DAVID BLACKMON: How Trump And Musk Changed The Energy Conversation

It is somewhat amazing to reflect on how radically the conversation around energy has transformed in America since 2020. Amid all the societal madness that took place around an array of social issues – race, gender, DEI, disinformation and whether it should be censored – it was easy for many to ignore the similarly mad nature of discussions around energy which happened during the five years from 2020 through 2024.

Those who understand the complexities of energy in all its forms and wished to talk and write about them in a factual manner found themselves often being ordered or otherwise “encouraged” to at best soften their language on such things or, worse, to outright lie about them in order to maintain social license.

True story: In 2021, I was suspended for a full week by old Twitter, one of whose censors bluntly told me that some purely factual information I had written there about the use of coal in power generation was a violation of the platform’s “community standards,” such as they were at the time BE, i.e., Before Elon. A content cop at another social site informed me shortly later that the reason some of my posts were so obviously throttled was that the algorithm had identified me as being, and I quote, “pro-fossil fuels.” (RELATED: Newsom Singing New Tune On Big Oil With Potential Gas Crisis, 2028 Run Looming)

Never mind that literally every device this censor used in his job and at home was made up largely of parts derived from petroleum, or that his clothes were, as well, or that he no doubt enjoyed working in an office and living in an apartment whose lights and air conditioning were powered by natural gas or coal generation (yes, even in California): My typed words were the larger problem here. I would either bend to the will of the ubiquitous, all-seeing, all-powerful algorithm, or none of my 20,000 or so followers at the time would see anything I posted. Argue too strenuously, and I’d no doubt find myself banned. All because I believe “fossil fuels,” i.e., coal, oil, and natural gas and the hundreds of useful products derived from them are a net good for modern society.

It is not without irony that this madness all began to change shortly after the period of time we should call AM, i.e, “After Musk” arrived at Twitter on Oct. 27, 2022.

Within days of long-time fossil fuels critic Mr. Musk’s taking over what had been arguably the most censorious of all the big social media platforms, signs started to appear that free speech was breaking out all over, at least on that platform, and they gradually spread to other parts of the social media realm. The era of government and big tech social sites conspiring to censor thought and speech was coming to an end. All Americans owe Musk a debt of gratitude for providing the spark that helped beat back what was an extremely dangerous time for their freedoms.

It is no accident that the conversation around the energy transition and net-zero has shifted radically since. It is even less an accident that the shift has accelerated considerably since Jan. 20, when Donald Trump was sworn in as President for the second time.

Today, it is now widely accepted that dreams of a government-subsidized energy transition that controlled every energy conversation from 2020 through 2022 is not just unlikely but impossible. A statement that got me suspended from Facebook 2021 – that it is not possible for wind and solar to displace oil, gas, and coal in power generation due to this thing we call physics – is now a widely accepted energy reality.

The hubristic madness that formed the foundation of federal energy and climate policy through the Obama and Biden years – that carbon dioxide, without which no life on planet Earth would exist, is a “pollutant” to be regulated by federal bureaucrats – now finds itself on the brink of extinction by the same agency, the EPA, which invented it to begin with.

Musk and Trump have apparently terminated their friendship now, but their combined actions have brought U.S. society back to a place where it is again possible – even desirable – to have fact-based discussions about a wide range of issues, including energy, without fear of being cancelled again. That’s something to be grateful for.

David Blackmon is 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.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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