Publications: Robin Gaster

In an op-ed for RealClearEnergy, Robin Gaster and David Hart argue the Senate is the last line of defense against the Trump Administration;s push to cut clean energy spending.

President Trump’s executive order takes aim at nuclear regulations, but without broader support for innovation, development, and scale-up, America’s nuclear ambitions will remain stuck on the launchpad.

A recent manifesto from the Council on Foreign Relations argues emerging economies must slash their emissions—and to that end, “Every tool of the United States and allies’ arsenals, spanning diplomatic and economic coercion to military might, should be on the table.” This green imperialism is both profoundly, irredeemably immoral and unrealistic.

Hydrogen hype has crashed headfirst into economic reality—billions wasted, markets abandoned, and mobility in ruins—proving the U.S. must stop chasing fantasies and start stress-testing clean energy bets before they flop.

Standard large nuclear reactors won’t achieve scale or cost competitiveness with alternative energy sources. DOE should focus its resources on small modular reactors, which are a more promising technology with the potential to achieve price and performance parity.

Clean energy only scales when it matches fossil fuels on price and performance—but Biden-era policy bet big on tech that never will.

The Trump administration and Congress have a golden opportunity to put clean energy policy on a new, more viable track by adopting an innovation-based strategy to spur technologies that can compete with fossil fuels on both price and performance.

Solar and wind are rapidly replacing coal, and many expect it will simply replace natural gas as well. But that’s a mistake: In fact, solar and wind for decades to come will depend on gas to fill variability gaps when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow.

Wind and solar power will replace consistently dispatchable electricity from fossil fuels with variable and more unpredictable clean energy. Seasonal shifts and annual variations cannot be handled with batteries or other proposed storage solutions like hydrogen. Natural gas will have to bridge the gap for many decades.

Climate change is a global problem, with two polarized viewpoints making it difficult to find a solution.