Nick Cunningham
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nickcunningham.bsky.social
Nick Cunningham
@nickcunningham.bsky.social
8.6K followers 2K following 2.7K posts
Reporter for Gas Outlook, covering oil and gas industry. Previously at DeSmog.

Portland, Oregon

https://nickcunningham.blog/
https://gasoutlook.com/authors/nicholas-cunningham/
https://www.desmog.com/user/nick-cunningham/
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nickcunningham.bsky.social
China has essentially built the entire US grid in the past 4 years, much of it solar and wind

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
China Is Building Nation-Sized Power Systems Every Year
January 28, 2026 at 5:55 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Really great piece on how State victim-blaming has a longer history in the US.

From earlier this month and sadly relevant again:
www.americamagazine.org/short-take/2...
“The nuns were not just nuns. The nuns were also political activists.” These infamous words were spoken in 1980 by Jeane Kirkpatrick, one of the top foreign policy advisors to incoming President Ronald Reagan, after the brutal murder of four American women, three of them nuns, by government forces in El Salvador. The four—Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline sister Dorothy Kazel and lay missionary Jean Donovan—had been raped, killed and dumped in a shallow grave on Dec. 2, 1980, by soldiers of the Salvadoran National Guard on orders from higher up. Ms. Kirkpatrick sensed, correctly, that such a savage crime might turn public opinion against the massive military and economic aid the United States was providing to the brutal junta ruling El Salvador. So why not put the responsibility on the unarmed, defenseless nuns instead? After all, they were already dead.
January 26, 2026 at 3:57 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Trump knows he's losing?
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
In a five-minute telephone interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Trump didn’t directly answer when asked twice whether the officer who shot Alex Pretti had done the right thing. Pressed further, the president said, “We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.” Administration officials have publicly defended the officer. The president criticized Pretti—the 37-year-old who was killed by a federal Border Patrol agent Saturday morning on a Minneapolis street—for carrying a gun during protest activity. “I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it,” Trump added. “But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.” Trump also signaled a willingness to eventually withdraw immigration enforcement officials from the Minneapolis area.
January 26, 2026 at 12:37 AM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
"I think we are past Munich now"
www.politico.eu/article/eu-l...
Two senior diplomats POLITICO spoke with separately compared the current state of the U.S. with the time leading up to World War II. “I think we are past Munich now,” said one, referring to a 1938 meeting where Britain, France and Italy appeased Adolf Hitler by allowing him to annex Czechoslovakia. “We realize that appeasement is not the right policy anymore.”
January 22, 2026 at 4:24 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Italy's Meloni is enabling Trump
No to escalation on Greenland, we must dialogue with US says Tajani Europe mustn't escalate tension over Greenland says Meloni EP suspending EU-U.S. trade deal a mistake says Meloni's party Meloni Offers to Be Europe’s Greenland Mediator With Trump
January 21, 2026 at 6:33 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
ordering broken coal plants to remain online could also be subsidized by you, the ratepayer
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/c...
Preventing the nation’s coal plants from retiring over the next three years could cost consumers at least $3 billion per year, according to a report from Grid Strategies, a consulting firm. “A lot of these plants were retiring because they’re no longer economic to operate,” said Michael Goggin, an executive vice at Grid Strategies. “It’s expensive to keep them going.”
January 16, 2026 at 5:17 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
hm, not second hand figures, but data on ice exports
January 15, 2026 at 6:03 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
China's BYD
January 15, 2026 at 6:01 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
US automakers will be all but confined to the costly and dirty American market
www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations
US automakers losing global market share
January 15, 2026 at 5:53 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
sales of internal-combustion engine collapsing in China, down by half since 2017. EVs have taken over

And, China's car exports are soaring.

US automakers getting completely left behind as they abandon EVs. Losing market share worldwide
www.ft.com/content/5b13...
January 15, 2026 at 5:27 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
API says Trump accomplished 90% of its agenda in first year, but one thing left is 'permitting reform'
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Trump and his allies in Congress have accomplished 90% of the policy agenda API rolled out in June 2024, he said, thanks partly to the One Big Beautiful Bill, and they’re working on a key remaining item: permitting reform.
January 9, 2026 at 5:19 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
"restricts"?

Sounds like he made it a premium feature for paying subscribers.
xAI, Under Fire for Sexualized Child Photos on Grok, Restricts Tool Researchers say Elon Musk’s company is bringing dangerous imagery into the mainstream Now Musk, who has called himself a free-speech absolutist, while also vowing to take a hard line on child exploitation, faces growing calls for enforcement around the world and in the U.S. On Friday, Grok told users that “image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers.”
January 9, 2026 at 2:22 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Trump has fully embraced data center buildout and AI

but backlash to data centers cuts across party lines.

will be a big election issue. Seems like there's a political lane open for anybody confronting AI/data centers if they want to seize it!
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
“I don’t care how much chocolate icing you put on a dog turd, it don’t make it chocolate cake,” said Rick Plummer, who raises elite team-roping horses next to the proposed data center. “They are trying to fluff this data center thing up and say, ‘Man, eat this birthday cake.’ But it isn’t birthday cake.”
January 6, 2026 at 5:34 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
wonderful
www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
The White House is weighing giving Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff and homeland security adviser, a more elevated role in overseeing post-Maduro operations in Venezuela, according to one person with knowledge of the conversations, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive dealings.
January 5, 2026 at 5:27 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Bari Weiss spiked a major story at CBS, reporters say it's 'political'

www.wsj.com/business/med...
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct,” Alfonsi wrote in the email. If the standard for airing a story became the government agreeing to be interviewed, she wrote, the network would cede editorial control. “We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state,” Alfonsi wrote.
December 22, 2025 at 3:16 AM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Good piece on New Fortress Energy's demise

and great line on its current distressed debt situation

"Holders of NFE’s $9 billion of distressed debt are certainly running out of patience—some have taken to calling the company No F—ing Exit"

energynow.com/2025/12/how-...
December 19, 2025 at 5:53 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
death mindset
Cut green spending to make UK ready for war, Conservatives say
December 18, 2025 at 5:10 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
good column on the Trump/Rubio regime change campaign in Venezuela

