europe, are approaching winter under serious pressure. With storage inventories lagging behind historical averages and shipping disruptions from the Middle East threatening key liquefied natural gas flows, many nations find themselves deeply exposed.  The supply shocks from both the Russia-Ukraine war and now the Strait of Hormuz closure have revealed vulnerabilit...

Seven months into the largest oil supply disruption in history, there's still no resolution in sight. This week, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, US and Iranian officials held their first indirect talks since the Memorandum of Understanding collapsed in July—but neither side appears ready for concessions. Energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain contested and hard to track. A U...

This week, Chinese President Xi Jinping travels to Washington for a state visit with President Trump, their second face-to-face meeting this year. Energy is likely to be high on the agenda, particularly the fallout from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.  One of the more surprising developments since Iran largely closed off the Strait of Hormuz has been how little damage it's done to China's...

More than six months into the war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz crisis continues to cause turmoil in the Gulf region and global energy markets with no apparent end in sight.  Tanker traffic through the strait has collapsed to a fraction of its pre-war baseline, and the fallout is spreading. Brent crude broke $100 a barrel for the first time since July, and US diesel prices have climbed above $6...

It's been a tumultuous year for Venezuela, marked by political upheaval and deadly earthquakes. Then, in late August, the Trump administration announced a deal for over 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves—and a 35% stake in North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP). The move could turn a little-known private company into one of the world's largest corporate holders of oil reserves.  Bu...

Advanced technologies, a return to domestic manufacturing, and the race to control energy production while also confronting surging demand for electricity. All of these factors mean that for the US, energy security and national security are increasingly centered on critical minerals.  But the processing and refining of vital materials like copper, lithium, and graphite is largely done overseas, he...

Energy abundance means different things in today's global context than it did even a decade ago. It is about expanding electricity access while meeting rising energy demand. It is about navigating geopolitical fragmentation, limited government support, and shifting development priorities. And it is about leveraging new technologies to deliver reliable power at scale. But the challenge is not just...

Abundance and affordability have become buzzwords among policymakers, who often have sharply different interpretations of how to attain them. To some, an energy abundance agenda means fewer regulatory barriers to produce more clean, cheap power. Others, however, question whether the narrative glosses over the hard trade-offs around land use, community concerns, or environmental impacts.    Yet eve...

It started last year as a pressure campaign at sea, with the United States seizing  tankers as part of what President Trump called a "total and complete blockade" of vessels carrying Venezuelan crude subject to US sanctions. It crescendoed on January 3, when US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, bringing him and his wife to New York on narcoterrorism charges. Since Maduro's remov...

Over the past five months, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed for extended stretches of time, disrupting roughly 10 to 15 million barrels of oil supply each day. It is the biggest energy supply shock in history, but global energy markets are defying historical expectations. Despite lost production and heightened geopolitical instability, crude oil prices are far below the catastrophic levels man...

As the demand for power surges across the US, the debate over how to build energy infrastructure has reached a fever pitch. And while both sides of the aisle broadly agree that the current permitting process is broken, turning that consensus into actual ​legislation remains a challenge. So how do we define permitting reform, what does meaningful progress actually look like, and where do we stand t...

Critical minerals sit at the intersection of energy technology, industrial competitiveness, and economic resilience. The issue has hit a fever pitch in the United States, driving the Trump administration to establish a $12 billion Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve and take other steps to support domestic mining projects. More broadly, G7 countries recently agreed to step up coordination to cut t...

Nearly a month after a ceasefire, the US-Iran deal seems to have all but collapsed as both nations have slipped back into active conflict. On Sunday, Tehran announced that the Strait of Hormuz is once again closed—a move President Trump immediately countered, stating the waterway will remain open "with or without Iran." Since then, both the US and Iran have reportedly begun new attacks, and the Pr...

In the 23 days since the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, strikes have returned, following a familiar pattern: Iran attacks vessels using an internationally backed sea lane in Omani territorial waters, the US retaliates against Iranian military infrastructure, and Iran strikes back at US bases across the region. This week, alongside funeral processions for the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei...

Grid operators sit at the center of many of the biggest forces reshaping the global energy system. They're navigating rising electricity demand, a lack of transmission infrastructure, shifting regulatory policies, and maintaining the tricky balance between affordability, reliability, and the need for dispatchable power.  Both here in the US and around the world, operating a reliable and resilient...

Concerns about the affordability of electricity in the US have been rising along with prices. And while the headlines have pointed to AI and data centers as the underlying factors, the exact causes are more complex.  The problem reflects a convergence of pre-existing structural failures, including inefficient infrastructure planning, utility incentives that are misaligned with cost efficiency, slo...

The energy transition is in the midst of its own transition. Spiking electricity demand and geopolitical events are driving up energy prices, while debates over the best sources of generation play out amid supply chain constraints and questions about whether or not the energy crisis in the Strait of Hormuz will accelerate a transition away from oil and gas.  But underneath all those debates is a m...

Yesterday, the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding starting the clock on a 60-day truce. The agreement intends to halt attacks, begin lifting the US naval blockade, and restore commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. But deep uncertainty remains over how energy will actually flow through the waterway—and over the ultimate fate of Iran's nuclear program. Add to this, an increa...

The 109-day-old Iran crisis is heading toward an off-ramp in the form of a not-yet-public Memorandum of Understanding to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. While energy markets are celebrating with a sell-off, the actual operational future of the waterway chokepoint remains unclear.   Navigable shipping corridors remain constricted by mines, hundreds of vessels are still trapped, and full recovery could...