Always On Energy Research

In the face of fast-moving, well-funded efforts to drive a political agenda rather than sound energy policy, policymakers at all levels are often unprepared to adequately evaluate and assess the tradeoffs involved in the multi-billion-dollar decisions they are being asked to make. Many state legislatures, for example, are being pressured to move their states quickly to weather-dependent energy sources like wind and solar without accurate data on the true costs of such transitions or the real impact on grid reliability. They lack a clear, unbiased picture of the full range of energy alternatives that will allow their states to efficiently modernize their energy grid while still supporting ambitious economic growth and human flourishing.

Energy research is a data-intensive, expensive undertaking. The policy shops lawmakers typically depend upon to fill their knowledge gap often don’t have the expertise on staff to provide the necessary analysis. Even state-level energy agencies often lack the tools and unbiased research needed to fulfill their fiduciary and oversight responsibilities on behalf of their state’s ratepayers, leaving them vulnerable to well-packaged pseudoscience masquerading as facts.

In the face of growing state demand, AOER’s team of energy modelers and policy analysts is producing high-level, credible academic research, practical analysis, and policy recommendations that cut through misinformation and fearmongering to empower states to make responsible energy-related decisions that prioritize ratepayers, economic health, and environmental stewardship over special interests.

AOER’s proprietary modeling allows them to provide state-specific data and analysis that gives decision makers not only the true costs to taxpayers of an energy-related policy but a clear understanding of the real impact on their state’s grid, including projections of when the grid may fail under a particular scenario.

AOER brings unbiased expertise, experience, and cold, hard facts to state-level energy debates that can cut through the fear and misinformation to help states reach a set of shared policy objectives everyone should be able to agree on: ensuring that every state has a clean environment and the affordable, reliable power needed to allow their economies to thrive and their residents to flourish.

Providing unbiased, incontrovertible data and clear analysis to counter the false narratives and pseudoscience of the eco-liberal agenda is crucial. But it will not be enough on its own. We’ll use our analysis, credibility, and track record of success to build demand for sound energy policy among lawmakers, influencers, and the public.

Americans can be forgiven for not understanding the depth of the problem of credible analysis. Popular culture and the mainstream media have, for decades, painted a dystopian future of climate apocalypse. They’ve accused American innovation and economic prosperity of being the problem instead of the solution, and they’ve perpetuated false narratives about energy resources, their safety, and their capacities. All while extolling a utopian vision of a nation blanketed with industrial wind turbines and solar panels and celebrating a future where industry and human growth are curtailed.
In the words of President and Board Chair Amy Cooke, “the 1970s called looking for its energy policy and depressing deprivation narrative. We should give it back.”

Energy is our economic paradigm. It’s in everything. To ensure our children and grandchildren enjoy a higher standard of living and a clean environment, we must embrace energy abundance so that energy costs are lower, innovation is rewarded, and consumption isn’t demonized. We must also de-legitimize the idea that we have to sacrifice energy dominance and growth for a clean, healthy environment.