I think this is right, and Rubio's role here is not getting enough air time

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Rubio also illustrates the strategic confusion behind the Trump Corollary. Nominally, the campaign against Venezuela is a war against “narco-terrorists” (even though Venezuela plays no role to speak of in the fentanyl trade, and only a bit part in the cocaine market). In reality, the ulterior motive for Rubio, a son of Cuban immigrants who rose to political prominence among the Cuban and Venezuelan diasporas in Florida, is regime change in Caracas as a stepping stone to a sequel in Havana. For Trump, the goal may be getting access to Venezuela’s oil, or simply showing that he can kick butt.
December 17, 2025 at 5:49 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Portland's corporate-backed Partnership for Progress is calling Preschool for All a 'bait and switch'.

Downtown business interests don't want to pay tax for preschool. Gov. Kotek is assisting in this campaign to roll back a popular program
Partnership for Progress calls preschool for all a 'bait and switch'
December 12, 2025 at 9:20 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
NW Natural is finally giving up (?) on what was always a dubious 'plan' to use 'renewable natural gas' and hydrogen in its gas system

First piece I did on this was nearly 5 years ago at this point, but it was obvious then that RNG and hydrogen were always a head-fake to beat back electrification
DeSmog article "Oregon Utility Using Greenwashing and ‘Renewable Natural Gas’ To Push Back on Potential Gas Bans"
December 11, 2025 at 6:20 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Surging gas prices worsen affordability crisis for Americans

Record US LNG exports are colliding with a cold snap as rising energy costs create political problem for Trump
www.ft.com/content/2152...
Surging gas prices worsen affordability crisis for Americans
December 9, 2025 at 3:11 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Cheniere Energy also told the audience to put pressure on EU officials to weaken methane regulation on gas imports
U.S. officials and LNG companies called on the P-TEC attendees to put pressure on European officials. “I will echo Secretary Wright…where you all can help with the EU, and that’s regarding CSDDD,” said Khary Cauthen, vice president of government affairs at Cheniere Energy. “I’d also add in some of the methane regulations that…We are going to sell the molecules. We want to be partners with Europe. We just need your help to help that be the case.”
November 11, 2025 at 5:16 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Of course, Trump admin went to Greece with some thinly veiled threats, warning LNG flows would be reduced unless the EU weakened its climate and human rights regulations
At the same time, the U.S. is putting immense pressure on the European Union to weaken some of its policy directives. The two that have raised the most ire from the U.S. energy industry are the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the Methane Regulation. The CSDDD would impose obligations on corporations operating in Europe to ensure their supply chains comply with sustainability and human rights standards, and the Methane Regulation would set limits on the methane intensity for imported gas. “CSDDD in European regulations, it is an absolute existential risk to affordable energy in Europe,” U.S. Energy Secretary Wright said on Thursday at the P-TEC conference. The U.S. government and the American oil and gas industry have repeatedly targeted the CSDDD. ExxonMobil has publicly called for it to be scrapped. Secretary Wright wrote a joint letter with Qatar to the EU member states, suggesting the directives threatened the flow of LNG to Europe. They called on the EU to weaken the CSDDD. “If you can’t do business from countries around the world, not just the United States, but all the countries, you make it too risky and too expensive to do business here, that gas will go elsewhere. We don’t want to see that happen,” Wright said in Athens.
November 11, 2025 at 5:15 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
US gov sent high-level delegation to a gas conference in Greece. Trump admin wants to use Greece as an "entry point" to send a lot more LNG to Europe

gasoutlook.com/analysis/u-s...
The logic is to use the existing gas network to import LNG in Greece and move the gas from Southeastern Europe to countries further north, through Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and to Ukraine. Unlike other countries, Ukraine has vast gas storage infrastructure, so imported gas could be stored there or moved further into eastern and central Europe. The Vertical Corridor would complement the existing flows of LNG imports from the Baltic Sea, where U.S. LNG arrives at import terminals in Germany, Poland, and Lithuania. The U.S. is seeking to expand the volumes of this trade — the Polish government is in talks with the U.S. on LNG deals that could see gas routed to Ukraine and Slovakia, according to Reuters. Convening the conference in Athens underscored the key role that Greece figures into U.S. plans to bring American gas into Europe. Secretary Wright called Greece the “perfect entry point” for U.S. LNG, a framing echoed by the Greek hosts. “The prospects for future collaboration are enormous,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright ahead of the main conference. “Greece’s unique geographic position makes it the natural gateway for U.S. LNG into Europe.”
November 11, 2025 at 5:13 PM
nickcunningham.bsky.social
Rubio threatened a bunch of poor countries to vote against what would have been a landmark agreement on maritime emissions.

Gangster diplomacy

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/c...
But foreign diplomats said they were stunned by what they described as “nasty” and “very personal” threats made by State Department officials, which were mostly aimed at leaders from poorer or small countries that are economically dependent on the United States. Some of the delegations were summoned to the U.S. Embassy in London for these discussions, these people said.
November 7, 2025 at 9:39 PM