The system underneath every other system: oil, gas, coal, nuclear, renewables, the grid, storage, and the politics that connect them. It follows the 2026 Hormuz crisis from the first strikes to October and the security turn since 2022. Where the field argues, from marginal pricing and nuclear's revival to the size of the AI load and whether the world is in a transition at all, each side makes its case before the evidence. The turning points from the 1973 embargo to the Hormuz closure show each as the failure of an assumption about supply.
Collection 3 — Energy & Climate
How the world's energy is produced, delivered, and stored, and what it does to the climate.
Oil as a system, as of October 2026: what oil is, where it lies, and why its grade sets its price; a history told through its shocks, from Titusville to the negative price of 2020; who pumps it and what a barrel costs; the majors, the national oil companies, the service firms, and the traders; refining, petrochemicals, and the things made from oil; how the price is set, from futures to the physical cargo to the pump; OPEC and OPEC+; the Iran war's shock to the Strait of Hormuz in 2026; oil in the economy and in food, from fertilizer and farm diesel to packaging and biofuels; petrostates, sanctions, and the shadow fleet; America as producer, consumer, and keeper of a strategic reserve; and the argument over peak demand. Where the field argues, each side's case comes before the course's reading.
The machine that must balance every second, and the year it met the largest demand increase in a generation. It covers the physics that sets the economics, the utilities and the seven market operators, how a locational price forms, the data-center shock, gas turbines sold out into the 2030s, the nuclear restarts, solar and batteries arriving fastest, the queue and the wires, and PJM's capacity auctions at the cap. Where the field argues, over whether the capacity price is a signal or a transfer and whether data centers or households should pay, each side makes its case before the evidence. Three worked examples: a summer-afternoon locational price in PJM, a four-hour battery's revenue stack, and the capacity price on a household bill.
What happens inside a lithium-ion cell, why LFP chemistry won the grid and most of the world's electric cars, and who makes the cells. It covers the electrochemistry and the cost curve, how a gigafactory works and why Northvolt's could not learn, electric cars and grid storage, sodium-ion's arrival, solid-state's claims against its products, the supply chain and the trade war, recycling, and safety. Brought to October: the 2026 rebound in lithium and storage-cell prices, American tariffs of about 41% on Chinese cells, and the Moss Landing flare-up. Where the field argues, over purchase subsidies, local moratoriums on grid batteries, and licensing Chinese technology, each side makes its case before the evidence. Seven worked examples, from a car pack built two ways to iron-air against lithium.
What is happening to the planet and why: the physics of a warming atmosphere from the molecule up, the record and the models, the impacts here and coming, the other environmental problems, where the emissions come from, the solutions winning on cost and the sectors electricity does not reach, carbon removal and geoengineering, the politics and the economics, and adaptation. Brought to October: a record-hot August and a strengthening El Niño, the repeal of the federal endangerment finding and part of the power-plant standards, the shipping carbon-price vote set for December 4, and the Antalya climate summit in November. Where the field argues, over whether warming is speeding up, solar geoengineering, the cost and pace of the transition, and adaptation against cutting emissions, each side makes its case before the evidence. Three worked examples: one tonne of carbon dioxide from the tailpipe to the temperature, an American household's tonnes by source, and what removing a billion tonnes a year would take.** **